{"id":5406,"date":"2012-02-20T02:18:31","date_gmt":"2012-02-20T02:18:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eataspen.com\/blog\/?p=5406"},"modified":"2020-12-14T20:02:57","modified_gmt":"2020-12-14T20:02:57","slug":"aspens-fat-tuesday-mardi-gras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/aspens-fat-tuesday-mardi-gras\/","title":{"rendered":"Snowmass Mardi Gras"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nSnowmass Village, CO<\/strong>\u00a0(February 8, 2012) \u2013 This year Snowmass is celebrating 30 years of Mardi Gras revelry with its Fat Tuesday celebration on\u00a0February 21<\/strong>, one of the biggest festivals of the season and one of the oldest Mardi Gras parties in the mountains. The event includes free traditional Mardi Gras elements such as a madcap costumed parade, a massive bead throw where nearly 30,000 beads are thrown into the enthusiastic crowds, crawdad boils, Hurricane drink specials, and celebrations that go late into the night. All events are free.\u00a0 Afterwards, the celebrations continue in the evening at dozens of local hotspots in the Base Village and in the Snowmass Mall.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s festivities kick off bright and early at 7:00 a.m. with the 20th<\/sup>\u00a0Annual Mother of All Ascensions Race, a popular uphill costumed snowshoe race of 2.073 vertical feet starting on Fanny Hill and ending at Gwynn\u2019s High Alpine Restaurant<\/a>. Racers can participate in snowshoes, track skis, hiking boots or running shoes. Costumes are highly encouraged and prizes awarded for best costumes. All registrants receive a stuffed Goodie Bag and the chance to win some heavenly prizes from participating sponsors and local merchants. Prizes are also awarded to age category winners courtesy of Keen Shoes. Participants can pre-register at Base Camp Bar & Grill in Snowmass Village<\/a>; the Ute Mountaineer in Aspen; Bristlecone Mountain Sports in Basalt; Independence Run and Hike in Carbondale; and Summit Canyon Mountaineering in Glenwood Springs.\u00a0 Event check-in and race day registration begins at 5:45 a.m. at Base Camp Bar & Grill. \u00a0Race registration fee is $35.<\/p>\n

The official Mardi Gras Celebration begins with a free kids\u2019 carnival including clowns and face painters. The annual massive bead throw starts at 3 p.m., with the tossing of nearly 30,000 beads and prizes into the crowds. The wildest, wackiest parade in the mountains follows at 4 p.m., packing the Mall with wall-to-wall revelers, floats, kings and queens, along with mountain jesters strutting their royal Mardi Gras style.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s Mardi Gras King and Queen has been rightly bestowed on long-time Snowmass Village locals, Gywn Knowlton, owner of Gywn\u2019s High Alpine Restaurant and Moses Mogollon (a.k.a. Mo) bar manager for the Mountain Dragon. Originally from Southern California, Gwyn grew up ski racing and learned to ski at Lake Tahoe where her parents had a cabin and has lived in the area for 30 years.\u00a0 Gwyn owns and runs one of the few on-mountain independent restaurants with her ex-husband George Gordon and it is truly a family affair. Gwyn\u2019s daughter Whitney is the restaurant manager and her son-in-law, Willy DeLuca, is the executive chef.\u00a0\u00a0 She also has a grown daughter Tracy who lives in Naples, Florida, who is a ski racer just like her mom. Gwyn says she can\u2019t imagine living anywhere else and loves the close knit community of Snowmass.\u00a0 She feels fortunate that she could raise her daughters in the area and has fond memories taking them to the Little Red Schoolhouse when they were little.\u00a0 Gwyn currently lives in Horse Ranch with her husband James and is expecting her first grandchild in July.\u00a0 If you are up really early on the mountain you may just see her hiking up to work.<\/p>\n

King Moses Mogollon grew up in Alexandria, Virginia and has lived in Snowmass for almost 20 years.\u00a0 He followed his best friend out to Aspen\/Snowmass and has never regretted it.\u00a0 Mo has been working at the Mountain Dragon for 12 years and is currently the bar manager.\u00a0 In the off season during his \u201cforced vacation\u201d Mo likes to travel back East to see family, his sister in Southern California or travel to more exotic places like Costa Rica and South America.\u00a0 Mo loves snowboarding in Snowmass and the positive energy and vibe that exists here and can\u2019t see himself living anywhere else.<\/p>\n

King Mo and Queen Gwyn will lead the Mardi Gras Parade down Snowmass Mall.\u00a0 All businesses, families, visitors, locals and organizations are encouraged to get their message out to crowds as large as 3,000 by entering a float in the parade. Snowmass offers cash prizes for Best Float ($400), Best Use of Theme,\u00a0Lift Your Spirits\u00a0<\/em>($200) and Best Costume ($150). \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

EVENT SCHEDULE:
\n<\/strong>Mother of All Ascensions Race<\/strong><\/p>\n

When: Tuesday, February 21
\nTime: Registration opens at 5:45 am at Base Camp Bar & Grill<\/a>, race starts at 7:00 am
\nWhere: Starts in Base Village to Gwyns High Alpine Restaurant<\/a>
\nCost: $35<\/p>\n

Snowmass Mardi Gras Parade & Celebration<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tuesday, March 8
\n2-4pm Clowns & Face Painting
\n3 pm \u00a0Massive Bead Throw
\n4 pm \u00a0Mardi Gras Parade
\n5 pm \u00a0Festivities continue at Snowmass Bars & Restaurants<\/a><\/p>\n

View Aspen Fat Tuesday Events<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Snowmass Village, CO\u00a0(February 8, 2012) \u2013 This year Snowmass is celebrating 30 years of Mardi Gras revelry with its Fat Tuesday celebration on\u00a0February 21, one of the biggest festivals of the season and one of the oldest Mardi Gras parties in the mountains. The event includes free traditional Mardi Gras elements such as a madcap read more »<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,18],"tags":[242,357,414,495],"class_list":["post-5406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","category-snowmass-restaurants","tag-fat-tuesday","tag-mardi-gras","tag-party","tag-snowmass","author-dmwkes","events","snowmass-restaurants"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1aUGV-1pc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5406"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10505,"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5406\/revisions\/10505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}