Kirsten Dobroth

As things warm up across the Valley, Carbondale is looking to attract tourists and locals alike with two days of events and a new printed pocket guide to the area’s local food locations. 

This week, a group of middle and high school students from the Roaring Fork Valley compete virtually in Aspen Words’s Youth Poetry Slam. The event is the culmination of Aspen Words’s Poetry Project programming in local schools, and marks the end of National Poetry Month.

Breckenridge-based photographer Scott Brockmeier has spent his career snapping images of ski racers, mountain search and rescue teams and ski patrollers. But there’s one subject that’s continued to capture his interest — and lens — over the years: avalanche rescue dogs. 

Women filmmakers are getting attention at this year’s Aspen Film Shortsfest, which also happens to be the organization’s 30th annual short film festival. Nearly 3,000 films were submitted for this year’s Shortsfest—80 were chosen for this year’s virtual event, and 55 of those selections were directed or co-directed by women. That’s over two-thirds of this year’s featured Shortsfest films. 

Aspen Public Radio has compiled the following list of local, state and national resources that are providing current coronavirus information and resources. You can also follow our updates for the most recent coronavirus news. Información para hispanohablantes. 

Glenwood Springs resident Matt Nuñez snapped a photo of southwest Colorado’s Mount Sneffels, one of the state’s 58 peaks over 14,000 feet, with its lower slopes blanketed in fall colors on a road trip back in 2017. When the Colorado Department of Motor Vehicles announced its Iconic Colorado contest this summer to redesign the state’s driver licenses, 400 photos, including Nunez’s shot of Sneffels, poured in from photographers around the state for consideration. This month, Nuñez received word from the state’s Department of Revenue and Gov. Jared Polis’s office that his photo of Mount Sneffels was picked to grace the front of the new IDs. 

Avalanche conditions have been historically dangerous and deadly across Colorado this winter, prompting regional avalanche education and forecasting groups to rethink their social media strategy. The Colorado Avalanche Information Center, and its partner nonprofit Friends of CAIC, have been promoting the social media hashtag #LowAngleFTW, which encourages skiers, snowmobilers and others to share photos of themselves making conservative decisions away from avalanche-prone terrain while they’re recreating in the backcountry. (“FTW” refers to the acronym “for the win.”)

A quarter-mile section of Carbondale’s Rio Grande trail will be lined with farolitos, or small paper lanterns, this weekend as part of “Light The Night With Love.” The inaugural event features public art installations stretching from DeRail Park to the Latinx Folk Art Garden, and proceeds from tickets purchased as part of the “HeART Walk” go to the American Heart Association.

Aspen’s Baldwin Gallery opens a new exhibition next week called “A Third of the Night” by LA-based artist Enrique Martínez Celaya. Martínez Celaya’s been a fixture in the Aspen arts scene over the years, and is known for his involvement with Anderson Ranch Arts Center, and exhibitions at the Baldwin Gallery. He’ll be back in Aspen when the Baldwin Gallery debuts his newest collection of paintings and sculpture on Friday, Feb. 12, and said it’s a kind of homecoming. It will also be his only exhibition in the United States this year.

The Art Base has been passing out free art kits for kids from its Basalt location since everything shut down due to the pandemic in March. Since then, the art organization has distributed 1,600 kits to local families, and recently, it partnered with Carbondale based Dance Initiative for a special edition “Wild Rumpus” Art Box. 

The entire outdoor industry has been impacted by the pandemic, and the regional backcountry hut system is no exception. The 10th Mountain Division Hut Association closed its huts last March and cancelled remaining reservations for the winter during the original spate of coronavirus lockdowns. They reopened to the public this summer, and have been taking reservations for the current winter season, albeit with new restrictions in accordance with local health protocols.

The pandemic provided inspiration for Anderson Ranch Art Center’s outdoor exhibition “Sculpturally Distanced,” which featured 17 works of art scattered throughout the Snowmass Village campus this summer. As part of the art institution’s newest outdoor exhibition, six Roaring Fork Valley artists decorated trees around the facility for an artful take on more traditional holiday aesthetics.

When the pandemic shut down ski resorts across the state in mid-March, an influx of skiers and snowboarders descended on Colorado’s backcountry. The makeup of those users is now coming to light, thanks to a new study released by the Colorado Avalanche Information Center (CAIC).

A new coffee table book from The Aspen Center for Environmental Studies documents Aspen’s surroundings through photos and essays. The book is called “The Hidden Life Around Us,” and includes over 400 species of plants, animals, bugs and fungi surveyed at the organization’s 25-acre Hallam Lake Nature Preserve in Aspen.

When ski lifts across Colorado stopped spinning in mid-March due to the pandemic, there was a rise in backcountry use among skiers and snowboarders. Officials think that trend is likely to continue this year, too.

“Given what we saw last spring, we are expecting more people in the backcountry than we’ve seen in previous years,” said Brian Lazar, an avalanche forecaster with the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. 

This is Week In The Arts—a curated list of upcoming virtual events, exhibitions and reopenings around the Roaring Fork Valley.

Aspen Film streams the documentary “16 Bars” Thursday, Nov. 19 through Sunday, Nov. 22 this week. The film touches on the songs and stories within America’s prisons. More information can be found at Aspen Film's website.

This is Week In The Arts—a curated list of upcoming virtual events, exhibitions and reopenings around the Roaring Fork Valley.

The Red Brick Center for the Arts opens two new exhibitions on Thursday, Nov. 12. “Alaprimas: Living Locally, the Art of Life in the Roaring Fork Valley” features watercolors by local artists, and the gallery’s Resident Artists Exhibition features mixed media work.

The day of the dead, or Día de los Muertos, is a Mexican tradition honoring loved ones who have passed. Traditionally, locals fill graveyards with candles and flowers for the event. Carbondale Arts is hosting its own Día de los Muertos event virtually as part of its monthly First Friday celebration on Nov. 6 from 6 to 7 p.m. 

Updated at 11:45 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 5

State Sen. Bob Rankin has won his reelection bid after a close content between him and Democratic challenge Karl Hanlon. Hanlon called Rankin to concede Thursday morning. There were about 1,000 votes separating the two men, according to the latest, unofficial returns. 

This is Week In The Arts—a curated list of upcoming virtual events, exhibitions and reopenings around the Roaring Fork Valley.

This is Week In The Arts—a curation of virtual events, exhibitions and reopenings around the Roaring Fork Valley.