Riding The Free & Pet-Friendly Telluride & Mountain Village Gondola

Free and pet-friendly.

Those are two of my favorite things to do on our 5 year, 50 state road trip and we found something that was both of those while we were staying in Montrose, CO – the Telluride & Mountain Village Gondola.

Shae, Truffles and I had a fantastic time when we rode it, not just because of the gondola itself but because the entire day was fantastic with beautiful views, a pet-friendly distillery and more.

We started off by parking at the free Carhenge parking lot which you can find here on Google Maps in case you want directions.

If you park there, cross over the bridge as you exit and there’s a bus shelter to the right.

Telluride offers a free shuttle service around the town, with this being one of the stops.

We hadn’t realized until getting on the bus that the gondola was relatively close to the parking lot. We therefore could’ve walked it, but decided to take a ride anyway. The bus is pet-friendly too, so it wasn’t a problem having Truffles come on with us.

With Telluride being a popular destination in Colorado, we’d pictured long lines to get on the gondola. We were therefore pleasantly surprised when we showed up to find no line beyond a couple of people in front of us.

You don’t have to get a ticket or book in advance to ride the Telluride & Mountain Village Gondola – just show up and get on.

The gondola is pet-friendly, but there are specially marked pet-friendly cars you have to use if you’re traveling with a pup. It seemed like every other car was pet-friendly, so we didn’t ever have to wait long.

You get some beautiful views of Telluride and the surrounding area on the way up.

We weren’t too sure how Truffles would feel about the experience, but she ended up being fine and enjoyed the views out the window as we rode up the mountain.

We rode the Telluride & Mountain Village Gondola in June 2021; at that time they still had a mask requirement due to COVID.

The first stop on the gondola if you start off in Telluride is San Sophia Station. This is the highest of the four gondola stations as it’s at 10,540 feet above sea level.

We decided to stop here for some lunch. There’s Allred’s Restaurant at this stop, although it seemed to be closed when we visited. That wasn’t a problem though because we’d brought a packed lunch with us.

There were some picnic tables on the mountain, so we were treated to some excellent views while eating our food.

There are several hiking and biking trails if you get off at San Sophia Station, so we saw quite a few people with bikes. There’s even Telluride Bike Park at the top of the mountain, although that was closed when we visited.

In the distance we could see the runway for Telluride airport. You never want to overshoot a runway when taking off, but at Telluride you reaaaaaaaally don’t want to overshoot the runway!

Each car on the gondola has the ability to carry bikes on the back.

The doors also have an attachment to carry skis and snowboards. The cars continue moving at each station, so you’d have to be quick slotting all your skis and snowboards in if there’s a group of you getting in the same car.

After having lunch we continued our journey by getting back on the gondola towards Mountain Village. You don’t have to get off at San Sophia Station along the way, so you can just remain in your car if you want to travel straight from Telluride to Mountain Village. It’s about 2.4 miles between those two stations and takes about 12 minutes which suggests the gondola travels at 12 mph.

We had no clue what to expect of Mountain Village, so we were surprised at how much there was to do there. I’d therefore recommend building some time in to your day to wander around the plazas, stores and restaurants.

The plazas had a fun feature, with several gondola cars dotted around where you can eat and drink. They’re probably more like a greenhouse in warmer weather, but I’m sure they’re awesome during skiing season.

While checking out the map of Mountain Village we saw that there was a place called Telluride Distilling Company. They had some outdoor seating, but they were pet-friendly inside too and so we headed inside with Truffles.

They have all kinds of different spirits you can try along with cocktails and sloshies. We both decided to get their spirits flight which includes the following:

• Vodka – This won an award at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition and was nice and smooth
• Gin – I’m not a huge gin fan, but this was good as gin goes as the juniper flavor wasn’t overpowering
• Agave – I think this was the first time I’d tried agave and it was pretty good
• Mountain Mash Whiskey – This is a blend of malted barley and rye and is aged for at least two years in a mixture of new charred oak and used red wine barrels
• Chairlift Warmer Peppermint Schnapps – This was fantastic, so it’s not surprising that it’s the only Peppermint Schnapps in the world to have won a gold medal. I can imagine this being delicious added to hot chocolate in the winter.

Not only were the spirits all very good, but they had a comfy sofa where we could enjoy them while Euro 2020 played on TV. Truffles appreciated this too; all the excitement so far that day meant she snoozed on the couch while we tried all the drinks.

Trina was working behind the bar that afternoon and she was lovely. She also brought over some popcorn for us to go with our drinks which was the perfect level of salty. We also got chatting to Colin who was very friendly and gave us some recommendations of other things to do in Colorado.

In addition to lots of comfortable seating, Telluride Distilling Company has a games area.

They also had some fun ski/shot ornaments.

One of the plazas has an interactive sundial where if you stand on the current month, it’ll tell you what time it is. Unfortunately this didn’t work as it was overcast when I tried and so there was no shadow.

After wandering around Mountain Village for a while we hopped back on the gondola to continue on to the final stop – Market Plaza Station.

There didn’t seem to be much down there beyond a grocery store and a couple of restaurants, so we got back on the Telluride & Mountain Village Gondola to head back up to Mountain Village.

It had only been about 2.5 hours since we’d had lunch, but something else at Telluride Distilling Company had caught our eye earlier that afternoon.

In addition to their spirits and cocktails, there was a small, two item food menu. One of those items was the Old Major which was a Telluride Whiskey braised wild boar sausage with apricot and cranberry served on a pretzel bun with kimchi, hoisin sauce and a pickle. I love hoisin sauce, so ordering this was a no-brainer for me.

It was pretty good, although it felt like the pretzel bun to sausage ratio was a little off – the bun consisted of a lot of bread.

Shae ordered the other food item on the menu which was a Telluride Whiskey braised jalapeño cheddar elk brat which was also served on a pretzel bun but came with sauerkraut, dijon mustard, mayo and pickle.

I tried a little of Shae’s and thought the elk brat was much more flavorful than the boar sausage I had. I don’t like cheese, but the cheddar in the elk brat wasn’t very strong. If we returned, I’d probably ask if they could make an elk brat but with the hoisin sauce and kimchi instead.

While we ate those, Shae had a Telluride Sunset which contained their own vodka with cranberry and orange juice which she enjoyed.

Shae and I still wanted to check out Telluride itself, so after we were done at Telluride Distilling Company we got back on the gondola to ride back up and down the mountain.

Telluride turned out to be a cute town with lots of boutique shops, restaurants and bars. Walking down Colorado Ave, you have a beautiful view of the mountains and a waterfall in the distance.

Before heading back to Montrose, we stopped at Smuggler-Union Brewery for a quick drink. Shae had a glass of red wine while I tried their Powder Night Espresso Porter which was very good.

Rather than taking the shuttle bus back to the parking lot, we decided to walk the trail along the San Miguel River.

Final Thoughts

We had an absolutely wonderful day in Telluride. The fact that the town offers a free gondola for all visitors is awesome, as is the fact that you can take dogs on it with you.

Mountain Village was a lovely place to wander around and relax, as was Telluride. We’d particularly recommend visiting Telluride Distilling Company in Mountain Village if that’s your thing as they have great spirits and friendly service.