Amanda Rae Was Here...

Fact: shredding the slopes in search of fresh pow is a mission best shared with a buddy. Also, I never would have found this forest shrine to Dr. Gonzo, tucked deep into a pine glade on Snowmass Mountain, if I’d been by my lonesome. (And I certainly would not have been able to take this photo without assistance.)

It started with a casual challenge:

“Hey, wanna go find the Shrine to Hunter S. Thompson?”

“Um…yeah!”

The quest began. It wasn’t much of a quest, though, since my pal, a seasoned Snowmasshole, knew the location: midway off of the aptly named Gunner’s Way trail. (Aspen Skiing Company, which owns the four local mountains, was founded by a member of the Tenth Mountain Division after World War II.)

Partway down the trail, we slowed to a snail’s pace, scanning the edges for telltale tracks. We saw them, and slipped beneath the frosty canopy….

Following a short ride through a dense thicket, at the base of a steep drop, we found it: Fear and Loathing…in the Colorado wilderness.

Laminated photos and clippings plaster the trees, decorated with visitors’ tokens—charms, garlands, notes, a rusty cow bell, even a prosthetic limb! (above) Coincidentally, I happened to be wearing two strings of plastic beads in salute of Mardi Gras (scored that morning at Burger Bar). Relieved that my empty pockets wouldn’t let me down, I sacrificed a purple strand.

Beneath the ski branch (tippy top), an empty Chivas Regal bottle dangled like the disco ball in the Woody Creek Tavern. My guide said that he recalled a cigarette pack loaded with one lucky smoke here at the site; we didn’t see it. But we did see two freshly crushed PBR cans, tossed carelessly onto the snow. How rude.

Some relics seem to have worn away over time, but I learned from this great article and others that a core group of friends maintain the shrine, replenishing the ephemera periodically since original installation on February 20, 2006—the first anniversary of that fateful end of football season.

(Hence the death certificate from the Pitkin County Sherriff’s Office.)

The yellow bag, beneath the golf shoes, once held a handful of shell casings, in tribute to the Doc’s unabashed admiration of firearms. We noticed a hole in that bag; the spent munitions are probably buried beneath the snow.

Had I heard of this shrine and done research in advance, I would have known that these snowy oases can be found all over the place, saluting everyone from the Grateful Dead and John Denver to Fenway Park and Snoopy.

In fact, we did attempt to seek out the Golf Shrine nearby…

…but took a wrong turn, apparently. (We found it on the next run, no problem.)

The other reason it’s good to have a buddy? In case you end up launching off of a downed tree, sinking into fluffy quicksand, and end up crawling-for-your-life to get out.