Headquarters for the event will be located at the Big Tent in Heritage Plaza. Arrive prior to 10 a.m. Sunday morning to pick up a free “Passport to Environmental Awareness.” With that, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., take a tour of the mountain and ski to each of the five stations indicated on your passport map where experts will discuss various environmental initiatives related to the ski resort.
Make sure to have passports stamped at each station because at the end of the day, all fully stamped passports will be entered in a drawing for a free season ski pass and other great prizes. The drawing will be held at 2 p.m. under the Big Tent with entertainment provided by Rico Blues Project.
“This event is all about engaging in meaningful conversation about a variety of things,” said Deanna Drew, environmental program manager for the Telluride Ski and Golf Co. “We made sure all the stations are on beginner runs so all skiing abilities can participate. It’s about creating thoughtful dialogue and bringing issues out into the open.”
For Drew, this year’s Sustainable Slopes Day will not be your typical environmental awareness day.
“We have had recycling, wind energy credits and green campaigns,” she said. “This year I wanted it to be a bit different. Our history [in Telluride] has allowed us to be more science-based. I have always considered us a step above or a little more aggressive than other ski area sustainability campaigns, so I wanted to have more interesting stations to learn from.”
Attending one of the stations on the mountain will be a representative from the Colorado Division of Wildlife’s Canada Lynx reintroduction program. Over the years, there have been numerous lynx spotted on the ski area.
At another station, representatives from Natural Resource Defense Council will be on hand to discuss a number of environmental aspects, while the Telluride region’s own The New Community Coalition will be presenting its local green energy campaign, the Green Fund, which is working to enable more renewable energies.
Also on hand will be Western Weather Consultants from Durango to discuss cloud seeding and its effects, Silverton’s Center for Snow and Avalanche Studies to present the latest data on dust and weather in the San Juans, and Leitner-Poma, a company that installs ski lifts and wind turbines across the world and is looking at the Telluride region for a potential wind energy application.
According to Drew, the Leitner-Poma representative has created a wind turbine to power ski lifts in other parts of the world and will be presenting Telluride’s wind data to see if such a situation is possible locally.
And then there’s the ski pass drawing. For the past few Sustainable Slope Days at Telluride, the season ski pass drawing has not been a part of the festivities. This year it is back.
“The last few years, we haven’t given away a season pass,” Drew said. “This year [Telski CEO] Dave Riley has agreed to give one away. This should be fun. I am hoping that the ski pass will get many of our friends back on the mountain for this event.”
To participate in the Sustainable Slope Day, attendees must have a lift ticket or ski pass to get on the mountain. For more information on the event, call Drew at 728-7339 or the Mountain Village Activity Center at 728-7517.
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