Documentarian of Aspen Snowmass shrines dies
Of the 150-plus shrines and more than 210 plaques and memorials hidden in the woods across the four mountains of Aspen Snowmass, David Wood knew them all.
Wood’s ongoing endeavor to catalog the history, narrative and appearance of every shrine on the mountains yielded an expansive website, a book (“Sanctuaries in the Snow: The Shrines and Memorials of Aspen/snowmass”) and a reputation as the unequivocal source on local shrines.
The part-time Snowmass Village resident died unexpectedly July 22 at age 77, his son David Wood Jr. confirmed last week.
A love of history and a natural curiosity likely drew him to the shrine endeavor that would define his presence in the Aspen Snowmass area over the two decades of winters he spent there as a part-time resident, his son said. (Wood spent the remainder of the year at his home in Des Moines, Iowa.)
“When he discovered some of these shrines, he saw it as something that should be documented. … It didn’t matter if it was someone famous, like Jimi Hendrix, or Jerry Garcia, or it could have been someone from the Aspen area, someone who is not famous, but also someone who is very well-known and loved,” he said.
Wood was always on the lookout for new shrines, which sometimes led to personal discoveries, too.
His research into a shrine on Aspen Mountain for Widespread Panic founding member Michael Houser helped spur a decade-plus of fandom for the band, the younger Wood said; as father and son, the two attended 122 Widespread Panic shows from 2008 to this June.
Then, too, perhaps there was an allure to the culture surrounding these monuments hidden in the woods, said Boone Schweitzer, a real estate agent who became instant friends with Wood when the family bought their home in Snowmass Village in 2001.
“The shrines were kind of — and still are — kind of a counter-culture. … They were kind of underground and had a mystique about them,” Schweitzer said. “They were secretive in a way, and nobody really disclosed where they were and
they were popping up all over the mountain. It was fascinating … but he found them.”
Although Wood did not publish the GPS coordinates to the shrines he documented, he was eager to share his knowledge on the mountain as an impromptu “tour guide,” said Anna Scott, an archivist at the Aspen Historical Society and friend.
“Through his passion of discovering it all, he became the expert. … It definitely tied him to this community,” Scott said.
Perhaps, when you look into the trees of Snowmass this winter, his picture and some memorabilia might appear there, too. It would be a fitting tribute, according to Scott from the historical society. “I think our local celebration should be the creation of a shrine for him,” she said.