The distance between Ouray and Telluride was less than twenty miles, on a map, or as the eagle soars, when he feels like a thrill. However, winter locked the mountain jeep roads beneath yards of snow for all but a few short summer weeks. By highway, the journey was fifty miles-ten miles north to Ridgway, then westerly to Placerville and then back toward the southeast, all necessary to circumnavigate fourteen-thousand foot Mount Sneffles and its towering neighbors.
Donald Ryland kept up a nonstop conversation with his son and front seat companion, as they whipped along the highway. Donnie responded with nods, smiles and gestures while Fred and Dean, scrunched into the back seat, politely listened. Ryland worked for the National Forest Service and regaled Donnie with tales of the outdoor splendors of the Colorado mountains. The boy was enthralled and if Dean didn't know better, he'd have thought the two saw each other daily. As the group pulled into the parking lot at Mountain Village, the upper portion of the ski area, Donnie began to look nervous for the first time. Ryland picked up on it immediately.
"Don't worry about the top of the mountain just yet, son. We won't have you skiing any place where you're not comfortable." He gave him a smile and a poke and Donnie's anxiety seemed to melt away.
The foursome rode the gondola the short distance down from the parking area to the central village complex, with Donnie looking down, wide-eyed from the swinging car. Lift tickets were purchased, at prices far higher than the last time Dean had skied. There was no charge for Fred, though the counter girl, with a wink at Dean, asked for age verification, telling Fred he didn't look a day over sixty.
Dean, the only one without skis, separated from the others and located the rental shop. He was quickly measured and fitted and rejoined the others, relieved of a few more dollars. At the top of "The Meadows," the beginner slope, he paused, took a deep breath, drinking in his surroundings.
Telluride's sixty-six trails, spread over more than a thousand acres, were an awesome change from the crowded slopes Dean had skied in the East in years gone by. Here, thanks to three-hundred and twenty-five inches of average annual snowfall, a remote location that minimized lift lines and a thirty-five hundred foot maximum vertical drop, skiing was as it should be. Conditions were perfect. The air was dry and windless. The temperature hovered around twenty-five and the sun was brilliant.
Dean skied a few tentative yards down the slope, took a couple of turns, stopped, and assessed himself. It felt good. The boots were a little tight and his legs weren't exactly locked together, but the old exhilaration of gliding over the snow returned immediately. He scanned the slope below him and located the others. Fred, Donnie and Donald Ryland were already cutting wide snowplow turns on the gradual, open slope. Dean skied down to join them.