Hi, Colorado Sunday friends. I hope you all are happy and well.
I’ve been wandering around the neighborhood a lot these past few weeks, looking for signs of hope at the edge of spring. They are subtle, still, but there — more evident with every visit to a nearly blooming tree or hyacinths pushing up through the dry leaves left from fall.
It is an act of paying attention to possibility that launched freelance photographer Don Emmert on the yearslong journey of documenting one man’s life of hard work complicated by the slow progression of Parkinson’s disease. The takeaway as I looked at the images we are presenting as the cover story this week? Never give up. There is love, happiness and potential in even the roughest times.
Dana Coffield
Editor
The Cover Story
A chance roadside meeting revealed a story of struggle and inspiration
Brian Guhl rounds up Zeke, left, and Billy the Kid to prepare them for a ride May 5 in the upper meadow at the ranch. (Don Emmert, Special to The Colorado Sun)I met Brian Guhl while I was driving down a two track looking for a campsite. He was in a side-by-side and I was in my pickup. When we both moved off to the side of the road to let the other pass, we both shouted out greetings and came to a stop. We talked for a few minutes before shutting our engines off.
The conversation went on for maybe 45 minutes with each of us telling the other about why we were at that particular spot at that particular time. Guhl lived and managed a nearby ranch and at the end of our conversation he invited me to stop by for a visit after I was finished camping.
Three days later I stopped by his house and found a sign on his front porch that read “Come on up to the upper meadow.” I found him in the middle of the meadow working on his combine.
While we talked, he gave me a brief tour of the property that he manages. His work includes upkeep of the owner’s home, refurbishing three cabins, tending a small herd of cows and a few horses, keeping the roads in usable condition, fixing fences, irrigating and cutting the hay meadow.
After the tour, Guhl and I were back at the combine, still talking, and I was thinking what a great life he was leading at Elk Meadows Ranch. Then he reached in his pocket and pulled out a bottle of pills and said, “I’ve got Parkinson’s.”
I had no idea. And I knew nothing about the disease except the few stories I had read about Michael J. Fox.
I left his place and made the five-hour drive home, then jumped on the internet to do some research to learn about the debilitating progressive nervous system condition.
The next time I saw Guhl, I told him that I thought his life was an inspiration. I asked if I could work on a photo story about him and his disease and his life. This portfolio documents his life and his choices around treating his disease, from September 2023 until last month, when he participated in a fundraiser for people with Parkinson’s disease in Steamboat Springs. I hope you find his life inspiring, too.
READ THIS WEEK’S COLORADO SUNDAY FEATURE
Don Emmert | Writer
The Colorado Lens
Though snowpack in the mountains above Crested Butte is at or above normal in terms of the water it contains, there was scant snowfall in the first months of the year. Unseasonably high temperatures lately around Crested Butte Mountain Resort are quickly melting away skiable terrain, causing the mountain to announce it will close April 3, a few days earlier than expected. Photojournalist Dean Krakel checked out the conditions last week.
Skiers at Mount Crested Butte Resort ride the Red Lady chairlift at the ski area’s base Thursday above a pool of slushy water. (Dean Krakel, Special to The Colorado Sun)Cutline Patchy snow in the Gunnison Valley was within view of skiers taking the Gold Link lift on Thursday. April is typically the snowiest month in the area, but even if storms arrive they are unlikely to reverse the fact that January and February were among the driest in 131 years of recordkeeping in Gunnison County by the National Integrated Drought Information System. (Dean Krakel, Special to The Colorado Sun) Skiers ride the Painter Boy chairlift past bare ground, a sign of a rapidly melting snow Thursday, when the basin’s snowpack was at about 84% of normal. (Dean Krakel, Special to The Colorado Sun) Skiers making turns on the Lower Keystone run Thursday were getting in some of the last runs of the season at the resort. Warmer than normal temperatures are forecast well into April. By moving up its closing by a few days, Mount Crested Butte Resort becomes the first major Colorado ski area to end its season. (Dean Krakel, Special to The Colorado Sun)Dana Coffield | Editor
Flavor of the Week
How did I overlook Golden? It proved a treat for us — and our pup.
The Welcome to Golden arch over Washington Avenue was constructed in 1949 and appears on national and state registers of historic places. (Golden Civic Foundation photo)Let me start off by saying that I’m notoriously late to the party, at least in the figurative sense.
For instance, as a kid growing up in St. Louis, I literally watched the majestic Gateway Arch, arguably the country’s most underrated manmade landmark, rise from the Mississippi Riverfront in 1963. But I never got around to actually visiting until nearly 40 years later.
My point being that it’s easy to overlook the attractions right in front of us. So this year, when my wife and I started planning a staycation, we decided to pay a long-overdue visit to Golden. We wanted to go somewhere “new” and didn’t want to spend hours in the car to get there. And oh, yes. We wanted a dog-friendly adventure our pup, Reese, would also enjoy. Golden checked all our boxes.
Although an abundance of hiking trails, shopping, restaurants and other attractions — did you know the Coors brewery is headquartered in Golden? (kidding!) — could easily fill an all-day itinerary, we were looking for a leisurely but abbreviated excursion. We started by Googling “dog friendly restaurants” and chose Table Mountain Grill & Cantina, one of many eateries on the historic Washington Avenue stretch of downtown.
The enclosed patio proved comfortable for all three of us and the food was next level. And while Reese may or may not have cajoled the last bite of my delicious burger as reward for being a very good boy, he says he would definitely return for the chicken meatball treats that our server kindly brought him.
The shops along Washington Avenue afforded us an unmistakable Colorado vibe, some good deals on clothing and, for Reese, an extra large dog biscuit from a UPS guy making a delivery. Just a couple blocks farther on, we arrived at the Clear Creek Trail, and ventured onto the scenic 2-mile paved loop that leads past the whitewater park, a free history museum as well as historic buildings and several lifesize sculptures.
We were back home before rush hour, feeling like we’d explored a world well beyond our metro-area bubble. One more thing: It’s sometimes challenging to think of quintessential Colorado places to take visitors from out of town without slogging along I-70. Golden solves that equation, with the added advantage of offering a mountainesque alternative for visiting flatlanders who may be uncomfortable at higher elevations.
These past several months have been a time of close-to-home discovery. I’ve already written in this space about the iconic Georgetown Loop Railroad and Denver’s Swallow Hill Music nonprofit that has become our go-to concert venue. Add Golden to the list.
I’m late to the party, but I’m here.
Kevin Simpson | Writer
SunLit: Sneak Peek
“Dr. Martha Cannon of Utah” tells of attraction, devotion to her “Old Boy”
“Mormons may have been progressive about women’s rights, but even so, a monogamous wife of a man just starting out would have felt pressure to give up her career. Angus, on the other hand, had long-ago proven his financial wherewithal and, considering that he was supporting three other wives and seventeen children, appreciated the financial independence of wife number four.”
— From “Dr. Martha Cannon of Utah”
EXCERPT: Martha “Mattie” Hughes Cannon won election to the Utah state Senate in 1896 — by defeating her own husband. Joan Jacobson’s rollicking account of a woman ahead of her times in Victorian America (it was a finalist for the Colorado Authors League award for History) includes this excerpt explaining her polygamous marriage to a leader in the Mormon church, and why it was a very progressive choice for a successful woman in the late 19th century.
READ THE SUNLIT EXCERPT
THE SUNLIT INTERVIEW: Jacobson’s tour group of “churchy Lutherans” was visiting a historic Salt Lake City cemetery when she first heard the story of Mattie Hughes Cannon — and she just couldn’t believe it was true. That launched her research into a story that kept expanding to explore various aspects of America’s Victorian era. Here’s a portion of her Q&A:
SunLit: What’s the most important thing readers should take from this book?
Jacobson: That our assumptions about a conservative past are usually wrong. Our great-great-great-grandparents were a randy bunch. Pioneer Mormons were way more progressive than today’s are, especially regarding women’s rights. There were more women M.D.’s in 1890 than at any time up to 1970. And so on.
READ THE INTERVIEW WITH JOAN JACOBSON
Kevin Simpson | Writer
Sunday Reading List
A curated list of what you may have missed from The Colorado Sun this week.
Yes, we are going to host the Sundance Film Festival for a decade starting in 2027. Gov. Jared Polis was in Boulder for the announcement Thursday, when he called out his hometown for its creative openness. “There are so many stories to be told and so many perspectives, and I think part of what won the day for Boulder and for Colorado is that people feel comfortable telling those stories.” (Alyte Katilius, Special to The Colorado Sun)? The Joint Budget Committee finally got a budget together that closes the $1.2 billion funding gap. Brian Eason has the details on what was trimmed and what survived the haircut. And let us note for the record that the exercise set out the soapbox for the repeal of tax-limiting TABOR rules.
? That budget, with a serious contraction of transportation spending, didn’t arrive until after the Colorado Public Interest Research Group made a case for spending $420 million a year for 10 years to get 2 million people to be within walking distance of buses running so frequently there would be no need to check the schedule, Lincoln Roch reports. This just as frozen federal transit grants put the scope of bus rapid transit work along Federal Boulevard and Colorado 7 on the bubble.
? The $100 million environmental settlement to get a $2 billion northern Colorado reservoir project moving seemed like a lot for 15 communities and water districts to take on. But Jerd Smith talked with some of them and found out they’re more than happy to chip in a bit more money for the Northern Integrated Supply Project.
? Colorado’s Republican U.S. Representatives are under increasing pressure to hold in-person town halls. But GOP operatives who faced those pressures during the previous Trump administration told Jesse Paul they’d advise today’s politicians not to fall into the same trap that did in Sen. Cory Gardner and Rep. Mike Coffman.
? Gov. Jared Polis’ budget officials are using the example of three charter schools and two rural districts that had a couple of very good budget years because they tallied online pupils in their official student counts — perfectly legally — as evidence for why the state needs a serious rethink of the K-12 funding mechanism. Erica Breunlin explains it all.
? Speaking of student counts, Douglas County Schools said it will close three elementary schools in Highlands Ranch because of declining enrollment and, Erica Breunlin reports, build two new schools in neighborhoods booming with babies.
? Lots of people in Telluride think the last thing the town at the end of a box canyon needs is another festival. But Gavin McGough reports that’s exactly what the town got when Planet Bluegrass asked nearly seven months after the 2025 deadline passed. Oh, and it’s scheduled for the same weekend in August as the beloved Telluride Mountain Run.
? People demonstrated outside of the ICE detention center in Aurora on Monday in support of immigrant rights activist Jeanette Vizguerra, who is being held inside after being picked up in the parking lot of the Target store where she works. Jennifer Brown attended the rally and a court hearing Friday, where Vizguerra’s lawyer said they’ll argue that she was targeted for deportation because she spoke out against the Trump administration.
? What are we worked up about this week? That CommonSpirit is changing the livery colors on Flight for Life copters to pink from orange. Why are we worked up? It’s expensive and also marks the loss of a historic touchstone for the first civilian air rescue service in the country, Jason Blevins reports.
Dana Coffield | Editor
Thanks for spending time with us this morning. We hope your week is great and that we see you back here next Colorado Sunday. If you’d like to add someone to the brunch bunch, you can send a gift membership from store.coloradosun.com
— Dana & the whole staff of The Sun
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