Gay Ski Week

Gay Ski Week is a Telluride tradition that is celebrated by many who come from all over the U.S. in search of powder, beautiful food and drink, along with an honoring of gay culture.

This year, it is scheduled for Feb. 21 to March 2, 2014 and will be 10 days long to celebrate its 10 years of existence.

Held in February each year, the week offers educational events in the local community, special packages for tourists, and the much-loved, always-sold-out event, the Telluride AIDs Benefit (TAB) Fashion Show.

Telluride’s Gay Ski Week is currently rated the top Gay Ski Week in the country.

And there is little wonder why. Telluride offers incredible skiing, beautiful conditions, and views of 13,000-foot peaks in a town where consciousness and open-mindedness prevail. Telluride, though it has only roughly 2000 full-time residents, is anything but small-town in thinking.

In the Telluride School District, the Telluride AIDs Benefit organization seeks to raise awareness by offering workshops at the middle school and high school level, where kids learn, ask questions, and have peer communication.

TAB is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to educate and fight HIV/AIDS locally and globally.

TAB brings in speakers from Western Colorado AIDS Project “WestCAP”, Denver Children’s Hospital Immunodeficiency Program “CHIP”, and the Manzini Youth Care Project so that youth get a variety of perspectives.

High school students create their own version of the TAB fashion show, a highlight in the Telluride school calendar.

Gay Ski Week is sponsored by many Telluride community organizations, but foremost by Straight Out Media and Marketing , out of Dallas, along with Telluride Mountain Village Owners Association. Straight Out is a 40-year old company who has much experience in specializing in the GLBT community.

The official host hotel is Hotel Madeline, along with Inn at Lost Creek and Mountain Lodge.

Local businesses welcome gay skiers and celebrate with specials, packages and advertisements in the local newspaper. The Town of Telluride truly appreciates this yearly event.

Visitors of Gay Ski Week are encouraged to investigate the Gay Card. This photo ID gives cardholders the first day of skiing free, plus 20 percent off additional skiing days.

Additionally, it provides 10 percent off retail and food purchased in Telluride Ski Resort restaurants and shops. Credit cards can be linked to the Gay Card, and users can use it all week long in celebration of Gay Ski Week at Telluride businesses, avoiding carrying pocketbooks or wallets.

Most all consider the TAB Fashion Show the highlight. Selling out sometimes in just hours on Noel Night, early December, in Telluride, tickets to this event are highly coveted.

Taking place at the Conference Center in the Mountain Village, the TAB Fashion Show is a night of creative choreography, music to move to, often body paint and always beautiful models, male and female, flaunting local designers’ fashions on the runway.

Widly entertaining, sometimes shocking, the TAB Fashion Show is the event that nobody, gay or straight, wants to miss.

Telluride Gay Ski Week plans on going big this year. Not only does the event turn 10, but celebrations are in order because of the Supreme Courts’ ruling on the approval of gay marriage in many states.