Every Fall Equinox, Crested Butte, Colorado
“Burn the Grump!” I yell. “Burn it!”
In the heart of Crested Butte, hundreds of people gather for the annual trial of the Grump. After locals dressed in odd, medieval-looking costumes danced, sang, and boozed their way through every eating and drinking establishment on Elk Avenue, hundreds mass in the center of town for the trial. First comes “the infinite” battle between the knight, “representing technology…the molybdenum mine,” and the Earth Dragon, “representing nature, people, good fortune, and everything wild.” The dragon makes short work of the knight, the audience cheered, but the Green Man—a local dressed in green with a crown of green leaves and a green facepaint—begins to suffer onstage next. He is dying. After a smattering of debate, it is decided the Grump must take the Green Man’s place.
“Burn the Grump!”
“Burn the Grump!” I yell. “Burn it!”
In the heart of Crested Butte, hundreds of people gather for the annual trial of the Grump. After locals dressed in odd, medieval-looking costumes danced, sang, and boozed their way through every eating and drinking establishment on Elk Avenue, hundreds mass in the center of town for the trial. First comes “the infinite” battle between the knight, “representing technology…the molybdenum mine,” and the Earth Dragon, “representing nature, people, good fortune, and everything wild.” The dragon makes short work of the knight, the audience cheered, but the Green Man—a local dressed in green with a crown of green leaves and a green facepaint—begins to suffer onstage next. He is dying. After a smattering of debate, it is decided the Grump must take the Green Man’s place.
“Burn the Grump!”
Then the crowd of hundreds follows the Grump—a fearsome effigy of the attendee’s problems and grievances, 20 feet tall, with a horse-skull head, wings, and glowing red eyes—which is placed in the center of an unlit bonfire. A few moments later, the Grump is gone and the bonfire raging. My girlfriend Ruthie and I chuck our written grievances into the fire (mine included global warming, greed, monkey-killers, and conga lines). A drunken fellow we encountered earlier asks me to hold his PBR while he sneaks through the partition for a victory lap around the flames. “That was sick,” he says as I handed him back his can.
Loosely based on Slovenian traditions, Vinotok is a debauched and joyful event; locals drop their written grievances into boxes in town to be burned with the Grump. The bonfire was once open to anyone throwing on it anything else they wanted to burn—old skis, TV sets, etc.—but that was toned down for obvious reasons. Ultimately, the locals are at once saying goodbye to the green summer and embracing the white winter—and throwing a hell of a bash in the process.
“The party’s over,” I crack to the guy cleaning up beer bottles around the parking lot the next morning.
“Nah,” he replies. “It’s just getting started.”
Loosely based on Slovenian traditions, Vinotok is a debauched and joyful event; locals drop their written grievances into boxes in town to be burned with the Grump. The bonfire was once open to anyone throwing on it anything else they wanted to burn—old skis, TV sets, etc.—but that was toned down for obvious reasons. Ultimately, the locals are at once saying goodbye to the green summer and embracing the white winter—and throwing a hell of a bash in the process.
“The party’s over,” I crack to the guy cleaning up beer bottles around the parking lot the next morning.
“Nah,” he replies. “It’s just getting started.”
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