Leadville, Colorado

At 3,100m Leadville is the highest settlement in the US. I’ve been here since the 9th of March and I will leave on the 10th of April.

When I arrived the town was covered in metres of accumulated winter snow. Spring has consisted of “Winter storms” that have replaced any melt. There was 30cm overnight. It is expected to get down to -16C overnight reaching a balmy -4C tomorrow afternoon. The week ahead doesn’t improve much.

Like Telluride, Leadville exists because of fortune makers and mining. Then and after it attracted many famous gunslingers.

One of its most famous visitors was Doc Holliday, given refuge from the law after the gunfight at the OK Corral, who had a warrant out on him despite having been federally deputised at the time. Thanks to the intervention of Wyatt Earp with Colorado’s Governor. Via associates.

Walking down the main street one can see the window of the room Holliday rented above the Hyman saloon, adjacent the Tabor Concert Hall and opposite the Silver Dollar Saloon where Holliday plied his trade as a gambler.

I zero in on his story because it encapsulates the romance and tragedy of the American West.

John Henry was nicknamed Doc because he was a dentist. He earned his degree at age 20 but the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery withheld the award until he reached the legal age allowed to receive it.

Shortly thereafter he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, which had claimed his mother and sister when he was young, and he was given 6 months to live. Having a rasping tuberculous cough isn’t good for business in professions like dentistry, obviously.

And the rest is history. But last words to his closest friend Wyatt Earp:

“I found him a loyal friend and good company. He was a dentist whom necessity had made a gambler; a gentleman whom disease had made a vagabond; a philosopher whom life had made a caustic wit; a long, lean blonde fellow nearly dead with consumption and at the same time the most skillful gambler and nerviest, speediest, deadliest man with a six-gun I ever knew.”

Leadville is now plugged into the modern world. They mine molybdenum, a rare earth, a couple of miners from Thiess tell me. Each year the Leadville 100, surely one of the world's toughest endurance races takes place, attracting ultramarathon runners from across the globe. I was asked to run my eye over a brochure by a barmaid just now about a trans night as to whether it’s too OTT. It isn’t, but the giving of my opinion means I’m expected to attend.

Where I slept: Tiny House Leadville: Impossibly cute tiny houses, basic but clean and tidy.

Where I ate: The Legendary Silver Dollar Saloon: Great American food but once a week they were doing Vietnamese food and it was extremely good.

      

Telluride

Telluride is the pick of the US ski resorts, hands down. 

One of our crew described Vegas as epic and Telluride as sublime. That is accurate. Telluride is a good antidote to Vegas.

High in the Colorado Rockies, its air is fresh and sharp. The main town is small, unspoilt and does not advertise itself. Residential weatherboards and civic locally quarried brownstone buildings are just as they were when gold, silver, lead, zinc and copper attracted fortune seekers here in the 1870s.

The outlaw Jessie James made his very first bank heist here. An inside job if you ask me - there is only one way in and out of this box canyon.

What has emerged to accommodate Telluride’s second post-mining boom, commencing 100 years later, has been managed exceptionally well. It has destroyed neither the look nor feel of the town.

Modest expansions and the addition of camping facilities comfortably accommodate the influx of visitors for the Spring and Summer music and cultural festivals.

Well conceived, attractive, stone and wood constructed homes and lodges, located discreetly within the folds of mountain ridges and pine forests, house those seeking skiing adventures. At a price, of course. One that, in addition to remoteness, keeps numbers down.

I hadn’t skied since 2004, on some unremembered glacier in Austria following a conference at the University of Innsbruck, an hour or so bus ride away, with ill-fitting boots and skis and zero fitness.

Our first 3 days at Telluride offered groomed runs on a base lacking a half metre or so. Fun, but a reminder of climate warming and the vicissitudes of weather dependent adventure.

Then it snowed all day, all night, and into the afternoon of the next day. Big fat fluffy flakes with classic sixfold chaotic symmetry.

I made my way through various gondolas and chairlifts up to High Camp at 3,600m, where there was a hut that served hot chocolate and tomato soup, and a 12km green line run all the way back to the bottom. Perfect for my needs.

Where I slept: Ballard House: Basic but clean and functional.

Where I ate: The Chop House: Good steakhouse.

Revivióooooooooooooo ...Las Vegas!

I didn’t think I’d ever return to Las Vegas after a group 40th birthday celebration in 2006. But here I am, back in the crucible, and with more or less the same friends.

Back then we had run the New York Marathon prior and then visited San Francisco and the Sonoma after. A wonderful trip, but 2 nights in Vegas resulted in some of our number bringing forward their flights home, and only a core of resilient souls saw out the Californian leg.

This time golf and watching the NRLs first foray into the US sports market displaced at least some of the partying.

Walking along a Truman Show Venetian canal, I think this will be the last time.

Then again, Las Vegas is like childbirth; memories of its pain recede while all the fun is remembered.

The excesses, peculiarities and illusions of the US system are accentuated in Las Vegas. The American dream, while hanging by a thread for most, is embraced by all and is deeply rooted in its citizens’ sense of identity. For all the superficial glitz and overt wealth, Las Vegas feels precarious.

Vladimir Putin understands better than most, and exploits, these contradictions and the weakness at the heart of the American psyche.

Our driver out to the NRL game is an immaculately presented young black man. He is a handsome rooster, six feet three inches tall yet thin and fine featured. By his own admission he does very well with women visiting Las Vegas looking for a good time. He loves Las Vegas!

He supports Trump because “he does great things for our country” while Biden is “a puppet having his strings pulled”. He is unable to articulate any specific Trump policies upon which he bases his judgment and when asked who is pulling Biden’s strings he can only invoke a vague entity called “the Left”.

I make no statement about the relative merits of Trump and Biden. My point is that the quality of debate has been reduced to sound bites and talking points without substance. Voters are entrenched in their positions no longer understanding, or even interested in a critical exploration of, the issues that impact them.

This dissonance exists most strongly in, indeed seems to emanate from, the business hustle of Las Vegas.

Where I slept: The Venetian: Looking a bit dated now but pretty good for the price.

Where I ate: Tao: Maybe they had an off night.