Earn your Elvis Costello tunes at Hike to the Mic

It’s always farther to the top than you think. Standing at the bottom of a ski hill during the summer, grass and wildflowers brushing your ankles, the summit seems just a couple of switchbacks away. And if you’re a skier, used to getting a lift to the top in mere minutes, your perspective is further skewed.

During the middle months of the year, the elevation of a ski hill is working against you. But the effort will be richly rewarded.

Warm weather reveals a whole other world waiting under the snow. It’s a miniature world just the right size for my daughters’ 6inch dolls; a world where tiny rivulets of water become rushing streams, patches of moss are ideal for tiny picnics and alpine harebell hang from their stems like lavender lanterns.

But not all things on the summer slopes are in miniature. Under the gondola on Aspen Mountain there is a scree field so steep and slippery I wasn’t the only one carrying my mountain bike down it — and in the winter you don’t even know it’s there. Summer at Mary Jane reveals that some of those giant moguls are actually massive boulders with a thick layer of snow frosting on top. And at Crested Butte, hikers negotiate tiny trails through a sloping sea of shoulder-high fireweed in July.

Those who make the 4-mile hike up Beaver Creek’s main mountain on Sept. 16 (and buy tickets) will find legendary musician Elvis Costello performing live outside of the Spruce Saddle Lodge. The resort’s inaugural year of Hike to the Mic will include other concerts and activities throughout the village during the weekend.

The hike to the venue gains 2,000 feet in elevation and takes about two hours, including those much-needed photo breaks. Concertgoers can also take a Jeep tour up the mountain, ride a mountain bike, ride a horse or simply jump in the Centennial Gondola.

For those familiar with Beaver Creek, the stage will be set on the east side of Spruce Saddle before you head down into the Rose Bowl. Seated stadium-style around the stage, spectators will have a view of the Gore Range.

Bonnie Paine of Elephant Revival, the Nederland-based folk quintet opening for Costello, is looking forward to playing in the new venue.

“When playing outdoors, because there are no walls for the sounds to bounce back from, there can be a naked but neat feeling of the songs continuing to ring out from and meld into our surroundings,” Paine said. “I Hike to the Mic with Elvis Costello and the Impostors, and Elephant Revival. Sept. 15-17, Beaver Creek. Tickets start at $65 plus $4.57 fee. http://www.beavercreek .com/events-and-activities/ hike-to-the-mic.aspx#/ Schedule usually prefer the expansive feeling of being outside together with the potentials of the music getting to interact with the shifting of the wind or some other-than-human spontaneity.”

Paine cites her first concert, seeing Pink Floyd in Dallas when she was 10, as the inspiration for becoming a professional musician.

“I remember feeling like every time the drummer pulsed the bass drum, I could feel my heart with all of the thousands of people in the stadium’s heart beats synching up with it,” she said.

I’m hoping there will be magic up at Spruce Saddle for my daughters’ first big concert — whether the musicians find it on stage or in the beauty of nature surrounding it.

Chryss Cada is a freelance journalist and Colorado State University adjunct professor based in Fort Collins. Find her on the Web at chryss.com.