Telluride Oral Histories
Pages
-
-
A poem by Rick Masters (Provided by Craig Muhonen)
-
The picture is of a hang glider, near Telluride, Colorado, in 1979. Both the picture and the poem were provided by Craig Muhonen. Here is the poem, written by Rick Masters:
"You embrace her and feel her tremble and sigh, responsive to your touch.
You pay attention to the air ocean you are about to enter.
You don’t turn your back to it’s waves, lest they sweep you away.
You don’t make a bunch of ridiculous and distracting choreographic moves at the critical moment of take off.
You stand firm and focus on the sky that beckons you.
You stand firm and focus on the movement of the air coming up the hill towards you.
A gust? A thermal? The devil?
Your hang glider is completely ready to go, trusting you to guide her.
You stand there, confident, in quiet excitement, feeling her fly on your shoulders like an ever wondrous and powerfully fleet, obedient Gryphen about to be released from her cage.
You see the grass ripple.
You watch the birds.
You listen to the words of the wind, sometimes you wait for signs of a thermal teasing the bushes.
You wait for the right moment, when the wind feels perfect, with your fabulous wing already flying inches over your head, responsive to your every command.
You trust her.
Then you take a few steps and fly away to heaven.
You are joyously and instantly and smoothly transformed into an ethereal being.
There is no drama.
Drama is for idiots. R.M. 2018"
--Taken from an email by Craig Muhonen.
-
-
A story of Telluride's runway at the Telluride Airport (by Craig Muhonen)
-
Here is the description of this image, as written in an email from Craig Muhonen on 11/4/22:
"24 NTSB reports on this airport since 1985. I have copies of them. well this is a slightly different record of those events, the picture is from 1984, when the hangers were being built, and it shows the first “building” on mountain village, was a 23 story monstrosity,
only to bring in their skiers “right down the runway”, to the Doral hotel and spa…ha..
and one perfect little ski area.
Most of these crashes were “stall/spins” or uncontrolled into terrain , of perfectly good airplanes, but in high density altitudes, with inexperienced mountain pilots,
and no real, “clear air turbulence reports” from the ground, things can get crazy in a heart beat.
The yellow crosses are single plane fatal accidents. The blue crosses are “should have been kilt,” accidents,one where a Mexican jet passenger plane, crashed into a snow plow, during a snow storm, at night, at a “closed airport!!” (8 minutes prior)WOW. They clipped a wing off and managed to slide to a stop and lucky no fire, where the passengers, and the poor snow plow driver, all had “shi* their pants,
(adrenaline is brown)but the two Mexican Pilots were just glad,that they could salvage their “cargo”.
The other blue cross was a Cessna flying into a tree, sheering his right wing off, but walked away with a big TBI, and no memory of the actual crash, of him “flying his airplane ALL the way to a crash landing”.
NTSB said that he was trying to do a “go a round”, but I saw him, his engine was dead and he picked a place to “land” that saved his life, and possibly others on the ground if he had stall/spun into the subdivision. 32 years later a pilot did crash his airplane into the subdivision in Jeff Campbell’s back yard just missing his house.
The white cross is for a little girl, Palomar or Paloma ? !0 years old?, 1985-86, who was allowed to play in the hanger, and died when an “in a hurry” airport attendant got in a Tug, and without checking (because she had crawled under to retrieve her ball) drove off, squashing her to death in a bloody mess.
I happened to be plumbing in the hanger that day, and it was bad, I got out of there quickly.
Still can’t find any record of her death or where she was buried, but I remember that her parents were managers there so….."
--Taken 11/16/22 from Craig Muhonen's email.
-
-
Airplane crashing on Main Street in Telluride, Colorado (as told by Craig Muhonen)
-
The image was provided by Craig Muhonen, via email, on 11/4/22. The title is "Small Airplane crash in 1971" and shows where a small plane crashed on Main Street in Telluride, Colorado in 1971. Here is the story, provided by Craig:
"The crash landing was uneventful, the pilot and passenger (some say from Joe Zoline’s company) were put up at the Hotel overnight then the “fixed” airplane was pushed out of town where it flew off.
Of course sheriff Morrow wanted to arrest the pilot."
--Taken 11/4/22 from Craig Muhonen's email.
-
-
Alice Jensen's "This is my Life" Writing
-
Probably created at the time of her oral history, in 1990, this is a document that Alice Jensen wrote and provided to the Wilkinson Public Library, about her life.
Pages
