Summit County’s best budtender has worked at High Country Healing in Silverthorne for three years and has no plans of stopping.

Pele Marley was working at a Wendy’s on the Front Range in 2014, only able to work the drive-thru window thanks to a broken arm, when a friend asked if he wanted to try working at a dispensary.

“I was just like, ‘That’s the dream come true,'” Marley said. “‘Absolutely, I would love to take the time to try and take this head on.'”

Marley worked at other dispensaries, learning “essentially everything” he knows about growing marijuana. He said he visited High Country Healing and liked its atmosphere for around four years before he decided to drop off a resume.

“I was like, ‘Honestly, I’m ready to work for you guys,'” Marley said. “This seems like the perfect kind of environment.”

Marley said he moved to the mountains to snowboard and learn more about growing cannabis and its medical effects. Three years into working at High Country Healing, he says he has learned “so much more” about marijuana’s effects and found coworkers that feel like family.

Helping customers find the right product for their needs makes Marley love his job, he said. It can take a few tries to find the right fit for someone, he said, but once people find what works for them, they stick with it.

“They still get the same thing every single time because they know it works,” Marley said. “I feel like I helped guide you to that conclusion, and that makes me feel good.”

A good budtender needs to be genuine and empathetic, according to Marley. He tries to understand if a customer is dealing with some physical or emotional pain or stress so he can give them the best experience possible.

“Everyone has their own thing going on,” Marley said. “It’s like, how can you intertwine that in with your day-to-day work? … How can you make what you do at work more beneficial to what they have going on?”

High Country Healing won the Best Marijuana Dispensary and Accessories category in the 2025 Best of Summit contest, and Marley said its focus on healing helps make it special. 

“There’s a difference in just smoking to get high and smoking because it helps you alleviate some of the things so that you can get through your day to day,” Marley said.

Workers at High Country Healing care about staying on top of the latest information in the marijuana industry, Marley said, to help their customers the best they can.

For more information about High Country Healing, visit HighCountryHealing.com.

This story originally published in the Best Of Summit 2025 magazine.