Telluride is a horsey town where jean jackets and cowboy boots still outnumber swanky designer clothes and Prada shoes. That said, you're as likely to find some A-List "It" Girl knocking back Bloody Marys and joining the line dance at a local watering hole here as you are in Aspen. It has been discovered, and lots that once sold for $10,000 on a good day now fetch $400,000 or more. Once the home of ski bums and colorful counterculture types who found their way to the canyon and stayed, Telluride has become a haven for millionaires and movie stars. While the median income for residents is $51,938 a year, the median home price in Telluride is now $1.4 million. Some people are beginning to grumble about all the growth, but people have adopted a live-and-let-live philosphy and remain friendly to outsiders who arrive in Gulfstream jets.

There's only one road leading into this southwestern Colorado box canyon, a factor outlaws and people who love Telluride have always found favorable to life here. Being at the end of a road less travelled means the crowds are thinner; it's easier to get a drink at the bar and you feel less crowded and more at home here than you do at the bigger, posher mountains.

Driving into this little mining town for the first time is almost as much fun as skiing its formidable mountain. You're deep in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado. Enter the valley and look up at the mountains surrounding the town, still touched by snow.

The streets are lined with row after row of old, brightly painted Victorians. Peer into a backyard and you might see an old mining shack, leaning a little but still hanging in there after 100 years of Colorado winters.

Telluride got its start in 1880. At the height of the gold rush, nearly 5,000 people lived here. The town motto was "Town without a Bellyache." By 1904, more than $360 million of gold was pulled out of Telluride's mines and there were more millionaires living there (per capita) than in stodgy old New York.

The money brought bandits like old Butch Cassidy, who walked out of the San Miguel Valley Bank with $24,580 in 1889. They never did find that money and it was said Butch spent most of it on Etta, but that's another story. It has also been said that a ramshackle cabin at Ute Park Chair 10 in Prospect Bowl, near the bottom, is where Butch dodged the law after the San Miguel stick-em-up.

If you have an interest in days gone by, make sure to take a good, long look at Telluride's old Opera House, hotels, banks, saloons, and restaurants most of which have been completely renovated but still retain their Western facades.

Mining in the area played out in 1953. Families left town and Telluride was left to die on the vine. In the 1970s, Joe Zoline, an entrepreneur from the West Coast, saw its potential and the first five lifts were up and running by 1972. Today, Telluride has 16 lifts, 1,700 skiable acres, and 84 runs, with an average winter snowfall of 309 inches.

Take the gondola over the mountain to the Mountain Village side and plenty of trails for hiking and biking. The gondola runs from 7 a.m. to midnight and it is free to everyone. Both bikes and dogs are allowed on the gondola.

Not much of a need for a car here. In Telluride, you are almost able to walk everywhere you need to go. In fact, the town is only eight blocks wide and 12 blocks long.

You can fly directly into Telluride (TEX) from Denver (United or Great Lakes) and Phoenix (America West Express). You also can fly to the nearby town of Montrose (MJT-American, America West, Continental, United), which is 65 miles north.

Shuttles are available from all of the nearby airports: Telluride Express (888-212-TAXI or 970-728-6000); Alpine Luxury Limo (877-728-8750); and Mountain Limo (888-LIMOTXI or 970-728-9606).