Robert & Carol Korn
AEROBIC, POLITICAL & HERE FOR THE LONG–RUN

"Telluride, at its core, is an
aerobic culture. It keeps us young
and political "

by Elizabeth Covington

"Because we were dropping out." That is Bob Korn's to-the-point explanation of why more than 30 years ago he and his wife Carol moved from the wilds of Manhattan to the then deserted streets of Telluride, Colorado. In 1969 the couple was living in a communal apartment on the Upper West Side. Fresh out of law school, Bob worked for the Office of Economic Opportunity in Harlem, “fighting poverty,” he said, and Carol taught third grade in South Bronx public schools. “We were part of the revolution,” said Bob. They were at Woodstock at 1969, when they realized they needed to get out of the city. Then a photographer roommate brought home stunning photographs from a summer workshop in Aspen. “We quit our jobs, rented a car and headed West,” Bob said. Young—he was 29 and she was 24—and from the city, the couple did not know the mountains. Fearless the couple drove into the night, crossing Independence Pass in the dark and arriving at their rental cabin at 1 p.m. They crashed in their rented cabin and at 5:30 a.m. woke to the sounds of cows mooing and cowboys crying,“Yippee-ah-yea!” Bob remembers looking at the twin peaks of Mount Sopris and thinking that he was never going back. In fact, he didn’t. The two spent the summer exploring the wide-flung corners of their neighborhood and by August, Bob proposed to Carol after a backpacking trip to Conundrum Hot Springs. For the short time they were in New York City to be married and pack their stuff. Bob was “fearful I would be captured by the city and wouldn’t be able to leave. I couldn’t wait for the day that we drove away.” Telluride then was the perfect place to drop out. There were about 400 people living in town and there was one television station. The Korns rented a house for $85 a month. Bob started a law practice on his dining room table and Carol helped start Rainbow Preschool. The only ski operation was a small snowcat business run by Bill “Senior” Mahoney and Ed Bowers. They took guests to the top of where Lift Nine now stands and skied the power line into town. “We would sit on our front porch and watch them for hours,” said Carol.

Korn’s law office became the headquarters to elect Slate, town council candidates supported by the new, young hippies. When the Slate was elected in 1974, they appointed Korn the town attorney, and he drafted town-wide zoning ordinances, including one that reduced fireplace emissions, the first of its kind in the United States. The couple also fell in love with the mountain lifestyle.“Our mentor was Jerry Race, mayor of Telluride in the early 80s,” said Bob. Race reminded them that they came to Telluride to ski and so they became avid cross-country skiers who ski regularly at Faraway Ranch and Lizard Head, and snowshoe in the woods behind their Ski Ranches home. They hike quite a bit in the summertime, too. Carol likes knitting sweaters for their grandson Edward. Thirty-four years later, after raising daughters, Zoe now 32 and Lauren 26, the Korns love their life here and have no plans to retire in the South. Bob keeps his hand in local politics. Working with Sheep Mountain Alliance, he drafted the ordinance to conserve the southside of the Valley Floor. And the two say, “Telluride at its core is an aerobic culture,” claimed Bob. “It keeps us young and political.”

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