Carbondale’s 55th annual Mountain Fair is in production and this year’s theme perfectly encapsulates the spirit that has carried this festive tradition throughout the years. The theme is Camp Bondale, a blast from the past that the first graduating class of Roaring Fork High School established to create a space for gathering. John Theil, the originator of Camp Bondale, shared his story.
“We started Camp Bonedale in 1981. Roaring Fork High School was brand new. We were very close, so when we got out of high school and people moved away to go to college or start a career of their own, Camp Bonedale was set up,” Theil reported. “I was a year out of graduating from high school, working as a produce manager in the local grocery store, Circle Supers, and going to Colorado Mountain College.”
For decades, the fair has been a place for friends and family to reconnect and create new memories. Camp Bondale was set up between the sound booth and the beer tent facing the stage for all of Theil’s friends to find each other. Sarah Overbeck, Carbondale Arts’ Marketing and Communications Director, spoke about the heart of the fair.
“The current staff at Carbondale Arts –– we're just a fraction of the people that have cared for the fair, that have been the stewards, and, you know, we really don't take that for granted. We know how much the fair means to everybody, and we're just trying to hold the torch,” Overbeck said.
The theme of this year certainly carries the torch forward. This special town has so many incredible folks who volunteer to make the fair happen, and it goes to show how much they care about the community.
“Camp Bondale was set up; the premise was to have a local spot staked out at the Mountain Fair where everybody knew where to go to see, you know, what everyone was up to,” Theil expressed. “I was very, very flattered and enthusiastic about Camp Bondale being the theme for the Carbondale 55 Mountain Fair, and it brought back a lot of memories.”
Theil talked about the history of the Camp Bondale sign and how it was made. He was on a construction project in Aspen demolishing a carriage house made of just two partition walls and siding. When they took it down, they found Aspen Times newspapers from 1892 between the siding. They turned the newspapers over to the Aspen Historical Society and took some timber for the sign that will be showcased at Mountain Fair.
“Yeah, we didn't make the sign till '83. I was on a project to remodel in Aspen. The carriage house and the original home were built in 1890, and at the back of the carriage house, they had a coal bin, and those boards were from that coal bin. So timbers that size, to get those clear virgin timbers, were at least 100 years old. So the sign itself has physically been in the valley for 250 years, which a lot of people didn't know about that part of making the sign itself,” Thiel noted.
The sign has survived all this time and will be featured at the fair. Mountain Fair Chief of Operations Deborah Colley talked about the importance of this theme.
“And we know that a lot of different people have taken care of that sign over the years, and that it's, like, really a beloved thing to so many people. And so we're honored to have it and to have put it up at the fair, and people can find it and take a photo with it if they want, or just take a look and see that there are little bones burned into the sign!” Colley said. “And that they're like living things for us, you know? They're not just like some relic. It's like a living symbol of something that we've grown and taken care of together.”
Join this year’s 55th Mountain Fair and participate in the Camp Bondale theme by showing up for the community and having a good time with your loved ones.
