News

Aug 04, 2023

Purgatory Resort to become a chain saw battleground

Gentlemen, start your chain saws. Starting Friday (Aug. 4), the competitors of Carve Wars will set up at Purgatory resort for a weekend of speed-carving competitions. And this isn’t any old, who can

Gentlemen, start your chain saws.

Starting Friday (Aug. 4), the competitors of Carve Wars will set up at Purgatory resort for a weekend of speed-carving competitions.

And this isn’t any old, who can chop down a tree the fastest kind of thing: These carvers use chain saws as their brushes and wood as the canvas, coaxing figures of all types from locally sourced logs.

Joe Wenal, founder of Rocky Mountain Carvers, the foundation of Carve Wars, said the carvers travel all over the country, competing at each stop, auctioning off their art and donating proceeds to local charities.

“It’s an auction-based competition, so every carve gets sold in a live auction,” he said, adding that the carver who finishes with the highest amount wins, along with awards for second, third and so on.

This year, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to La Plata County Search and Rescue, he said.

Wenal said this year features six carvers, the majority of whom are local to Colorado.

“We’re a speed-carving competition,” he said. “These are basically the best of the best carvers around. It’s a unique skill, to say the least.”

What: Carve Wars Chainsaw Art Competition.

When: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday carve; Saturday carve 9 a.m.-2:30 p.m., live auction at 3 p.m.; Sunday carve 9 a.m.-1:30 p.m., live auction 2 p.m.

Where: Purgatory Resort, 1 Skier Place.

More information: Visit https://tinyurl.com/msmbh8r9 or www.carvewars.com.

Wenal, who used to live in Rifle but now lives in Maine, is a chain saw artist as well. He got his start making log furniture, and while doing that, he met a man who was doing carving. He’s now been carving full time for almost a decade.

“I started doing it and it just came natural to me. And it became a full-time job for me,” he said. “Now I get booked all over the country.”

This weekend’s competition will begin at 9 a.m. Friday, and for the carvers, it’s nonstop: Wenal said they can carve a bear or an eagle in about an hour, so there will be plenty of pieces available to take home. Spectators can buy what the carvers make at the end of competition Saturday and Sunday when the pieces are auctioned off.

“That’s the beauty part of carvings; these guys will carve everything from 8 inches tall to 6 feet tall,” Wenal said. “We’ll have probably anywhere between 75 and 150 carvings.”

And while carving is a passion for Wenal, he said organizing Carve Wars serves a bigger purpose.

“Beyond I love what I do, I see that people just love it. The kids get into it, the people get into it,” he said. “You get to take a piece of Durango home; all these logs are local from Durango, and so instead of it turned into wood chips or firewood, it becomes a piece of art and people get to take it home and it lives on.”

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