Outdoors/Business Reporter
Sneak Peek of the Week
“I just wanted to make stuff”
115
Number of Melanzana employees producing apparel in Leadville and Alamosa
LEADVILLE — Perhaps one of the happiest spots in Colorado — a place where folks just seem extraordinarily giddy — is outside the Melanzana shop in downtown Leadville.
Clad in freshly stitched fleece, golden-ticketed buyers emerge from the Melanzana factory and pose for selfies, slap high-fives and celebrate their scores. That scene on Leadville’s historic Harrison Avenue is a glimpse into the Melly mystique.
“They are soft. They are so cool. It’s a club, you know,” says Jan Mueller, a Denver hiker of the Colorado Trail who, with her pal Cindy Jaye, recently flashed a photo of themselves at the start of the 500-mile trail to cut the months-long line to buy a hoodie in Leadville.
Inside the store, a crew of 80 sewers and cutters craft Melanzana’s trademark microgrid fleece hoodies — you know the ones, cool colors with a Triscuit-like texture. You’ve seen them, but chances are you don’t know much about Melanzana. The company does not advertise. They don’t sell those hoodies online. Buyers often wait months for an appointment to visit the Leadville shop and manufacturing facility, which is the only place to buy a Melly. And when they get inside, they can only buy two garments.
The founder of Melanzana — Fritz Howard — is not a public fellow.
For the last decade or so, I’ve dropped Fritz an annual note, asking him to share his unique business strategy, which pretty much breaks every rule taught in business school. No thanks, he says. We don’t need any attention, he says.
After nearly 30 years of steadily increasing demand for his fleecewear, Howard recently opened a shop in Alamosa, where his team has trained about 35 workers to cut and sew Melanzana hoodies. They don’t sell anything in Alamosa, but the increased production has enabled Howard to offer more appointments and he’s started selling his new merino wool base layers online.
Those are big shifts for a business that has carefully cultivated its growth, making sure to control demand to meet the supply of hoodies rolling off those industrial sewing machines in Leadville. According to the American capitalist way, business owners grow supply to meet demand. Howard takes a different tack, controlling the flow of hoodies in the face of unchecked demand.
That’s why buyers must book appointments and can only get two items, with hoodies priced from $86 to $126.
Howard, an outdoorsman who pedals his fat-tire bike to Melanzana’s offices every day, bristles at the notion that he’s purposely crafted a scarcity to bolster his bottom line.
“It was purely to handle the traffic so we didn’t sell out,” Howard says during a rare visit with a reporter. “We needed to maintain some level of inventory in the store. We have always tried to make as much product as we can, but within our value system. We have very specific values. First is that we make everything ourselves.”
Howard is not quite sure how to explain an apparently insatiable demand for his Mellys.
“Sneaky, simple functionality,” he says of the hoodies, with the gaiter that fits just so, a hood that can cover a helmet or ball cap and a seemingly indestructible construction. “Truthfully, I don’t know that I totally understand the demand, even now. It’s not like you can control what a brand does. I’ve never really thought about it, really. I’m not a brand guy. I just wanted to make stuff.”
>> Click over to The Sun next week to read this story
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In Their Words
Olivia Prentzel’s “terrifying but cool” strategy for unlocking “a new level of Colorado”
76
Years since Colorado hosted its first official pack burro race
VICTOR — As the gun went off, 71 donkeys jolted forward with their ears perked up to the sky and sprinted down the old mining town’s main drag. I tightly gripped the blue rope attached to my saddle-wearing race partner, a brown burro named Indi, and we headed toward the hills.
As I ran 7.3 miles across steep single-track trails and up 1,100 feet of elevation with a fast donkey setting the pace, I learned a lot about myself and the lengths I’ll go to satisfy my curiosity. (Terrifying but cool is how I’d best describe it).
But also, about the incredible teamwork that is required of a runner and their donkey during one of Colorado’s most unique sports. Race prerequisites include a high level of fitness, an adventurous spirit and a bit of skilled persuasion — you can’t make a burro do anything it doesn’t want to do.
Indi, a burro that was captured during a Nevada during a Bureau of Land Management roundup and is now living on a farm east of Colorado Springs, pulled me across the finish line just before the two-hour mark. We came in 32nd place, but as I crossed the finish line, I think I also unlocked a new level of Colorado.
Pack burro racing was named the state’s official summer heritage sport in 2012, but dates back to 1949, when the first official race was organized between Leadville and Fairplay. Per race rules, each burro must carry a pickax, a shovel and a gold pan to honor the days when burros carried equipment to and from the mines. Since the burros were carrying a full load, the miners had to walk (hence why there’s no riding in pack burro races).
Legend has it that two miners found gold in the same spot and raced each other back to town to be the first to stake a claim. Now, the Western Pack Burro Ass-ociation organizes about a dozen races around Colorado, uniting mountain towns and attracting crowds eager to watch the unique celebration of the state’s mining boom.
My pack burro journey started in April with a Facebook post that I found in a Colorado Springs running group, asking for help running donkeys on a farm in Calhan, just past the Paint Mines Interpretive Park.
No prior donkey experience required.
>> Click over to The Sun next week to read Olivia Prentzel’s account of her first race with a burro named Indi
Reporter
The Outsider now has a podcast! Veteran reporter Jason Blevins covers the industry from the inside out, plus indulges in the fun side of being outdoors in our beautiful state.
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The Playground
Wyoming rancher asks US Supreme Court to consider corner crossing
8.3 million
Landlocked acres of federal and state land in the West inaccessible due to checkerboard land ownership that isolates parcels of public land
A wealthy Wyoming rancher is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to consider corner crossing and overturn a Denver federal appeals court’s March ruling in a case that influences access to millions of landlocked public acres in the West.
“This case presents questions of profound legal and practical significance,” reads a petition filed last week by lawyers for Fred Eshelman, a North Carolina pharmaceutical mogul who owns a 22,000-acre ranch on Elk Mountain in Wyoming’s Carbon County, just north of the Colorado border.
Eshelmen in 2022 sued hunters who used a stepladder to cross from one public parcel to another on his ranch. The lawsuit argued the hunters were trespassing when they stepped above Eshelman’s private property at the checkerboard X intersection of public land.
Eshelman’s Elk Mountain Ranch spans some 50 square miles and includes 27 islands of federally managed public land totaling about 11,000 acres. The landowner said the hunters accessing those landlocked parcels in the Medicine Bow National Forest diminished the value of his land by $7.75 million.
A Carbon County jury in 2021 sided with the hunters. A Wyoming District Court in 2023 also agreed that the hunters, who did not touch private land, were not trespassing. And in March, the U.S. 10th Circuit County of Appeals in Denver ruled the hunters did not violate Eshelman’s property rights when they stepped across that intersection of parcels in a practice known as corner crossing.
Eshelman last week asked the country’s highest court to review the 10th Circuit panel’s unanimous ruling.
“The decision to upend decades of consensus about property rights affecting millions of acres of checkerboard land is already sowing confusion among landowners and recreationists,” reads Eshelman’s Hail Mary 45-page writ for certiorari filed by his Denver-based legal team at the Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer firm.
The petition to the U.S. Supreme Court suggests that the 10th Circuit decision essentially granted easements across private property and Eshelman suggests this opens the door to “widespread unconstitutional takings” of private land without compensation, “thereby stripping landowners of one of the most treasured rights of property ownership — the right to exclude.”
The checkerboard ownership pattern of land in the West dates back to the 1820s, when Congress began distributing land in interspersed squares. It’s been an issue for about 150 years, especially as cattle ranchers began fencing their land, isolating and closing access to millions of acres of public land sandwiched between private parcels. The Eshelman squabble over corner crossing could deliver some conclusion to decades of access issues around isolated pockets of public land.
>> Stay tuned to The Sun for more on this one especially if the high court agrees to take up the case
The Guide
A new lease for Crested Butte’s post office
The Town of Crested Butte spent the last few months seriously stressing the looming closure of its downtown post office, where the U.S. Postal Service’s long-term lease was set to expire in February.
The town has spent years trying to find a new location for the post office, but negotiations with the Postal Service stalled. With a lease set to expire in February, the town braced for shuffling some 4,000 households 30 to 40 miles down to Gunnison to get their mail. And the Gunnison post office was ill-equipped for that sudden increase.
Letters from senators and town leaders pleaded with the Postal Service to make a move. Last month it finally did. The service sent a brief note to Crested Butte officials saying it had negotiated a new five-year lease for its location in downtown Crested Butte.
That gives the town time to adjust plans for a new post office on land it acquired a few years ago. It’s been three years since the Postal Service announced its lease was expiring and it was launching a search for a new, much larger location than the often overwhelmed 3,300-square-foot facility on Elk Avenue. Earlier this year the service told The Sun it was facing “significant challenges” in finding a suitable location in the expensive, end-of-the-road mountain community.
“We appreciate this extension and continue exploring options for a larger property that better meets our needs. We remain committed to serving our customers and appreciate their patience as we navigate this process,” Postal Service spokesperson James Boxrud said in an email. “As Crested Butte continues to grow, we will strive to meet the evolving needs of our community.”
Apple iPhones sending unfounded 911 texts to search and rescue teams in Colorado
10
Number of dispatch centers that have received unfounded 911 texts in Colorado
The 911 texts seem … off. “Trapped by fire.” “Multiple people on fire.” “Stranded and lost.”
They are landing at 911 dispatch centers in Colorado mountain towns, triggering swift responses from search and rescue teams. But once the teams reach the remote locations, there is no emergency. No one is aflame or lost.
Colorado dispatchers are fielding unfounded texts for help from Apple iPhones using the company’s new satellite technology, which lets users communicate via passing satellites when they are out of cellphone range. At first, sheriffs were wondering if someone was pranking their volunteer SAR teams in a sort of new-school “swatting” hoax.
But it appears the texts — which are apparently sent from phones that are not even being handled — are some sort of glitch in the Apple system. And it’s not the first time mountain town dispatchers have had issues with Apple’s technology. A couple years ago call centers were inundated with automated calls from iPhones and Apple Watches with a “crash detection” feature designed to call for help when users came to a sudden stop. Like in a car crash. Or, as it turned out, when they were skiing.
Apple hasn’t clearly explained what’s happening. But search and rescue crews in Colorado are scrutinizing odd 911 texts from satellite-enabled iPhones.
“There is a potential now that if a team gets a message from an iPhone over satellite and it says ‘multiple people on fire,’ we will respond of course, but that response might be more measured,” said Jeff Sparhawk with the Colorado Search and Rescue Association.
>> Click here to read this story
— j
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