“I’d been muttering about the idea of a men’s health club in Telluride for a while,” said David Holbrooke, filmmaker and director of the Original Thinkers festival.
A last minute decision in October 2025 ultimately sparked the inaugural meeting.
“About three days before Original Thinkers, I decided to put it in the program,” said Holbrooke, though he didn’t expect much of a turnout. “If a dozen men had shown up — yes, what a win.”
To Holbrooke’s surprise, 40 men showed up to the first meeting. For two hours, they shared about their health and their hopes for the Men’s Health Club.
“With that kind of attendance,” Holbrooke said, “the need was clear.”
Since then, the Telluride Men’s Health Club has met seven times, drawing between 12 and 40 men a session. Holbrooke, who specifies that he has no public health training, describes the club’s mission as men helping each other live healthy, vital lives. Most newcomers arrive by word of mouth.
The Telluride Men’s Health Club is an important initiative to combat the struggles that residents of mountain towns often face, starting with the separation between physical fitness and health. In communities where remaining active is valued, many men treat fitness as proof of good health and let medical checkups slide.
“A guy may be able to run up Ballard Mountain,” Holbrooke said, “but he also might be 50 and overdue for a colonoscopy.”
Three deaths in particular pushed him to act. Peter Hazard, longtime Telluride resident and enthusiastic outdoorsman, collapsed on an expert ski run in February 2025.
“Hazard was very physically fit,” said Emil Sante, San Miguel County coroner and longtime emergency responder. “But he did have some risk-factors: he was post-operative, and he suffered from cardiovascular disease.”
Ross Martin, a restaurant owner and prominent member of the community, passed away in his sleep in March of 2025.
“Ross was only in his 40s,” said Holbrooke, “with three young daughters, and he was gone.”
Sante noted the presence of cardiovascular disease in both men, and the possibly preventable nature of these losses: “It was very unfortunate that neither realized how expansive the disease was.”
Holbrooke also pointed to the 2021 death of his friend Daniel Wolf. Wolf, a rancher, art collector and beloved member of Ridgway’s community, passed suddenly of a heart attack at his home.
“Daniel was only in his early 60s,” recalled Holbrooke, “way too young to die.”
Those potentially avoidable deaths would become a major part of the vision behind the Men’s Health Club.
“Our mission is really to prevent preventable deaths,” said Holbrooke.
For Holbrooke and Sante, this means ensuring that men are regularly tested for their cardiovascular status, blood work, potential cancer and family history of disease.
“If you take care of these things,” Sante said, “you will live a longer life.”
The club is also meant to address something harder to screen for. In a phenomenon sometimes known as the “paradise paradox,” high-altitude communities across Colorado regularly record suicide rates two to three times higher than the national average. Men are particularly affected. In 2024, they accounted for 77% of all adult suicides in Colorado.
Sante discussed the complicated factors behind these statistics.
“It’s an accumulative combination of various things that makes it difficult for people to be in these mountain towns,” he explained.
A wide gap between rich and poor, ever-climbing housing costs and a growing commuter belt all contribute.
“For one, there is an enormous disparity of wealth in some places, particularly in the satellite communities around major towns,” he said.
San Miguel County ranks among the highest in the nation for income disparity ratios. Exorbitant housing prices mean that many people commute in from surrounding areas. These factors leave community members vulnerable to housing insecurity.
“All of this can lead to depression and other mental health difficulties,” said Sante.
The recent suicides of two young men in the West End are on Holbrooke’s mind when he talks about what he hopes to accomplish with the club.
“I didn’t know either of these men really well,” said Holbrooke. “But I did know that they mattered, and I wish I could have helped.”
Isolation also compounds the problem. Even in smaller mountain towns that are closer knit than cities, many men are lonely.
“Community support is sometimes looked over when it comes to longevity, but really it is so important,” Holbrooke said.
And physical isolation can create barriers to medical access. For many Southwest Coloradans, crucial health screenings can be hours away. Sharing information about those checkups is part of the club’s mission.
“A colonoscopy is already not a great sell, and the drive there doesn’t help,” Holbrooke added.
But hearing another man say that the procedure was simple, and worth the clean bill of health, can change the calculation.
“Everyone in these towns wants to be healthy,” Sante said.
Still, many men stop short of the attention necessary to truly change their wellness. It has to become a priority built into the day, he said. The club can help open men’s eyes to potential health dangers, as well as encourage an open mind towards professional help.
“The club really emphasizes that you have to be egoless,” he said. “If you need help, you should be unafraid to ask for it.”
At the end of the first Men’s Health Club meeting, Holbrooke asked the gathered men to think about someone who they had lost.
“I thought about Daniel,” said Holbrooke. “I thought, goddamn, I miss you, and how much more fun we had to have together, and how much you meant to me.”
He hopes that, eventually, similar initiatives can take root across Colorado.
Sante, who attends the meetings, said that they leave him energized and hopeful.
“When I leave these meetings, I am grateful that I am healthy, glad that we can share health advice and inspired to do well for myself,” he said.
Anyone interested in knowing more about the Telluride Men’s Health Club, may contact David Holbrooke at david@originalthinkers.com.
