Originally, I was going to try to write about EVERY SINGLE DAY, and what I did, but that is too large of a task. And you all might get bored. So here is a quick run-down of the things that I can remember:
Tuesday – When I came out of the grocery store at twilight, a cloud above the valley blazed orange and pink. By the time I had put away my groceries into my backpack to carry out, it was slate grey-blue again. I am so lucky to get to live in a place like this for the summer.
Wednesday – We had two incredible speakers this day – Auden Something-or-other from Aspen Skiing Company, and some guy from the Roaring Fork Conservancy. Aspen Ski Co. is a really progressive organization. They operate on US Forest Service land, and run all their lifts with wind energy. They area also very realistic, and understand the disagreement between trying to run a business with 5 star hotels, and trying to make it totally sustainable. They realize that in a perfectly sustainable world, they would not exist. Also, they realize that it is important to be green themselves, but as a small company with lots of press and power, the biggest thing they can do is use their power to educate their multi-billion dollar customers and use their power as a catalyst to change.
The Roaring Fork Conservancy guy was interesting because water in the west is SO DIFFERENT that water in Connecticut. Did you know that in Colorado it is ILLEGAL to collect rain from your roof to use, because technically that water is supposed to flow into the river nearby and it already BELONGS to someone else, who bought the right to that amount of water. And people can buy enough water rights to run a river dry, and that is okay. There are so many other rules and laws it is confusing and amazing. We also learned all about the Colorado River and Lake Powell, and so much more!!
Thursday – This is when we left to go to Toklat for our end-of-training retreat! Toklat is a building that ACES owns in a little hardly-inhabited valley, where the ghost town of Ashcroft is. When we first got there we went on a long barefoot silent hike, lead by our boss, Jim. We found ourselves in a grassy mountaintop field, and there we all shared what we had been thinking about, or our thoughts about the two weeks of training. We finished ascending the mountain to see a beautiful view as the sun began to set, and then the descended a VERY STEEP face of the mountain where there were no trails.
That night the Super Naturalists cooked us AN AMAZING dinner. One of the best dinners I have ever had. We had homemade bread, breaded trout with seasons and lemon, salad, roasted asparagus, kenioa, and mushroom soup. The mushroom soup was to die for. We all ate together on this very long picnic table in an adjacent field. After the sun left the valley it began to get cold quickly, and we all started layering up, and huddling abound the fire. We drank and told stories for a really long time, until we began running out of wood, and then we went to bed. I, and some others, slept out under the stars in the near-by field. I was wearing SO MANY layers, and yet I was still cold. I didn’t get much sleep, but I have never seen so many stars in my whole life! I saw two shooting stars, too! It was beautiful. By the time I fell asleep birds were singing, and when I woke up a few hours later, there was frost all over my sleeping bag!
Friday - In the morning we had another amazing meal, and then helped the kind of “handy man” of Toklat do a few chores and manage the trails. They are in the process of getting Toklat off the grid by installing micro-hydropower generator. That afternoon we all got our free gondola passes, and rode up Aspen Mountain to see the views that we missed when we went up in the snowstorm on Monday (three inches fell)!
Saturday – Today I had the day off, so I spent most of the day planning for my tours on Sunday! I’ll let you know how they go when I can!
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