John, Gwen and young Tucker Biro with wilderness cat Milo.
and elusive.” He shrugs. “Besides that, it’s no big deal. It’s at times disturbing thinking about having an amusement park a mile away. But I can live with the changes.” He chuckles, adding that if things got too disrupted, he’d probably sell his house and move “anywhere warmer that I can drive home to.” At the moment it’s comforting to Biro to have emergency access in and out via the daily snowcats. “It’s nice to know that if something happened, it would be easy to get help now.” This compromise between independence and security shows the changed perspective of a father whose toddler will have a new sibling this February, when winter storms can trap Irwinites in their homes for a week. Perhaps no one appreciates the deepness of winter as much as those who choose to live out its hardships in return for nestling in its powdery wilds. Summer brings magnificent fields of wildflowers, but also endless trekkers parading through Irwin’s backyard – noisy campers, ATVs, dirt bikes, kids and city dogs, sending a curtain of fine dust to block the sun, and speeding their SUVs around hairpin curves as though they’re late for something. The quiet white beauty of winter is a sigh of isolationist relief. One seasoned Irwin revolutionary said, “There are no laws above 10,000 feet.” Perhaps this stems from a collective past-life memory dating 98
back to an even wilder era. Back in the 1880s, when Irwin was a rowdy settlement of 5,000 people, a grand plot was hatched to kidnap former President Ulysses S. Grant after he visited to experience the excitement of a mining camp. When kidnapping proved to be too complex, the wouldbe abductors decided it would be easier to just kill Grant. The attempt was foiled by a local actress who told her miner boyfriend, who told the mayor, who hated Grant but didn’t want the dirt on his hands. That original Irwin and its ruffians enjoyed a brief heyday; people bolted with the silver crash of 1892, leaving the town to fall victim to massive avalanches and intense winter storms. Little of the silver mining remnants are visible today, but that feisty character has somehow been passed on to Irwin’s present-day residents, who began repopulating the townsite a few decades ago. Time will tell if the new hustle and bustle near Irwin will change the resilient year-rounders or send them farther into the hills. One can only hope Irwin will remain the belligerent little red-headed stepchild it has always been. Dawne Belloise is a freelance writer, photographer, traveler and musician living in a tiny cottage on an alley at the end of the road in Crested Butte. A feature writer for the Crested Butte News-Weekly and music editor for the Mountain Gazette, her musings and photography have been published in numerous mags and rags around the planet.
Winter 2011 | 2012