Colorado Life Magazine March-April 2023 by Flagship Publishing

Monte Vista Front Range Spring Steamboat Botanic Park Five States of Colorado

MARCH/APRIL 2023

ISSUE NO. 66 MARCH/APRIL 2023

FEATURES CONTENTS

20 The Five States of Colorado

Colorado’s arbitrary rectangular borders encompass five regions that each have their own distinct culture. A new documentary film explores the life and history of each of these five different Colorados.

By Matt Masich

30 Monte Vista

The sky is full of sandhill cranes and the fields are full of potatoes in the San Luis Valley town of Monte Vista, which has views of the San Juan and Sangre de Cristo mountains.

Story by Leah M. Charney

Photographs by Joshua Hardin

44 Front Range Springtime

This stunning photo essay explores city, state and national parks in springtime on the Front Range, from Garden of the Gods to Rocky Mountain National Park.

By Matt Masich

54 Yampa River Botanic Park

Steamboat Springs is home to a botanic park housing more than 60 gardens along the Yampa River that provides a green and serene respite from the stress of daily life.

By Marion Kahn

Front Range Springtime, p 44

The Five States of Colorado, p 20

Monte Vista, p 30

ON THE COVER

Modern wind turbines turn behind a traditional windmill on the plains near Sterling. Story begins on page 20.

PHOTOGRAPH BY HAVEYPRO CINEMA

IN EVERY ISSUE

Dinosaur, p 63

Steamboat Springs p 54, 59

Frisco, p 60

p 58, 66

Fort Collins, p 20, 44

Rocky Mountain National Park, p 44

Sterling, p 20

Boulder p 13, 44

Denver, p 20

Lakewood, p 14

p 44

Morrison, p 44

Colorado

Trinidad, p 20

Burlington, 12

p 44

8 Editor’s Letter Observations on life in Colorado by Editor Matt Masich. 10 Mailbox

Letters, emails and posts from our subscribers.

12 Sluice Box

A Lakewood warehouse stores ice from Antarctica, a Burlington restaurant brings gourmet cuisine to the Plains and a Boulder man builds his life around garage sales.

18 Colorado Trivia

Test your knowledge of Colorado schools, from elementary to our state’s famed institutions of higher learning.

38 Kitchens

Lemon gives a special zest to this tasty selection of recipes.

42 Poetry

Poets from across the state celebrate the glory of the dawning new day with poems about sunrise.

58 Go. See. Do.

A statewide roundup of the best local festivals, events and daytrip ideas gives a plethora of opportunities for fun springtime adventures.

63 Colorado Camping

Echo Park Campground is a fun spot to camp in the heart of Dinosaur National Monument.

66 Top Take

In our editors’ choice photo, a peach orchard comes into brilliant bloom in the Western Slope town of Palisade.

Map by Raven Maps & Images

Above, from left: Sarah Chesnutt, Steamboat Ski Resort, Kerry Hargrove Page 4: Joshua Hardin, HaveyPro Cinema, Jeff Goldberg

Springs,

Alamosa, p 17

Monte Vista, p 30

Grand Junction, p 20

Palisade,

Littleton,

Trinidad Lake State Park

RAD Dirt Fest

West Spanish Peaks

From the Editorial Team

All the Colorados

COLORADO IS A rectangle – an admittedly goofy-looking shape for a state. But to me, our state’s goofy rectangularity has always been one of its greatest strengths: It is precisely because our borders were drawn in such an arbitrary manner, with absolutely zero regard for naturally existing boundaries, that we find such remarkable geographic and cultural diversity within Colorado.

Still, I’ve sometimes wondered how Colorado would be divided if our borders, you know, made any sense. I got my answer when the folks at Colorado Humanities got in touch with me to tell me about The Five States of Colorado, a new documentary film they produced in partnership with Denver-based HaveyPro Cinema.

The film, which premieres in Denver on April 6, posits that if one were to create borders based on culture, economy and geography, Colorado would be divided into five different states: Southern Colorado, Western Slope, Eastern Plains, Front Range and Metropolitan Denver. In our story on page 20, we dive into greater detail on the ideas the film puts forward about each of these regions.

In my experience traveling the state to write stories for Colorado Life, the “five Colorados” concept rings true. That each part of Colorado has its own unique character makes exploring the state that much more interesting and rewarding. At the same time, the differences between the regions can sometimes cause tension.

Such was the case in 2013, when citizens in five counties on the Eastern Plains, feeling excluded by their counterparts in Denver and the Front Range, voted to secede from Colorado to form a new state known as North Colorado. The vote was primarily symbolic – no secession actually took place – but it made it clear that some Coloradans saw the things that divide us as being more significant than the things that unite us.

That secession movement happened in the early years of Colorado Life, just one year after we launched the magazine. It made me aware of how keenly our citizens felt these regional divisions. It also made me realize just how important a role a publication like ours can play in promoting a more inclusive version of Colorado – one that celebrates all parts of the state equally.

We at Colorado Life strive to bring you stories of life in all parts of Colorado – mountains and plains, rural and urban. In this issue, you’ll find features on the agricultural San Luis Valley town of Monte Vista, the Yampa River Botanic Park in Steamboat Springs and springtime hikes at city, state and national parks on the Front Range. Our Top Take editor’s choice photo is of a peach orchard in the Western Slope town of Palisade, and our Sluice Box section includes stories from Boulder, Lakewood and Burlington.

There may be five different Colorados, in a certain sense, but Colorado just wouldn’t be Colorado without all of them.

Matt Masich Editor

editor@coloradolifemag.com

MARCH/APRIL 2023

Volume 12, Number 2

Publisher & Executive Editor

Chris Amundson

Associate Publisher

Angela Amundson

Editor

Matt Masich

Photo Editor

Joshua Hardin

Design

Edie Mann, Karlie Pape, Open Look Creative Team

Advertising Sales

Marilyn Koponen

Subscriptions

Lea Kayton, Katie Evans, Janice Sudbeck

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MAILBOX

10th still making history

Thanks for your excellent article “Winter Warriors” on the service during World War II of the 10th Mountain Division and the role of army veterans in the development of Colorado’s ski industry. As you pointed out, the division was deactivated following the war. Reactivated twice, the second time in 1985, the 10th Mountain Division was designated light infantry to tie it to its World War II purpose.

Since 2002, the division, headquartered at Fort Drum, New York, has been the most deployed regular army unit. Fighting in the mountains of Afghanistan recalled the division’s combat role in Italy at the end of World War II.

Robert Boeder Silverton

Forgotten freedom fighters

We enjoyed the January/February 2023 issue with the usual combination of interesting articles and dramatic photographs. The article about the 10th Mountain Division and Camp Hale neglected to mention one fascinating aspect of Camp Hale history – that is that from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, the CIA trained Tibetan freedom fighters at Camp Hale. The intent was to train Tibetans to resist the communist Chinese occupation of Tibet.

Camp Hale was selected as the training site because its physical conditions are like those in eastern Tibet. For years, the U.S. government did not acknowledge this clandestine activity. Subsequently, several articles and books were written about this program. Finally, in 2010, through the efforts of then-Sen. Mark Udall, a memorial plaque honoring the Tibetan freedom fighters was unveiled at Camp Hale.

Gene Reetz Denver

Remembering uncle’s service

I read the magazine cover to cover, starting with the editor’s letter (in case you wonder if anyone does read those). I don’t always intend to read everything, but I usually do –even articles about places I don’t think I’ll be visiting. I love the magazine and just gave a gift subscription to a friend who is retiring.

As to the note about a memory inspired

by a story: This month for me it was the story about the 10th Mountain Division, which reminded me of a video interview I did with my uncle who was in the 10th. He arrived after the D Series, which was a good thing because he had written his recommendation letters himself (a longer story – too long for a short note) and was not much of skier or a mountaineer. As mentioned in the article, as it turned out, skiing ended up not being a skill he needed. He was wounded on the same day as Bob Dole but recovered to become a good skier and to raise a family and be an asset in his community. He told me he felt he owed something to those who didn’t make it home. One thing that wasn’t mentioned in your story is that the Denver Public Library is the 10th Mountain Division repository where stories, videos and mementos from soldiers – including those from my uncle –are archived.

Vickie Johnson Glenwood Springs

For further reading

Readers will enjoy a book Uphill with the Ski Troops written by the late Walden resident Leo J. “Oley” Kohlman. It is Oley’s memoir of his almost four years in the U.S. Army. He was in K Company, 87th Regiment, 10th Mountain Division. Oley’s remembrance begins with his training at Fort Lewis, Washington, in 1942 and ends with the descent off Riva Ridge to the Po River Valley in 1945. He and his wife, Grace, were dear friends.

Jean P. Krause Gould

Absorbed every article

I just received the January/February 2023 issue today. I sat down and pretty much absorbed every article. I especially enjoyed Glenn Randall’s terrific winter photography (“Have an Ice Day”). I too, hiked into the Maroon Bells in the winter – spectacular solitude.

Of particular interest was “Winter Warriors.” My mother-in-law was a telephone operator at Camp Hale during this time. She relished telling stories about Camp Hale, the soldiers and the cold. I love Ophir (“Ophir Rides out the Slides”). I go through there two or three times a year but never during the winter. Now I must visit during the winter. So many other great articles, and the poetry is always a must read. Even the advertisements tell of places and events to go to. Keep up the great work.

Rod Martinez Grand Junction

Good month for snow stories

I own each issue of Colorado Life you have printed. I’m proud of that. Here is how I read each one: When I open the mailbox and find it there, I am very happy. I always hope it comes on a day that I don’t have a lot planned to do. First, I turn the pages and scan what is on each one. Then I start at the beginning. I read each page as I come to it. There may be something interesting on through the magazine, but I still read it in order.

The January/February 2023 issue was fun with all the stories and pictures of snow. This was a good month to run all of them. I like some things better than others,

but I still read them. I’m not a big fan of poetry, but each month I watch for one from Vaughn Neeld. She is from Cañon City. Even though I’m not big on poetry, I watch for anything she might have written because I know her.

I always like the recipes. Your pictures make everything look yummy. This month’s most interesting article was about the 10th Mountain Division. I read the whole thing. The article about the Broadmoor (“Inside the Broadmoor Bubble”) and the article about Ophir were both interesting, too.

Myrna Dooley Pueblo

It started at the gym

We are enjoying a relaxing Sunday at home with our January/February 2023 issue of Colorado Life. The gorgeous photograph of the frozen waves on Dream Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park featured in your “Have an Ice Day” article reminded us of a late December 2011 snowshoe hike in the park and coming across the tranquil beauty of a thoroughly iced-over Mills Lake. We Coloradans love our majestic white winters – what a wonderful pictorial collection of frozen state scenery.

As for reading the magazine, it all begins when one of us retrieves the latest issue from the mailbox and comes back inside to announce its much-coveted arrival. Then the fun begins – first the oohs and aahs of the cover photography and a quick guess as to where in the state the picture was taken. Then things diverge, depending on who gets to hog the magazine first. My husband follows your lead of paging through the whole issue, then doubles back to read the story that most appeals to him first.

I start by reading your “Editorial Team” letter to get a feel for how the edition will unfold; then I read all the heartwarming letters in the Mailbox section and check out all the beautiful photography before diving into articles from beginning to end. We usually save the trivia section for one last look together, taking turns to answer (big fans of Telluride, we both nailed the gondola answer for Allred’s). We often find ourselves further discussing an article or a feature that particularly interested us over dinner.

And to think this all began at our local gym, when a patron thoughtfully left behind his or her copy on the magazine rack for someone else to read. Now we have a growing collection of past issues and feature them on the hearth as holiday decor, showcasing our beautiful Colorado year-round.

Scott and Ria Hudson Parker

Missing ‘The Bee’

I was sorry to read that in your article on the Broadmoor, the pub The Golden Bee was not mentioned. I met my husband in The Springs, and we spent many a happy time there. In fact, I still have a few of the bee stickers. We will celebrate 50 years of marriage soon. I do know you could not cover all the gems of the Broadmoor. However, in my opinion, you missed a great one.

Linda Greenwood Perrysburg, Ohio

Editor’s reply: We’re also fond of The Golden Bee. Though we didn’t cover the famed pub in our recent Broadmoor story, we did publish a Sluice Box story about it in our November/December 2021 issue.

SEND US YOUR LETTERS

We can’t wait to receive more correspondence from our readers! Send us your letters and emails by April 1 to be published in the May/June 2023 issue. One lucky reader selected at random will receive a free 1-year subscription renewal. This issue’s winner is Myrna Dooley of Pueblo. Email editor@coloradolifemag. com or write by mail to PO Box 270130, Fort Collins, CO 80527. Thanks for reading and subscribing!

SLUICE BOX

NUGGETS AND OBSERVATIONS

ABOUT LIFE IN COLORADO

Room as an upscale restaurant in rural Burlington. The high-end menu items include the Tatiki Stack with blackened, seared ahi tuna with cherry blossom, togarashi, avocado cream and Tamara glaze.

Burlington restaurant brings big-time talent to small town

by LEAH M. CHARNEY

Burlington. Wray. Lamar. Each of these have a tight-knit community, deep-rooted farming and ranching history – and a burgeoning food scene.

At the Dish Room, an upscale farm-to table restaurant in Burlington, the steaks are hand cut, and both the bread and salad dressings are house-made. Kids’ menu items have names like “I Don’t Know” (burger and fries), “I’m Not Hungry” (mac and cheese) and “I Want Mom’s” (steak). The restaurant is located in the heart of a 3,200-person town that functions as the last outpost on Interstate 70 before hitting the Kansas border.

The Dish Room won a 2022 Tripadvisor Travelers’ Choice Best of the Best award, competing with restaurants across the United States. The award helps illustrate that big cities don’t have a monopoly on talented chefs.

Chef Ezra Gutierrez grew up in Burlington

before leaving to study culinary arts. His path included time at James Beard Award-nominated destinations and working around the world, including in New Zealand. Gutierrez came home, bringing great dining with him.

“There’s just no reason to not serve James Beard-level food in a rural community,” Gutierrez said, “where a guy next to you is sitting in cowboy boots and spurs. And you might have a judge or a lawyer sitting next to him.”

The name is an homage to labor most restaurateurs know well. In fact, many of the restaurant’s staff members started their careers washing dishes, like General Manager Carlos Hernandez Jr. As a high schooler, Hernandez worked with Guttierez at sister restaurant 4th & Main Downtown Grille in Wray, an hour north in Yuma County.

“They scared me into line-cooking with them,” Hernandez said about Gutierrez and his business partner, E.J. Carpenter.

Aside from recruiting old friends, the team

builds staffing from the ground up, like the recent high school graduate with no work experience who is learning to be a server. They don’t expect she’ll be a waitress forever, but they want to invest in her and in her future.

“The history of our region is to send away our best people,” said Carpenter, who wants to end that cycle by focusing on economic development in Eastern Plains communities. That’s exactly why Carpenter and Gutierrez’s next project is reviving the Cow Palace in Lamar, about two hours south in Prowers County.

The Cow Palace was a popular hotel and restaurant in the 1970s and 1980s. The men are working to restore its physical presence and reputation, in the hopes that, like The Dish Room, this endeavor will draw locals from miles around, as well as travelers making Lamar a destination, not just a fuel stop.

After all, as Gutierrez can attest, every town deserves world-class dining.

Owners Ezra Gutierrez and Jenna Zimbelman-Gutierrez launched The Dish

The Dish Room (both)

by TONY GLAROS

Boulder man amasses friends and treasures at yard sales

The old saw that proclaims one’s junk to be another’s treasure fits like a hand in glove on Joel Haertling. The longtime Boulder resident has become something of a local celebrity for his devotion to amassing selected ephemera, most of which he spies and buys at local yard sales around town. From there, he finds a home for it in his seven big-rig trailers, three garages, a cabin and his apartment.

Haertling, the former director of film programs at the main Boulder Public Library, is in the afterglow of a recent exhibit there called “To Have and to Hoard,” which displayed of some of his stash.

Some of his favorites from his collection: a gramophone, a French horn (he used to play) and a slide rule. Honorable mention: boxes of unopened Maxell cassette tapes, nostalgic glass Pepsi and 7-Up bottles, a red vest festooned with campaign buttons and a stack of bibles.

There’s no simple way to explain what motivates Haertling’s prolific collecting.

“Maybe what I’m trying to do is create an identity with all these things,” he said. Part of his collecting could stem from his hunter/gatherer instinct. And by making a seemingly endless stream of friendships at yard sales, he goes on, “I bring people together. What could be finer?”

Haertling’s former boss, Jaime Kopke, emphasizes the collection “resonates with people … it brings people joy to witness something another person cares so deeply about.”

Andrew Novick, a longtime friend who curated the exhibit, laughs as he recalls how venturing into Haertling’s trailers to take inventory can become an experience in and of itself.

“Sometimes, you’d need a crowbar to open the doors,” Novick said. “In the summer, wasps would come out. It was part spelunking, part archeological dig.” Novick

Boulder collector Joel Haertling is a fixture at local yard sales, where he has acquired enough stuff to fill several garages and trailers full of his beloved finds.

is raising funds to produce a documentary on Haertling.

Novick enjoys tagging along to garage sales and looking on as his pal hobnobs with fellow pickers. Haertling has built his own community around his passion for collecting.

“The real subtext,” Haertling said, “has

to do with what happens at garage sales. There’s an instant rapport with others that doesn’t exist otherwise.”

If he finds something that he knows somebody collects, Haertling will buy it and give it to them. He sees that as his ultimately legacy: bringing people together through things.

Sarah Chesnutt

Lakewood’s ancient ice is a time machine into Earth’s distant past

Curators at the National Science Foundation Ice Core Facility in Lakewood have to bundle up, as they routinely work at 10 degrees below zero in the exam room.

by MATT MASICH

Some of the oldest ice on earth resides in a massive freezer in Lakewood.

The ice started as snow that fell as much as 800,000 years ago before compacting into ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. Scientists studying Earth’s ancient climate drill into the ice sheets, extract cylindrical ice cores and send them to Lakewood’s National Science Foundation Ice Core Facility.

These ice cores hold the key to understanding how the planet’s climate changed in the past – and how that compares to how the climate is changing in the present.

The Ice Core Facility, located inside a nondescript warehouse surrounded by a high barbed-wire fence, houses 23,000 stainless steel cylinders that each contain a single meter-long ice core segment. The main storage area is kept at constant 36 degrees below zero. Thankfully, the cura-

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National Ice Core Lab/U.S. Geological Survey

tors who work at the facility don’t have to spend too much time in there. However, they do spend a fair amount of time working at 10 degrees below zero in the exam room, where they cut off samples of the ice cores to send to climate scientists to study. They wear down parkas and warm coveralls, with personnel rotating in and out every 30 minutes to an hour to keep from getting too cold.

Some of the most important ice cores come from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which is an incredible 2-miles deep. The deeper the ice, the older it is, with the age determined by annual layers that can be read like tree rings.

Researchers can learn a remarkable amount of information from the ice cores. The proportion of isotopes found in the water molecules tells them what the temperature was, while air pockets trapped for millennia in the ice reveal how much carbon dioxide and other gases were in the atmosphere.

Bird watchers are finding their perfect playground on the Pioneering Plains of northeast Colorado. The natural backdrop of Plains areas in Sterling and Logan County invites birders to journey off the beaten track in search of new encounters with a variety of species in an unspoiled environment.

Did you know there are more than 300 species of birds in this area?

An Ice Core Facility curator prepares ice cores that have come to Lakewood from Antarctica, where they were drilled from up to 2 miles below the ice sheet’s surface.

National Ice Core Lab/U.S. Geological Survey

This information provides essential context for studying our planet’s current climate, Ice Core Facility Assistant Curator Richard Nunn said.

“Ice cores tell the story of the natural variations in the Earth’s climate over the last 800,000 years,” Nunn said. “We now are seeing things changing at a rate that we haven’t seen in the ice core record.”

The freezers at the Ice Core Facility came online in 1993 and have been running continuously ever since. However, they are showing their age and run on R22 freon, which is no longer produced. By 2025, the facility expects to have a new freezer built to ensure the important ice core record remains frozen for scientists to study for decades to come.

The Ice Core Facility houses 23,000 stainless steel tubes, each containing a meter-long ice core section. The freezer is kept at 36 degrees below zero.

Author chronicles off-grid life in San Luis Valley

by LISA TRUESDALE

To research his new book Cheap Land Colorado: Off-Gridders at America’s Edge, author Ted Conover didn’t just visit the isolated prairie dwellers scattered throughout the San Luis Valley near Alamosa. That wasn’t immersive enough.

Colorado has some of the most expensive real estate in the country. Not so in the valley. So Conover, a Colorado native, purchased his own cheaper-than-cheap 5-acre lot and lived there in a trailer, on and off, for four years.

Volunteering with La Puente, a local social services organization, Conover assisted with rural outreach, and along the way, he learned something very important: While it’s true that some choose this

isolated lifestyle because they’re escaping their past, or hiding from something, others just want to live off the land. Or be left the heck alone.

Conover’s tales detail his interactions with the diverse group of people he encountered as he trucked throughout the area offering firewood, food or simply a bit of emotional support.

“It’s not hard to see a through line between the homesteaders of the 19th century and the people who move out there today,” he writes. “The land is no longer free, but it is some of the cheapest in the United States. In many respects, a person could live in this vast, empty space like the pioneers did on the Great Plains, except

you’d have a truck instead of a wagon and mule, and some solar panels, possibly even a weak cell-phone signal. And legal weed.” He has no regrets, even though his time in the valley kept him from his family in New York. “I was coming to the conclusion that my life out there was, emotionally speaking, usually good and often much better than that … ,” he writes.

Cheap Land Colorado: Off-Gridders at America’s Edge by Ted Conover

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TRIVIA SCHOOLS

Test your knowledge of education in Colorado.

BY BEN KITCHEN

GENERAL

The flagship campus of Colorado State University is located in Fort Collins, but there’s one other in-person CSU campus in the state, located in what city much farther south than Fort Collins?

Last year, Aurora Quest K-8 student Vikram Raju narrowly got second place in what national competition sponsored by the E.W. Scripps Company?

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Just off the University of Colorado campus in Boulder is Naropa University, whose founder followed the Tibetan branch of what major world religion? While the school does not follow any specific faith nowadays, they remain inspired by this religion.

The municipality of Minturn is home to a public school with an emphasis on giving students the opportunity to ski and snowboard, the only one of its kind in the country. As indicated by the school’s name, it is located just a few miles from what ski resort?

A K-8 school in Greeley, a K-5 school in Colorado Springs and two middle schools in Denver bear the name of what educator who died tragically in 1986’s Challenger disaster?

Gary C. Caskey/UPI

According to US News & World Report, what is the best university located in Colorado? It’s tied for 89th place with schools like Howard, Delaware and BYU.

a Colorado School of Mines

b. University of Colorado Boulder

c. University of Denver

7 Two of the following are real Colorado high schools and their mascots. Which one is made up?

a. Brush Beetdiggers

b. Clear Creek Golddiggers

c. Manitou Springs Gravediggers

8 Perhaps unsurprisingly, the seven largest school districts in the state by number of students are at least partially in the Denver metro area. The eighth-largest is centered around what other city?

a. Colorado Springs

b. Fort Collins

c. Greeley

11 Colorado is home to only one liberal arts college: Colorado College, located in Colorado Springs.

9 Colorado high schoolers have put up some impressive showings when it comes to national competitions, but which of the following has never been won by a Colorado high school team?

a. FIRST Robotics Championship

b. High School Football National Championship

c. National High School Mock Trial Championship

10 Before he became a threeterm governor, what man worked in the state legislature to establish a teachers’ college in southern Colorado? The school still exists, albeit under a different name, and it’s now a university.

a. Billy Adams

b. John Arthur Love

c. Richard Lamm

No peeking, answers on page 64.

DSST is a Denver-area consortium of eight middle schools and eight high schools. Every graduate of a DSST high school has been accepted to a college, university or postsecondary program.

13 Since 2019, the U.S. Air Force Academy has been the official service academy for two branches of the U.S. armed forces: the Air Force and the Space Force.

Cyclist Lance Armstrong and Elvira, Mistress of the Dark portrayer Cassandra Peterson briefly attended high school together at Palmer High School in Colorado Springs.

15 Fort Collins is home to Polaris Expeditionary Learning School, whose adventure program gives students the opportunity to go on excursions such as backpacking in the Grand Canyon or investigating deforestation in Peru.

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The Five States of

New film explores what divides and unites the distinct regions of our incredibly diverse state

STORY BY MATTHEW MASICH PHOTOGRAPHS BY HAVEYPRO CINEMA

THE STATE OF COLORADO is a giant rectangle, its right-angled borders the arbitrary creation of the U.S. Congress, which carved the state out of four other territories in 1861.

Yet within those straight lines, there are a number of geographic and cultural dividers. If we were to divide Colorado along these lines, we would have not one but five states: Southern Colorado, Western Slope, Eastern Plains, Front Range and Metropolitan Denver.

That is the premise of the new 90-minute documentary film The Five States of Colorado, a collaboration between the nonprofit Colorado Humanities and Denver’s HaveyPro Cinema. Colorado Life and Denver’s 9News are the film’s media sponsors.

The Five States of Colorado tells the life story of each region separately, drawing on interviews with locals and experts, all set to beautiful still and moving imagery from across the state.

Renowned Colorado author and historian Patty Limerick, a key consultant on the film, sees The Five States of Colorado as a way for people from different parts of Colo-

rado to better understand each other.

“Maybe things would work better if we got acquainted,” Limerick said. “Strangers need to be introduced if they’re going to do something together. And we might find out we thought we were strangers, but we actually have so much in common.”

Colorado Humanities plans to hold events where people from across the state watch the film and use it as a framework to discuss what it means to live in Colorado.

The Five States of Colorado premieres on April 6 at the Denver Botanic Gardens. It will be broadcast on 9News on April 15, 7-9 p.m. Further screenings at theaters across Colorado will be announced at a later date.

In the meantime, here is an introduction to the “five states” that the film explores.

SOUTHERN COLORADO

Southern Colorado encompasses the San Luis Valley, as well as Pueblo and the land on the plains south of the Arkansas River.

Before European contact, the San Luis Valley was the territory of the Utes, while Cheyennes, Arapahos and Comanches lived on the plains portion. Southern Colorado

METRO DENVER

FRONT RANGE

EASTERN PLAINS

SOUTHERN COLORADO

Denver Public Library

On opening spread: As viewed from near La Veta Pass, the Spanish Peaks are a major landmark of Southern Colorado. Clockwise from top left: The intersection of 16th and Larimer streets in Denver was bustling in 1884. The Front Range grew with military bases during World War II. The Ute people dominated the Western Slope until the arrival of miners. Coal mining was a huge part of the economy in Southern Colorado in the early 20th century. Drought and dust storms made life on the Eastern Plains difficult during the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s.

WESTERN SLOPE

HaveyPro Cinema

William Henry Jackson/National Park Service

Library of Congress (above); Denver Public Library (below)

nominally became part of the Spanish Empire in 1598, when explorer Juan de Oñate claimed it in the name of King Phillip II.

When Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821, it opened up trade with the United States along the Santa Fe Trail. The wagon route passed along the Arkansas River, which then marked the border between the two nations. Fur-trade outpost Bent’s Old Fort opened in 1833 on the American side of the Arkansas, becoming a hub of interaction between whites and native people.

After Mexico lost the Mexican-American War, it ceded huge chunks of land in the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, including Southern Colorado. The Hispanos living in the region were now American.

“If you talk to residents of Southern Colorado who’ve been there for generations,” says History Colorado Executive Director Dawn DiPrince in the film, “you may often hear them say, ‘I didn’t cross the border – the border crossed me.’”

In the late 1800s, coal and steel production became huge industries in Southern Colorado. Some 15,000 people worked for Colorado Fuel & Iron, or CF&I, whose operations spread throughout the region, including a massive steel mill in Pueblo.

Immigrants from many nations worked in CF&I’s mines and mills. Work conditions could be dangerous and unfair, prompting employees to unionize to demand improvements. CF&I refused to negotiate with the union, which led to a series of confrontations known as the Colorado Coalfield War. The

culmination of the conflict was the Ludlow Massacre, in which the Colorado National Guard opened fire on striking miners and their families, and set fire to their tent village. At least 19 people were killed.

Over the course of the 20th century, coal and steel production declined in Southern Colorado. Today, the region is largely agricultural, from the cultivation of melons in Rocky Ford to potatoes in the San Luis Valley.

WESTERN SLOPE

The Western Slope consists of most of Colorado west of the Front Range.

Ancestral Puebloans built the state’s first permanent settlements at Mesa Verde; later, the Utes came to dominate the region. That would change when the discovery of gold and silver brought an influx of miners and settlers.

A series of treaties and agreements forced the Utes into ever smaller territories. Open conflict broke out in 1879, when Utes fought illegally encroaching U.S. Army troops at the Battle of Milk Creek and killed federal Indian Agent Nathan Meeker. This led to most of the tribe being expelled to Utah, though some bands remain in Colorado on the small Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute reservations.

Mining boomtowns sprang up throughout the Rockies. Silver mining, in particular, made towns like Leadville, Creede and Aspen incredibly prosperous. But the boom went bust in 1893, when the price of silver crashed. Some boomtowns were aban-

METRO DENVER

FRONT RANGE

EASTERN PLAINS

SOUTHERN COLORADO

Clockwise from top left: Housing developments sprout up along curlicue streets in Highlands Ranch, part of ever-expanding Metropolitan Denver. A rural road stretches into the distance near Ted’s Place in the northern Front Range. Children go hiking amid dramatic rock formations in Colorado National Monument, near Grand Junction on the Western Slope. As viewed from Lobos Bridge, the Rio Grande flows through Conejos and Costilla counties with Blanca Peak and the Sangre de Cristos looming across the San Luis Valley in Southern Colorado. A traditional windmill coexists with modern power-generating wind turbines on the Eastern Plains near Sterling.

WESTERN SLOPE

doned, while others struggled on.

Resource booms continued in the 20th century. In the early 1980s, Exxon launched its massive Colony Oil Shale Project near Parachute. The company poured money into the area, making Grand Junction and nearby towns thrive. Exxon’s plans called for operations to continue for decades. But on May 2, 1982 – a day remembered on the Western Slope as “Black Sunday” – the company suddenly announced the end of the oil shale project and the layoff of 2,300 employees. It was an economic blow that took the region a decade or more to recover from.

In recent decades, tourism has become a more reliable source of prosperity for many Western Slope communities. Drawn by scenic beauty and outdoor recreation opportunities, many people have relocated to mountain towns – a trend that has picked up steam with the rise of remote working.

A constant on the Western Slope has been the importance of rivers.

“Western Slopers don’t necessarily think of themselves as being from a county, but they think of themselves as being from a river basin,” longtime Glenwood Springs attorney and current Denver Water CEO Jim Lochhead says in the film. “So, you talk to somebody in Glenwood Springs or Carbondale, and they say, ‘I’m from the Roaring Fork Valley.’ You talk to somebody in Steamboat or Craig and they say, ‘I’m from the Yampa Valley.’”

The Colorado River is especially important – and not just to those on the Western

supply comes from water diverted from the Colorado River Basin.

EASTERN PLAINS

As its name suggests, the Eastern Plains includes the plains east of the Front Range and north of the Arkansas River.

This region was the historic home of the Cheyennes and Arapahos. However, the 1858 discovery of gold prompted tens of thousands of miners and settlers to flood across their land.

On Nov. 29, 1864, Colorado volunteer cavalry led by Col. John Chivington attacked the peaceful village of Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle, killing at least 230, mostly women, children and elders. Known as the Sand Creek Massacre, this event sparked an all-out war on the Eastern Plains that ended with the Cheyennes and Arapahos being relocated to reservations in Oklahoma, Wyoming and Montana.

In the late 1860s, Texas cattlemen Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving led some of the earliest cattle drives through the Eastern Plains. Open-range cattle ranching flourished for a few years, until the arrival of farmers and fences. Wheat became a primary crop, with sugar beets becoming prominent around the turn of the 20th century.

“It’s a beautiful place to live, but it can be a difficult place to live,” says Jim Yahn of Sterling, manager of the North Sterling Irrigation District. Summertime heat is intense, and hail storms can wipe out a season’s crops

Slope: Fully half of Denver Water’s

METRO DENVER FRONT RANGE

EASTERN PLAINS

SOUTHERN COLORADO

Clockwise from top left: Vendors take over the street near Denver’s Civic Center Park during the annual Taste of Colorado festival. People stroll past the shops on the Pearl Street Mall in the Front Range city of Boulder. A rancher diverts water to irrigate a field in the Yampa River Valley near Steamboat Springs on the Western Slope. In Southern Colorado, Hispano settlers built the adobe San Acacio Mission Church near San Luis in the 1860s. Farmer Aaron Sprague and his son assess their crops in the Republican River Basin of the Eastern Plains.

WESTERN SLOPE

METROPOLITAN DENVER

Distinct from the Front Range, Metropolitan Denver is the city itself and its suburbs. Founded in 1858 by gold seekers, Denver quickly became the center of politics and commerce in Colorado and the Rocky Mountain West. A key to the city’s growth has been its status as a hub of trade and transportation – something that was threatened when the transcontinental bypassed Denver, going through Wyoming instead. Local businesses financed construction of the Denver & Pacific Railroad to connect to it, knowing how important that link to the rest of the country was.

in five minutes. Winters can be brutally cold and windy. “It takes an optimistic person and a really strong-willed and independent person to push through all those things.”

Many of the early settlers of the Eastern Plains were Germans from Russia who immigrated here to grow sugar beets. More recently, some communities have seen growth with the arrival of immigrants and refugees from Latin America and Africa who find jobs at meat-packing plants and other agricultural work.

While many families in Eastern Plains communities have lived there for generations, changes in agriculture have led some of the younger generations to migrate elsewhere. Still, many remain.

“People really have roots that go deep into both the soil and into the small communities that are part of our Eastern Plains,” Yahn said. “When you’re in agriculture every day, you see that water in the summertime flowing by in a ditch, and you know that’s coming from a reservoir that was built 100 years ago, it gives you a deep sense of appreciation for those people that worked so hard and so diligently, and has sustained the area for such a long time.”

FRONT RANGE

The Front Range is the heavily populated area that hugs the Rocky Mountain foothills from Colorado Springs to Fort Collins – not including the immediate Denver metro area.

Often called the I-25 corridor, this area has been a corridor for travel and commerce since humans first came here more than 20,000 years ago. It became a neutral meeting ground and passageway for native tribes.

Mountain men began frequenting the Front Range in the 1820s, and in the 1830s, four fur-trading forts were built along the

South Platte River. The 1858 gold rush truly transformed the region with an influx of settlers, who helped provide food and equipment for the mining industry, which remained lucrative for most of the 19th century.

“The miners lived up in Cripple Creek,” Colorado Springs Pioneer Museum Curator of History Leah Davis Witherow says, “but the gold ran downhill to Colorado Springs.”

Colorado Springs was founded by Gen. William Jackson Palmer, who also founded the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. Palmer conceived of the city as a health resort for people suffering from tuberculosis. From those beginnings, Colorado Springs has evolved into a major military town. Some 75,000 service members live in or around the city in El Paso County. Fort Carson is the second-largest employer in the entire state.

Many choose to live in the region because it is close to both the mountains and Denver.

“I don’t want to be in a big city, but I have access to the big-city assets when I need them,” says Dawn Thilmany, a professor at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. “So Denver is a big, bad wolf, but we also understand we get some of our businesses and our people, because we’re an hour from it.”

The steady growth of Front Range communities has seen cities expand onto what had been agricultural land. Between 2010 and 2020, Colorado’s population increased by nearly 750,000 people, and the Front Range accounted for the vast majority of that growth.

The availability of water will be a key factor in determining how much more cities on the Front Range can grow. Most communities get their water from diversions from the Western Slope, but declining flow in those rivers could hamper further expansion.

Denver’s population has been diverse from its earliest days. A significant number of Chinese immigrants, who had first come to the West as railroad laborers, settled on Wazee Street, creating Denver’s Chinatown. African-Americans established a community in the Five Points neighborhood.

The 1880s silver boom in the mountains also made Denver prosper, fueling a population boom. Between 1880 and 1890, the city grew from 35,000 to 106,000 residents. The optimism that pervaded Denver was dampened by the 1893 silver crash, but spirits were buoyed by the opening of the State Capitol Building in 1894 and the arrival of the National Western Stock Show in 1896.

Denver experienced another boom – oil, this time – in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was during this period that most of the skyscrapers that dominate the city’s skyline were built. The population declined when the boom ended, but it went back up in the 1990s, when the city shifted to a steadier economy based on high technology, transportation – Denver International Airport opened in 1995 – and tourism.

The city’s population exploded once more between 2010 and 2020, when it grew from 600,158 to 717,630 residents in Denver proper. The entire Denver metropolitan area has a population approaching 3 million. Having shed much of its national reputation as a “cow town,” Denver became one of the most desirable places for people nationwide to relocate.

Metropolitan Denver is also a destination for many immigrants from Latin America, Asia and Africa. In Aurora, some 20 percent of residents are foreign-born.

“We are where we are because of our history,” former Denver City Councilwoman Happy Haynes says at the film’s conclusion, “and we should understand all of it – the good, the bad and the ugly – because that helps shape the path for the future. What binds us and what divides us? As our state continues to grow, we have to do it together.”

Jim Havey shoots footage for The Five States of Colorado in front of the Trinidad sign at Simpson’s Rest above Trinidad. Havey’s company produced the documentary.

In the agricultural heart of the largest alpine valley in the world is a town that’s gone to the birds

Monte Vista

story by LEAH M. CHARNEY photographs by JOSHUA HARDIN

IN THE SAN LUIS VALLEY

town of Monte Vista, the fields are full of potatoes – and the skies are full of cranes.

Twenty thousand greater sandhills swoop through the valley each spring. Each bird looks like an arrowhead as the flock moves in an undulating line of V-shaped patterns across the sky. The surrounding mountains force their migration route into this high mountain basin, creating both a birder’s paradise and the perfect excuse for a festival honoring the fowl.

Evenings offer some of the most spectacular sights of the cranes, said Karla Shriver, a former Rio Grande County commissioner and potato farmer. She has seen as many as 500 greater sandhill cranes fly down to roost on the ranch where she lives northeast of Monte Vista.

Rio Rancho, former home of business-

man and philanthropist Ralph Outcalt, perfectly sums up life in this part of the valley: cranes, community and crops.

A successful tractor salesman, businessman and philanthropist, Outcalt, who lived to be 101 and credited green chile for his long life, instructed his estate to directly reinvest in the valley. Shriver is now a trustee of the Outcalt Foundation, which distributes funds to college scholarships, veterans groups and senior centers.

When it comes to crops, Monte Vista is the center of agricultural action in the San Luis Valley – the town of 4,000 residents has both a John Deere and a Kubota tractor dealership. The barley Coors uses to make its beer is grown here. But of all the agri-businesses in Monte Vista, potatoes are the biggest.

“I feel like everyone is somehow intertwined with potatoes even if they don’t

think they are,” said Jessica Crowther, assistant director of the Colorado Potato Administrative Council.

Most of the potatoes grown in Colorado come from this region, about 50,000 acres in all. Colorado is second only to Idaho in growing the most “fresh market” potatoes purchased directly by consumers. After all, the average American eats about 114 pounds of potatoes per year.

Monte Vista hosts the San Luis Valley Potato Festival each September, but each March it goes gaga for the greater sandhill crane. During the Monte Vista Crane Festival, it isn’t just the skies – even the streets downtown are lined with metal cranes decorated by local artists and nonprofits.

The Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge was the first national wildlife refuge in Colorado when it was established in

1952. Today, it spans nearly 15,000 acres, including fields where small grains are grown specifically for the birds to feast upon when they migrate north.

The Monte Vista Crane Festival has celebrated these red-crested creatures every March for the past four decades. About 10,000 cranes rest and refuel on this refuge and another 10,000 on lands and fields nearby, like Rio Rancho. The cacophony sounds a bit like a cocktail party, but one where only the birds are guests.

“Gar-oo-oo,” a bird calls out upon landing, folding up its 6-foot wingspan. Perhaps it’s a greeting or even a declaration: I’m here. Let’s eat.

Buses ferry festival attendees on sunrise and sunset crane tours. In between, people shop the vendors at the Crane, Craft and Home Expo at the new Outcalt Event and Conference Center at Monte Vista’s

Ski Hi Complex.

Ten minutes east of the refuge, Worth the Drive Family Bakery serves up snacks to those watching the cranes come and go. Both the bakery and Allen and Irene Graber’s home next door are 100 percent solar-powered and are not connected to the power grid – an important tenet of their Amish faith. The family is representative of the growing community of 300 or so Amish who first started moving to the San Luis Valley two decades ago.

Their bakery is busiest on Saturdays, when folks spill out into the parking lot while enjoying their goodies. By 1 p.m., the jalapeño cheese bread is already sold out; only four flavors of the fried pies typically available in a dozen or so varieties remain. Jim Clare snags a blackberry hand pie before climbing into his truck to travel past fields irrigated with center-pivot

sprinklers and back into town to connect with fellow antique tractor enthusiasts at a meeting of the San Luis Valley Antique Iron Club.

Clare, who was born and raised in Monte Vista, spent 37 years with the San Luis Valley Rural Electric Cooperative. As he slows down to go around an Amish buggy, he points to shiny silver dampers on the power lines near the refuge. These globes make the lines more visible to the cranes and other birds, like raptors, whether they’re just passing through or live here full-time.

Rusticated stone buildings line the streets of downtown Monte Vista, a national historic district. Hand-quarried from nearby rock cliffs enjoyed by mountain bikers and hunters today, the buildings cut a handsome figure, which is saying a lot in a place whose name is Spanish for “mountain view.”

On the opening spread, a crane comes in for a landing at the Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge. Ubaldo Aguilera Sr. owns Baldo’s Mexican Restaurant in downtown Monte Vista. John Patterson shows off one of his sculptural creations. Former Rio Grande County Commissioner Karla Shriver has helped drive the renovation of the Ski Hi Complex, which hosts rodeos and events.

A mural on First Avenue and Washington Street celebrates Monte Vista’s beloved cranes. Along U.S. Highway 160 is the crane sculpture known as “Cooper the Whooper,” which artist John Patterson made out of old farm tools and metal scrap. On the next page, a crane dances at Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge while other cranes take flight with the San Juan Mountains behind them.

Lying just south of the Rio Grande, Monte Vista has a 7,664-foot elevation and a view of two mountain ranges: the San Juans to the west and, further away across the valley, the jagged Sangre de Cristos, known by locals as the “East Range.” The city lies on the west side of the San Luis Valley, which at 122 miles long and 74 miles wide is the largest alpine valley in the world.

The welcoming community and ample recreation options have drawn young families to town in recent years. Hiking, four-wheeling, fishing and horseback riding are enjoyed by locals and newcomers alike. Climbers congregate in Rock Creek Canyon, where mountain bikers love the 40-acre Bishop Rock Area, practically a nature-made skatepark.

Downtown’s streets are dotted with small business gems like the Art Deco-style Mon-

te Villa Hotel, the quirky Rain Brews coffee shop and craft brew bar and an outpost of Quincy’s Steaks & Spirits, where, as one resident described, “you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.” That means choosing from two menu items: filet mignon Sunday through Thursday and prime rib on Friday and Saturday nights.

But when people come into town for the crane festival, Dianna Paulson at the Washtub Laundromat tells them one thing: “I hope you like Mexican food.”

There are indeed more than a half dozen Mexican restaurants in Monte Vista, like Baldo’s Mexican Restaurant, where the Aguilera family is in constant motion. At any point, one or all of Ubaldo and Maria Aguilera’s seven children might be working. Cynthia answers the seemingly non-stop phone calls in between seating people, while

her partner, Taylor, waits on a table of seven and brother Ubaldo “Baldo” Jr. takes food to one table before bussing another.

As a teenager, Baldo Jr. and his friends would load a couch into the back of a truck to watch films in comfort at the Star Drive In. A Monte Vista staple since 1955, today the Star Drive In is one of only eight remaining drive-in theaters in Colorado. It’s the only one with an attached motel, the Movie Manor, where motel guests can also watch the show, but from the comfort of a bed while sound is piped in through special, in-room speakers.

Farm fields lie across the highway from the Movie Manor. Agriculture is everywhere, and most families in Monte Vista have some connection to it. However, the number of families farming has shifted over time, as some farmers have grown bigger by

MONTE VISTA CRANE FESTIVAL

To commemorate its 40th anniversary, the 2023 Monte Vista Crane Festival, March 10-12, includes photography classes, lectures and tours, plus a 5K fun run and the premiere of a film about crane conservation. Festival events occur in town and surrounding areas such as Ski Hi Complex, the Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge and Rio Grande National Forest, plus the exclusive showing of the Wings over Water film at the historic Vali 3 Theatre. The Crane, Craft, Nature & Home Expo is also held at Ski Hi Complex, where jewelry, art, quilts and fiberwork, fine foods and other handmade items are sold by local and regional vendors.

buying out their neighbors.

John Patterson’s family sold their fourth-generation farm to a neighbor in 2000, but he continued to plant and harvest for others until his death this past December. Aside from potatoes, he also made mixed media sculptures from metal farm scrap, like rusted spigots painted a bold blue or a potato harvester sprocket turned an obstinate orange.

He started “playing Tinker Toys” with his welder when he was 21, after he saw sculptures in galleries in Aspen and Taos and realized he could do the same. Patterson sold work at the crane festival every year and made several thousand creations over his lifetime, including downtown Monte Vista’s bike racks, each made of recycled materials plucked from farms and ranches from across the valley.

His most recognizable piece might be Cooper the Whooper, a decades-old public art piece installed on US-160. The crane

statue was named by area grade schoolers, and the city paid Patterson in the form of a two-year membership to the Monte Vista Golf Club.

“It did not help my golf game,” he often said with a wink and a belly laugh.

Another area artform are the rock-art glyphs located southwest of town.

According to the Bureau of Land Management’s Bryan Flynn, an archaeologist and tribal liaison, these include the first archaeological site formally recorded in Rio Grande County. The area has no signage and isn’t named on a map; that the petroglyphs exist at all is not heavily advertised, in large part to keep them protected.

You can see places where people have shot at the walls and rock art panels, said Price Heiner, an archaeologist with the Rio Grande National Forest.

Depictions of plants, animals and religious iconography are located in three areas

spanning three different time frames. BLM monitors these and other sites spread across nearly 500,000 acres in the Rio Grande basin. The Ute, Jicarilla Apache and Puebloans left their mark here, as did early Hispano settlers who came in the 1840s and 1850s after Mexico began issuing land grants.

The lush grassland they grazed their sheep on – the reason Pueblo tribes still call this area “The Medicine Basket” – began to give way to family farms in the 1860s, and the first potatoes were planted in 1875.

Today, several farms and ranches near Monte Vista are returning to the wild, like Rio Rancho, whose 320 acres were put under conservation easement by Ralph Outcalt. The only active crops grown on Outcalt’s land are barley fields, planted specifically for the cranes. His bird-loving legacy continues on, both here at Rio Rancho and valley wide.

Especially in March when the cranes come to roost.

A rainbow appears over the corner of First Avenue and Adams Street after a thunderstorm. Many of the buildings in downtown Monte Vista are made of stone hewn by hand from nearby cliffs.

HOMETOWN FUN

Events in Monte Vista, Colorado

Ski-Hi Stampede Concert and Rodeo

Rotary Outdoor Gun Show • Potato Festival Brothers Keepers Motorcycle Club’s “Thunder in the Valley” PLUS!

Mountain Film on Tour • Moonlight Madness

South-Central Colorado Micro Brew Fest & Car Show

San Luis Valley Indigenous Art Market

Crane Festival • Holiday Bazaar • Cinco de Mayo

MONTE VISTA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

947 1st Ave • Monte Vista, CO 81144 719-852-2731 • montevistachamber.org

EVENT PARTNERS

COLORADO GATORS

ZEST lifefor

Lemon puts a zing in springtime dishes

recipes and photographs by DANELLE

MCCOLLUM

SPRING IS THE TIME for light, fresh foods – and nothing says light and fresh like the irresistibly zesty taste of lemons. Tart and refreshing, lemons are the magic ingredient in everything from cookies, to soup, to salmon.

Lemon Crinkle Cookies

These soft and chewy cookies, bursting with fresh lemon flavor, have spring written all over them.

Spray baking sheets with nonstick cooking spray and set aside. In large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Mix in vanilla extract, egg, lemon zest and juice. Scrape sides and mix again. Stir in all dry ingredients slowly until just combined, excluding the powdered sugar. Scrape sides of bowl and mix again briefly. Refrigerate dough for one hour. Pour powdered sugar onto large plate. Roll heaping teaspoon of dough into ball and roll in powdered sugar. Place on baking sheet and repeat with remaining dough. Bake for at 350° for 9-11 minutes or until cookies are cracked on top. Remove from oven and cool cookies about 3 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

1 Tbsp lemon zest

2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 ½ cups flour

1/2 cup powdered sugar

Makes 24 cookies

Quinoa Chickpea Soup with Lemon

This light, healthy soup is loaded with flavor and ready to eat in just 20 minutes. Great for lunch or dinner, it freezes beautifully and only takes a few minutes to heat up in the microwave.

In large pot or Dutch oven, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add onions and saute until tender, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and saute a few minutes more. Stir in quinoa, chickpeas and broth. Bring to boil, then reduce heat to medium low. Simmer, uncovered, for about 15 minutes, or until quinoa is tender. Stir in parsley and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Serve topped with grated Parmesan cheese.

1-2 tsp olive oil

1/2 cup diced onion

2-3 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup quinoa

2 15 oz cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed

8 cups chicken or vegetable broth

1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley

3 Tbsp lemon juice

Salt and pepper, to taste

Grated Parmesan cheese, for garnish

Ser ves 6

Brown Sugar Lemon Garlic Butter Salmon

This sweet and spicy salmon is coated in a buttery lemon, garlic and brown sugar glaze, with a hint of cayenne for added kick. The salmon is brushed with the sauce and cooked, then basted with additional sauce and broiled for a beautifully glazed finished dish.

Line large baking sheet with foil or parchment paper. Spray with nonstick cooking spray. Season salmon with salt and pepper and arrange on prepared baking sheet. Combine butter, sugar, lemon juice, garlic and spices in medium saucepan. Bring to boil over medium-high heat and boil for 2-3 minutes, or until slightly thickened. Brush salmon with half of sauce. Bake at 400° for 10-15 minutes, or until fish flakes easily with a fork. While salmon cooks, continue to simmer remaining sauce. Remove salmon from oven and turn on broiler. Brush salmon with remaining sauce and place under the broiler until slightly caramelized, about 3-5 minutes. Garnish with fresh parsley and lemon slices, if desired.

2 lbs salmon fillets

Salt and pepper, to taste

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 Tbsp lemon juice

2-3 cloves garlic

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1/4 tsp paprika

Fresh chopped parsley and lemon slices, for garnish

Ser ves 6

What’s in Your Recipe Box?

The editors are interested in featuring your favorite family recipes. Send your recipes (and memories inspired by your recipes) to editor@coloradolifemag.com or mail to Colorado Life, PO Box 270130, Fort Collins, CO 80527.

COLORADO POETRY

OUR STATE THROUGH THE WORDS OF OUR POETS

After the long, dark night, the world is born anew with each sunrise. A powerful symbol of hope and renewal, the dawn glows brightly in these works by our Colorado poets.

Sunrise Sparkles

Cher Tom, Palisade

Colorado’s Bookcliff canyons cradle sunrise colors

Until sunlight breaks over the rocks

Scraping grey streaks of dawn into gold bursts of light.

High in the mountains, the sunrise tiptoes in

Softly painting green mossy creek banks with glitter

While the tree-tops sway with the weight of morning birds

Fluffing damp feathers in the coming sunshine.

At my window the warmth of spring swirls

Like the tea in my cup

Chasing winter away with the sunrise.

The Summit in First Light

Ken Martin, Estes

Park

A sharp north wind carries the scent of juniper with a twist of limber pine

Horseshoe’s high rounded summit glows in crimson and lavender and seems to buzz with expectancy

The sun’s first rays are pagan, powerful a burst of raw energy from a fiery eye ablaze on a far-off horizon

Standing in the fierce light I lift my arms and open wide to the bright promise of a new day

Sunrise

J. Craig Hill, Grand

Junction

Sunrise is the stepchild of astronomical events.

Sunsets get the most attention; Grace the most magazine covers; Inspire the most poems, paintings and songs.

Sunsets are for sharing: With friends and co-workers in the rooftop bar at the Hotel Maverick; With the family, starting a fire, in a campsite at Sunset Point; With total strangers in the evening commute on I-25 south of Pueblo.

Sunrises are best enjoyed alone: Wrapped in a blanket on my deck

On a cold December morning While the steam from my coffee

Meets my vaporized breath

And the sky above Mount Garfield

Turns from black to gray to wow.

Glenn Randall

succession

Trish Hopkinson, Palisade

each locomotive presents personality – possibility

passing parallel two make eyes at each other

rumble double animated tags wave in spray-paint

horns echo off mesa cliffs friction drag

’tween car & rail trailing into canyon reverb

sunrise soundtrack lavender & rose fade blue to the setting moon

Welcoming Sunrise

Howard Waller, Littleton

Heading west toward the mountains has always been a blessing. The breaking sun bathes my back window as I reach the foothills. Sparkles dance to the side on snow that found a mountain last night. The warmth of the sunrise drives smiles throughout the car.

Sunrise in Colorado is a special event each day, But as you head toward the ski slopes, One finds a special blessing as the sun joins your journey, Like a ski partner that enriches your day.

Unloading the sleds on Rabbit Ears Pass, Greeted by the sunrise that opens the adventure, Sneaking up over the mountains, To find you waiting below.

Colorado sunrise like no other, It adds color to the portrait of snow, Traverses the state from east to west, And like its people, it showers us with beauty, always welcoming.

Sunrise on the Short Grass Prairie

Dan Guenther, Morrison

An hour before first light you start driving east along an old gravel track, a remnant of the ancient path used by bison tramping toward a saltlick in the foothills, your destination a campsite from years ago where you visited tepee rings left by an unknown tribe wandering up from the plains, the morning sunrise illuminating all the vestiges left behind.

Daybreak finds you at a crossroads near a cluster of remote farm buildings on the verge of collapse, and the past merges with the present as shovel-toothed earthmovers widen the county road, your passage forward detoured by excavators stripping away prairie grass and sedges like the extinct mastodons that once fed here during the last of the ice ages.

DO YOU WRITE poems about Colorado? The next poetry theme is “Gardens” for May/June 2023, deadline April 1; the theme is “On the Road” for July/August 2023, deadline June 1. Send your poems, including your mailing address, to poetry@ coloradolifemag.com or to Colorado Life, PO Box 270130, Fort Collins, CO 80527.

The sun rises over the San Juan Mountains as viewed from high atop Mount Wilson. The first rays of the breaking dawn light up the sky above Browns Park National Wildlife Refuge.

Kerry Hargrove

A Walk in

Elk graze in Rocky Mountain National Park’s Beaver Meadows with Longs Peak rising in the distance.

Erik Stensland

the Park

Green leaves and red rocks greet springtime visitors to city, state and national parks on the Front Range

by MATT MASICH

The Flatirons rise above a meadow with lupine wildflowers in Boulder’s Chautauqua Park.

Glenn Randall

THE FRONT RANGE is a place of transition, where the mountains meet the plains. Spring is a time of transition, easing winter into summer. Given that, it’s no surprise that spring on the Front Range can be a mixed bag – a time when one can find both blizzards and blooming flowers.

Some of the best places to experience the full spectrum of spring experiences are the many beautiful parks along the Front Range, from Colorado Springs’ city-owned park Garden of the Gods, to places like Lory and Roxborough state parks, to Rocky Mountain National Park.

There’s good hiking at Garden of the Gods no matter the weather. The park has more than 20 miles of interconnected hiking trails, allowing visitors to choose their own adventure. More than 3 miles of the trails are sidewalks that get plowed when it snows, making hiking an option even when the unpaved trails are impassable.

The paved, 1 ½-mile Central Garden Trail, which goes right through the heart of the park’s spectacular sandstone formations, is definitely worthwhile, Parks Operation Administrator Bret Tennis said. But when the park starts getting more crowded with an influx of spring breakers, he prefers hiking the less-traveled perimeter trails that go around the park’s boundaries.

Wildlife starts becoming more active when the weather warms up. Mule deer and bighorn sheep are present in the park, and when bobcats have kittens, the parents can

An elk splashes across a lake in Evergreen. Lime green leaves bud on a Gambel oak tree below South Gateway Rock in Garden of the Gods. Apple blossoms bloom in Lyons.

Joshua Hardin

Ellen Nelson

James Frank

A red fox and its kit enjoy the day in Clear Creek County.

Michael Cochran

The setting sun makes the sky glow above the remarkable sandstone formations

at Red Rocks Park outside of Morrison.

Grant Collier

be seen in the daytime gathering food for the young ones. The Garden of the Gods Visitor and Nature Center hosts regular programs for people to learn about wildlife; Mondays are devoted to bighorn sheep, and Wednesdays’ program is about rattlesnakes. While there are rattlesnakes in the park, Tennis said that in his 17 years there, there have only been about four rattlesnake bites – which, considering 4.5 million people visit each year, is remarkably few.

In the foothills west of Fort Collins, Lory State Park comes to life in mid-April, when wildflowers start blooming: mariposa lilies, lupines, beebalm and many more. The flowers are visible from the 29 miles of trails in the park, many of which can be used for biking and horseback riding as well as hiking.

Highly variable spring weather can make for highly variable trail conditions. Some trails will close if they get too muddy. Visitors can check on trail closures beforehand by downloading Colorado Parks & Wildlife’s Colorado Trail Explorer (just look up “COTREX” in the app store).

Two well-loved Lory trails – Well Gulch Nature Trail and Arthur’s Rock Trail – have good enough drainage that they always remain open, no matter the weather. Well Gulch is a 2.5-mile loop that goes through some prime wildflower territory. Arthur’s Rock, the park’s most popular trail, is a 3.4-mile out-and-back trail that gains 1,000 feet in elevation. At the very end of the

A pasque flower grows on Lumpy Ridge in Rocky Mountain National Park. Elsewhere in the park, Longs Peak and Mount Meeker rise above aspen trees following a spring snowstorm.

Erik Stensland

trail, persevering hikers are rewarded with a breathtaking panoramic view that looks down on Fort Collins and Horsetooth Reservoir; on a clear day, the view extends north to Wyoming and south to Denver.

Near Littleton, Roxborough State Park is renowned for its massive red rock fins that jut out from the ground. When spring arrives in full swing, the contrast between the green leaves and the red rocks creates a scene of unforgettable beauty.

“When you’re looking through these giant, jagged red rocks at this 45-degree angle set against this bright green,” Park Manager Colin Chisholm said, “you kind of forget there’s a ton of development all around the area. It really takes on a more prehistoric kind of atmosphere.”

The park has a healthy herd of mule deer that are a regular sight. The resident black bears are more elusive, but as they wake from their winter hibernation, visitors sometimes catch a glimpse.

It should be noted that Roxborough is for hikers only – no dogs, no horses, no bikes.

Though “Front Range” is commonly used to refer to the urban corridor along the foothills, the term more accurately refers to an actual mountain range of the Rocky Mountains, and the 265,807 acres of Rocky Mountain national Park lie within that range.

Because it is at higher elevation than other Front Range parks, Rocky Mountain National Park remains covered in snow later into the season. However, visiting in spring has its advantages – namely, the park is not yet filled to capacity with visitors as it can get during the summer.

Snowshoes, available for rent in Estes Park, are advisable for those seeking to hike most trails in March or April. Still, trails in the lower-elevation parts of the valley can be relatively clear during this time. Sprague Lake Trail, a loop of a little under 1 mile, often has little enough snow or ice in the springtime that people can skip the snowshoes.

But no matter the weather, spring is a magical time to explore these and other parks all along the Front Range.

A Canada goose gosling snuggles deep into its mother’s feathers in Fort Collins’ Prospect Park. Serviceberries bloom at Horsetooth Falls at Horsetooth Mountain Open Space near Fort Collins.

Joshua Hardin

Dawn Wilson

A family of canoers navigates

Blue Heron Reservoir at St. Vrain State Park near Longmont.

Vic Schendel

Visitors to Yampa River Botanic

in Steamboat

stroll through some of its more than 60 gardens. The 6-acre park is dotted with a number of sculptures, many of them memorials.

Park

Springs

Yampa River Botanic Park creates a highaltitude oasis

story by MARION KAHN photographs by NOAH DAVID WETZEL

Walking down a path in Steamboat Springs past active soccer fields, or entering from the popular Core Trail, visitors enter a place of great beauty and sweet fragrances: the Yampa River Botanic Park, tucked in next to the Yampa River. Housing more than 60 gardens that were created by staff with the help of volunteers, the park is one of only eight botanic gardens in Colorado.

The Yampa River Botanic Park, begun in 1995, is the creation of Bob and Audrey Enever, originally from the United Kingdom. They succumbed to the Yampa Valley Curse, a famed spell that is said to overtake visitors and make them never want to leave Steamboat Springs. The Enevers examined the possibility of creating a public garden in Steamboat Springs.

When they moved to Steamboat Springs, they noticed there were no flower gardens. If the local ranchers grew anything, it was usually hay. “We grew up in a country where most people gardened,” Bob Enever said, “the men for vegetables and the women more for flowers, so it seemed to us that local people were missing a whole dimension of life.”

The Enevers’ son, Peter, died at age 31

People enjoy walking along paths that pass ponds and weave into gorgeously verdant scenery at Yampa River Botanic Park. Flowers bloom in the park, where growing some types of plants can be a challenge – Steamboat Springs typically gets only 60 days a year without frost, and the high levels of ultraviolet light at altitude can complicate matters. A yoga session takes place in the park, which is a popular local gathering place for many different events and activities. A black bear ambles down the path, seeming to enjoy the park as much as humans do.

from a heart attack, and they needed a way to channel their grief. The Enevers spent a winter collaborating with a landscape architect to develop ideas for the Yampa River Botanic Park. The implementation of the plan started three months later when they made a significant donation to fund the park in perpetuity.

Their vision for the park was as a place of serenity where local people who did not have the time or physical capacity to go out in the woods and up in the mountains could get some of the same experiences nearby.

The 6-acre park, dotted with sculptures, many as memorials, has the beautiful Peter’s Pond in the middle and is abutted by a large green that hosts a variety of special events

and has attracted numerous volunteers and thousands of visitors.

One of those volunteers is Jeff Morehead, who watched from his next-door trailer as dump truck loads of dirt and rock were emptied on the flat hayfield. The Enevers were successful real estate managers and developers with deep connections to the construction industry, which had benefits when creating the park, Morehead said.

“The (Steamboat) mountain was undergoing tremendous growth and development,” he said, “and instead of hauling and dumping dirt out of town, Bob would say, ‘Bring it to me.’” More than 10,000 feet of dirt were brought in to create berms, gardens and winding paths.

“Back then trees were planted 5 to 6 feet apart. It was all sun,” Morehead said. “People said, ‘I don’t get it’. Now all the trees have filled in.”

Getting and developing the land wasn’t the only challenge for the fledgling garden. The park sits at 6,800 feet above sea level and enjoys only about 60 days a year without frost. And the high levels of ultraviolet light challenge even the most skilled horticulturalists.

Gayle Lehman served as the park’s chief’s horticulturalist before retiring recently. She oversaw installation and management of the park’s numerous mini-gardens, as well as plant conservation of native species like cutleaved anemone, pasque flower, sugar bowls,

seep monkeyflower, mountain ball cactus and rock spirea. The Yampa plant, Perideridia gairdneri, is on the threatened list.

The botanic park’s first executive director, Jennifer MacNeil, now oversees the staff, 50 volunteers, the gardens, fundraising and numerous community partnerships. Creating a place of serenity is a vital part of the park’s mission, she said. It should be a place where “you could walk through the gates and leave your worries behind and find a bench to sit on to appreciate the flowers.”

“This is such a place of hope,” said Sonia Franzel, the botanic park’s former board president and current vice president. She is from Argentina, where she lived next to a botanic

garden. She was drawn to the Yampa River Botanic Park when she moved to Steamboat Springs. “We feel it’s a healing place.”

The Franzels lost a daughter 10 years ago. In her memory, they created Sascha’s Rock Garden. “Now our own friends and hers could go to her garden for a place of reflection. Giving back is such a wonderful way to heal.”

The park is filled with memorial gardens, benches and trees. Gifts of living plants and places of respite are popular ways to remember or honor someone.

It is also filled with adults and children who come to Yoga in the Park, the Strings Music Festival’s weekly Music on the Green, Stories in the Garden for children, free guid-

ed tours, An Evening with Master Gardeners, Fairy Garden House Contest, Lulie’s Wildflowers and Watercolors, Piknik Theatre and Stumpy Land for children, a new steamboat structure and children’s garden.

Landscape architect Cales Givens is designing new gates for the entrance to the park. When a new graduate, Givens also worked on gates for the White House.

Audrey Enever takes great pleasure in “meeting people who know me or who know my name saying how much they love the park.”

“Every time I go to the park, I see people enjoying it,” Bob said. “I see people, not necessarily aware of what they are enjoying, but enjoying serenity, the gardens, the place.”

GO. SEE. DO.

COLORADO’S CALENDAR OF EVENTS

by LEAH M. CHARNEY

FAMILY PALISADE INTERNATIONAL HONEYBEE FEST

APRIL 15 · PALISADE

For a town of less than 3,000 people to host an “international” event is aspirational, but the Palisade International Honeybee Festival has been growing into the name ever since it premiered in 2008. The Grand Valley town is known for peaches, lavender and wine, all of which rely on bees – as do more than 80 percent of the fruits and vegetables eaten around the globe.

The festival calls attention to the plight of the honeybee through interactive, familyfriendly programming. Sometimes the Western Colorado Beekeepers Association brings a live beehive. A favorite lecture is from the Colorado Department of Agriculture’s Biological Pest Program, which manages the Palisade Insectary. The Insectary researches and rears “good bugs” that are deployed across

the state to fight noxious weeds. Bee-friendly biocontrol limits the need for pesticides.

Western Slope fruit trees are in bloom by the mid-April event, where the town plaza buzzes with live music, chef demos featuring honey and local artists and fine food vendors whose booths radiate down Main and Third streets. A queue of competitive third graders face off for bee-themed prizes at the Spelling Bee. But the biggest draw is the “Best Bee” costume contest.

“That can be adults, dogs, cats, children – we even had someone bring a bird one time,” said Jean Tally, one of the event organizers and co-owner of the Wine Country Inn and Grande River Vineyards. “It’s a hoot. The dogs are usually just hysterical.” palisadehoneybeefest.org.

WHERE TO STAY SPOKE & VINE MOTEL

This dog-friendly boutique motel was fully freshened up in 2019, with decor that calls back to its 1955 mid-century modern roots but with minimalist vibes set squarely in the present. Amenities include locally roasted coffee, free breakfast and cruiser bikes for rent to pedal around town or ride to one of the area’s two dozen wineries, meaderies, distilleries or breweries. 424 W. 8th St. (970) 464-2211.

WHERE TO EAT PÊCHE

Located near all the Honeybee Fest action, this dinner-only spot might be the best restaurant in Colorado you’ve never heard of. Small towns are not usually known for fine dining, but Pêche packs a punch worthy of any world-class city. It is currently a semifinalist for the James Beard Awards, the Oscars of the culinary world; final nominees are announced March 29. 366 Main St. (970) 464-4911.

Palisade International Honey Bee Festival

STEAMBOAT SPRINGALICIOUS

APRIL 1-9 · STEAMBOAT

Cardboard boxes are often repurposed into robot costumes or rocket ships, but when it’s spring in Steamboat Springs, they take on the role of sled. At the Cardboard Classic – part of Steamboat Springalicious, a two-weekend long grand goodbye to ski season – homemade vessels careen down Stampede ski run, with their occupants hoping to hold on until the finish line.

The rules are clear: Though the improvised sleds can be decorated with waterbased paint and fancifully themed, the contraptions must ferry human passengers using only cardboard, glue, string and duct or masking tape. No more than six people are allowed on each craft. This ritual has continued for more than 40 years, showcasing what great fun it is to both attempt and to behold.

The Splashdown Pond Skim closing-day celebration is a newer tradition, begun in the late aughts, but is equally spectacular. Costumed skiers attempt to successfully transition from snow to water and stay upright as they coast across an icy pool. Competitors must ski without poles on full-sized powder skis; no water skis here. Scoring is usually based on categories like costume, distance, outfit and crowd response. Most people end up soaked but still smiling.

Springalicious also includes a lively free concert schedule and other smaller events spread throughout the final days of the Steamboat Ski Resort. (800) 922-2722.

WHERE TO EAT SALT & LIME

The vibes match the funky, upbeat decor at Salt & Lime. Giant murals of Frida Kahlo and dapper skeletons in full mariachi regalia, known as catrines, greet diners at this popular taco and tequila spot. A favorite post-ski destination, the menu features two kinds of guacamole (try the charro beans) and Colorado bison enjoyed in taco, queso or burrito form. 628 Lincoln Ave. (970) 871-6277.

WHERE TO GO SKEETER’S ICE RINK

Bring your own skates and slide around for free at Skeeter’s Ice Rink, located in the newly redesigned Steamboat Square at the base area of the Steamboat Ski Resort.

Rentals of both hockey and figure skates are also available at the site named after Gladys “Skeeter” Werner, an Olympic Alpine skier who started the Steamboat Ski School. 2305 Mt. Werner Cir. steamboat.com.

Other events you may enjoy

MARCH

AgriSummit

March 9-11 · Salida

The eighth annual AgriSummit is for new and established food producers, locavores, educators, backyard farmers and community members interested in local food and agritourism. Held at the Salida SteamPlant on the banks of the Arkansas River, this year’s conference includes sessions on soil health, hydroponics, medicinal plants and worm composting, with a keynote about ranching in the desert. (719) 239-0955.

St. Patrick’s Day Parade

March 11 · Colorado Springs

For 39 years, St. Patrick’s Day has taken over downtown Colorado Springs, boasting the biggest parade in the city. From the Pedalin’ St. Pat’s Family Ride to the Leprechaun Fun Run and “the flattest 5k in Colorado Springs,” events occur all morning long, topped off by the parade at noon. csstpats.com.

Rosenberry Lecture Series: Dearfield

March 15 · Denver

History Colorado’s Rosenberry Lecture Series brings Colorado authors and scholars together “to shed new light on topics in Colorado history,” such as Dearfield, a once-bustling African American farm community in Weld County, about 30 miles east of Greeley. Dearfield thrived through World War I but withered during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression. The Department of Interior will soon determine if the ghost town should be part of the National Park System. (303) 866-2394.

Opera Night At Two Rivers Chateau

March 24 · Grand Junction

There’s no excuse to not have a date night when the Grand Junction Symphony Orchestra hosts soprano Christie Conover, baritone Andrew Garland and pianist Jeremy Reger at the Two Rivers Winery & Chateau. Enjoy one of the winery’s award-winning varietals or port while surrounded by the sound of operatic arias and Broadway showtunes. (970) 243-6787.

Steamboat Ski Resort

Todd Powell

Skiers don costumes and sip beer while tackling Frisco’s Nordic course.

COMMUNITY

FRISCO BREWSKI

MARCH 11 · FRISCO

Frisco BrewSki is just about what it sounds like: a beer festival on skis. Since 2016, costumed cross-country skiers and snowshoers have made the trek around the Frisco Nordic Center to three tasting stations scattered across the trails to taste tiny sips of beer and hot cocoa. At the end of the 1 ½-mile course, attendees are rewarded with a full-sized beer (or root beer float) at a festive afterparty.

BrewSki isn’t a race. Or, as the event likes to remind: “Fun is your only destination.”

The idea came about after Linsey Joyce and a few of her fellow coworkers at the Town of Frisco Recreation and Culture Department realized there was an opportunity to inject levity into a serious sport.

“We all love costumes and wearing cos-

tumes for really no reason whatsoever,” Joyce said. And they also loved skiing and beer.

Though cross-country skiing attracts people of all ages and abilities, it’s also one of the best full-body workouts and is often a go-to winter sport for serious athletes. But toss on a costume and introduce a tiny cup, and suddenly Nordic skiing can feel more approachable, especially to families and first-timers.

Beyond a good time, the event also does some good. Friends of the Dillon Ranger District staff the beer tasting stations and receive a portion of the proceeds, which supports their work maintaining and improving trails and planting trees across the 487 square miles of national forest in Summit County. Register at FriscoBrewski.com.

WHERE TO EAT BAGALIS

After a day at the Nordic Center or hitting the slopes at nearby Copper Mountain (should you prefer alpine skiing), Bagalis is the perfect place to have pizza and a glass of wine. The chefowned Italian joint uses seasonal and local ingredients whenever possible –be sure to add the local Italian sausage to one of the house-made pastas – and is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

320 E. Main St. (970) 668-0601

WHERE TO GO FRISCO HISTORIC PARK & MUSEUM

Travel back in time at a leisurely pace at the Frisco Historic Park & Museum, located right in downtown Frisco. Admission to the park is free, and visitors can check out the Schoolhouse Museum before or after taking the selfguided tour of the historic buildings. People can walk around and see different pieces of history in each building.

120 E. Main St. (970) 668-3428.

APRIL

Kick Off to Summer

April 8 · Salida

Because Monarch Mountain doesn’t make its own snow, it’s tough to pinpoint the last Saturday of ski season. This brand-new event ushers in the river season in style a few weeks ahead of the expected closing weekend with a festival featuring indoor and outdoor activities, a vendor village, showcase of local businesses and nonprofits and, of course, blue-sky skiing and snowboarding. (719) 530-5000.

Titanic Memories

April 15 · Denver

Though the tales of Titanic’s more famous passengers – like Margaret “Molly” Brown – are well known, more than 700 people survived the disaster. The Molly Brown House Museum puts those lesser-known survivor stories at the center of an immersive theatrical experience where guests travel throughout the house as actors portray and convey a Titanic survivor’s story. (303) 832-4092.

Great Plains Field of Honor

April 26-29 · Fort Lupton

The Great Plains Field of Honor is a stunning display of 1,000 American flags – each dedicated to a veteran or first responder who devotes their life to serving others – that flows across Pearson Park at the intersection of U.S. Highway 85 and State Highway 52. Supporters can sponsor a flag or donate directly; this very special event raises money for grassroots Colorado nonprofits that serve veterans and first responders. (720) 928-4071.

Great Sand Dunes

Photo Workshop

April 27-30 · Mosca

Calling all adventurous photographers: Does camping inside Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve to explore and photograph this unique treasure both day and night sound like your kind of fun? Capture stunning images of the almost alien landscape where mountains meet desert over the three days of instruction and excursions. (303) 887-4014.

COLORADO CAMPING

LAUNCHING POINTS FOR OUTDOOR EXPLORATION

DEEP IN DINOSAUR

by DAN LEETH

LOCATION

Dinosaur

TENT RV/SITES

Tent and vans/truck campers; no motor homes or trailers

ACTIVITIES

Hiking, rafting, petroglyph viewing

Echo Park offers a no-frills, canyon clad campground in Dinosaur National Monument

WAKING TO SLATE-GRAY SKIES

can be a foreboding omen at the start of a three-day campout. Ever the optimist, I packed my gear and began driving toward the nearby mountains west of Denver. Before I could clear the foothills, the heavens opened, and I found myself motoring straight into a Noah-worthy downpour.

Lacking an ark but still intent on camping, I opened my Colorado roadmap and searched for an alternative camp spot. A large, green splotch near the state’s northwestern corner caught my eye. Dinosaur National

Monument, far from the Front Range deluge, became my new camping destination.

While the monument’s namesake quarry sits in Utah, the bulk of Dinosaur National Monument lies in Colorado. It covers the sinuous canyons of the Green and Yampa rivers, with the Echo Park Campground located near the chasm-bottom confluence of the two streams. Its 21 individual campsites feature picnic tables, fire rings and flat spots to pitch tents. Some sites offer summertime shade beneath riverside trees, while others lie near the cliffs, providing springtime warmth beneath an unveiled sun.

Considered a primitive campground, amenities include pit toilets and communal water spigots. There’s no cell phone reception, no Wi-Fi, no internet, no cable TV, no electric outlets, no camp store, no firewood for sale, no trash pickup and no online reservations. Camping here

Dan Leeth

is strictly in tents, small vans or pickup campers. The National Park Service bans motorhomes and travel trailers.

The RV prohibition is due to the nature of the access road. While the first 25 miles from the Canyon Visitor Center are paved, the final 14 require negotiating a narrow, graded roadbed that switchbacks down plunging hillsides and across teeth-jarring flats. It’s not a route suitable for low-slung vehicles, and clay soils make the road impassible when wet or snowy.

Acrophobics and folks with loose fillings might not enjoy this drive, but for the rest of us, the beauty of the setting justifies the jostling. The road descends into a broad valley with cliffs rising on both sides. Along the way stands the abandoned Chew Ranch with home, two-hole outhouse and a tin-roof sheepherder’s wagon still standing. A few turns beyond, the cliffs rise, the canyon narrows, and the road enters Echo Park. The name came courtesy of John Wesley Powell, whose Grand Canyon-bound crew heard their voices reflecting from the riverside face of Steamboat Rock.

More sandstone cliffs, their walls stained with desert varnish, tower along the campground’s edge. In the other di-

rection, cottonwood, willows and box elder hem the stream with skirts of leafy green. Springtime wildflowers dot the ground with mule deer and bighorn sheep occasionally wandering by. High on the cliff face stands a large panel of Fremont Indian petroglyphs, one of which depicts a bow hunter shooting a bighorn. Other rock art figures loom nearby.

For those of us longing to lace up hiking boots, there are several nearby destinations to explore on foot. A short walk up the entrance road leads to Whispering Cave, a fissure in the sandstone that provides a cool breath of air conditioning on a sweltering day. Beyond stands a panel of unusual dot-pattern petroglyphs, which bygone rock artists made by boring a pattern of small holes in the sandstone. From the campground, a short, unmaintained trail leads upstream to the merger of the Green and Yampa, where it’s not uncommon to spot rafters drifting by. In the other direction, a trail follows the river downstream to Mitten Park, where horizontal ribs of rock twist jaggedly skyward along the Mitten Fault.

Not far around the corner downstream from here, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation planned to build a 529-foot dam back in

the 1950s. The backed-up reservoir would have flooded Echo Park and both of the national monument’s protected canyons. Fortunately, an onslaught of negative public opinion developed, and the dam proposal died a jubilant death. The grandeur of Echo Park remains available to Colorado campers lacking an ark.

Echo Park Campground is situated near the confluence of the Green and Yampa rivers in Dinosaur National Monument.

Open year-round, Echo Park offers 17 drive-up and four walk-in tent sites available on a first-come, first-served basis. There is also one reservable, group campsite. Motor homes and trailers are not allowed. Weather permitting, water spigots run from mid-May through mid-September. Campsite cost is $10 when water is available, $6 when not. Campers should pack lots of mosquito repellant and bring extra food. The 14-mile road to the campground closes when wet or snowy. Check conditions in advance at the Canyon Visitor Center off U.S. 40 near Dinosaur, or by calling (435) 781-7700.

TRIVIA ANSWERS

Questions on p 18-19

Vail (Vail Ski & Snowboard Academy)

6 a. Colorado School of Mines

7 c. Manitou Springs Gravediggers

8 b. Fort Collins (Poudre School District R-1)

10 a. Billy Adams (the school is now Adams State University)

11 False (there are six)

12 True

13 True

14 False (both attended Palmer but 20 years apart)

9 b. High School Football National Championship (St. Vrain Valley School District won FIRST in 2022; Evergreen High School won the mock trial championship in 1990)

15 True

Trivia Photographs Page 20 CSU-Pueblo fans celebrate their team. NASA astronaut Christa McAuliffe. Page 21 Colorado School of Mines in Golden is the state’s highest ranked college.

Dan Leeth

TOP TAKE EDITORS’ CHOICE

PHOTOGRAPH BY EDWARD KUNZELMAN

NIKON D800E, 1/100 SEC, F/14, ISO 200, 24-120MM LENS

AS AN APRIL AFTERNOON turns to evening, the sun shines on the cliffs at the base of Grand Mesa near Palisade. Blossoms adorn the peach trees in one of the many orchards on East Orchard Mesa, the pink petals contrasting beautifully with the green grass and blue sky. Photographer Edward Kunzelman lives in Grand Junction, just a short drive away from Palisade’s orchards, so he makes sure to pay a visit when the fruit trees bloom each spring. Other nearby photo subjects include vineyards and fields of lavender.

The Grand Valley is a remarkable place to live, especially for photographers, because of the stunning diversity of the surrounding landscape. The valley is bounded by Grand Mesa, Mount Garfield and the Bookcliffs to the east, while further west lie the incredible rock formations of Colorado National Monument. And in the heart of the valley, the Colorado River feeds a host of flowering orchards and verdant farm fields.

IN EACH ISSUE, Top Take features a reader’s photograph of Colorado. Submit your best photos for the chance to be published in Colorado Life. Send images with detailed photo descriptions and your contact information to photos@coloradolifemag. com or visit coloradolifemag.com/contribute.