VAIL - When some people talk about the good old days in Vail, they talk about when Bridge Street was a dirt road and a lift tickets cost $5.

Eddie Box Jr. goes back a little further - when his people, the Ute Indians, roamed the Gore Valley during summers to hunt and fish. Still, Box said he would rather keep alive the values and customs of his ancestors than actually live in that era, when many of his ancestors died in the cold winters.

"A lot of people say, 'I miss those old days,'" he said. "But you don't want to live back there."

Box came to Vail on Monday with his wife, daughter and grandchildren to perform a traditional snow dance as part of Vail Snow Daze, a two-week-long festival.

Box, a Southern Ute Indian who lives near Durango, was a teenager when he came to Vail in 1963 during its second season with his father and other family members to perform Vail's first snow dance.

Fulfilling their wishes for snow, a blizzard came a few days later, ensuring good skiing for the rest of the year. This year, Box predicted the snow dance would, again, bring snow to Vail.

"Things will be good," he said.

'Let it snow'

Dressed in traditional costume, Box and his family performed the ceremony before a small crowd in front of the gondola as others skied past, oblivious to the rite.

With Native American music blasting out of speakers near the gondola, Box and his family started their dance moving with small steps in a circle. His wife, Betty, burned a mixture of sage, cedar and sweetgrass, while Eddie dispersed the smoke with a feather.

Box then said a prayer.

"Let it snow a little bit, Grandfather, so there'll be lots of water for Mother Earth," he said. " ... We come here to snowboard, ski and have fun, oh Grandfather."

Box later said that he approves of how Vail has developed in the last 42 years because it allows people to relax and enjoy nature - though he said he hopes skiing doesn't become too costly for people to enjoy it.

He said he no longer skis, though his daughter and his grandchildren do.

In the Shining Mountains

Box lives in Ignacio, near Durango, on the Southern Ute Reservation. His daughter works at the Sky Ute Casino, which provides hundreds of jobs for Utes. Gas and oil wells also provide income for the Utes, he said.

"The tribe is fairly financially stable," he said.

The reservation is comprised of more than 1,000 square miles.

The Utes lived in Colorado hundreds of years before Europeans started to explore the area. The Indians called the land "the shining mountains."

As settlers increasingly came to Colorado's Western Slope, tensions mounted between the Indians and the newcomers, culminating in the Meeker Massacre of 1879. About 100 were hurt or killed that weeklong skirmish. A photo from the Denver Public Library's collection shows Red Cliff residents, in the wake of the Meeker incident, standing on a fortified rock to defend themselves from a Ute invasion.

Shortly thereafter, the many Utes were evicted from Colorado to Utah. The Utes eventually established their reservation near the Four Corners. The Forest Service still consults the Utes when it "scopes" the public on planned projects in the Vail area.

"They have the opportunity to say, 'This is an area that is culturally sensitive to us,'" said Don Dressler of the Forest Service.

James Kelly, on vacation from Arlington, Texas, caught the ceremony at the gondola. Though he's not a skier, he said he thinks the ceremony will bring more snow to Vail.

"I'm a big believer in karma," he said.

Norm Van Dyke, a visitor from Monument, said he's "into Indian stuff."

"If they can bring rain, they can bring snow," he said.



Staff Writer Edward Stoner can be reached at 748-2929 or estoner@vaildaily.com.



Vail Daily, Vail Colorado CO