Aspen’s Eric Gutnick pens first poetry book

Part-time Aspen resident Eric Gutnick has released his debut poetry collection, “Heyday of Trek and Travel,” a 72-page book that draws on a lifetime of journeys and decades of visits to town.

Gutnick and his wife, Mary, divide their time between Aspen and their homebase in Mendocino, Cali., three hours north of San Francisco. They purchased their Aspen residence in the late 1980s.

Prior to that, Gutnick first arrived in Aspen in 1966 as a senior in college in Ohio. 

“I just went on a lark. I had been learning how to ski, and I had my snowplow down pat. So I drove out with a friend for a week in March 1967 to see what skiing was like out West,” he said. 

Gutnick hadn’t grown up skiing. Before his first Aspen visit, he had only tried the sport a few times in Ohio. His second trip to Aspen was a four-week stay in 1970. 

“They had month-long passes back then,” he said.

He’s been coming back ever since.

He ultimately graduated from Cornell University’s medical school in Ithaca, New York, in 1971, then headed to San Francisco for a residency in obstetrics and gynecology.

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Spending his career as a medical doctor, Gutnick had never written poetry before. His new passion was ignited by a turn of events when his wife sent him a short travel rhyme on Valentine’s Day in 2025. The poem inspired him to pick up a legal pad and start jotting down funny and memorable moments from the road. 

By the end of the year, he had completed “Heyday of Trek and Travel.” 

Travel has broadened both his circle and his subject matter, he said. In 1980, during a visit to Phuket, Thailand, he met three Aspen couples. Some were ski instructors; a few were singers at the Crystal Palace. They all became lifelong friends. 

The book includes a poem about Phuket and the Aspen connections he made there. An excerpt from “Fresh Powdered Games” is as follows:

“Our cinderblock room at the beach on Phuket, / Way before earthquake and tsunami wrecked it, / Nothing to speak of, except for whom we met…”

Other pieces reflect on ski seasons, friends and places that left a mark. The collection reads like a travelogue in verse. It’s light in tone, rooted in specific times and places and threaded with Aspen connections that span more than five decades. 

Gutnick’s first book offers a personal look at a life spent embarking on adventures and returning to the mountains.