Colorado Life Magazine September-October 2023 by Flagship Publishing

Winter Wonderland

Old Fashioned Christmas Package Estes Park • Dec. 22-27

Cozy in the heart of the Rocky Mountains with your loved ones around a crackling fire. Escape into the backcountry to cut down your very own Christmas tree while sipping on hot cocoa and enjoying fresh baked goods and warming by a bonfire. Take the kiddos ice skating, sledding, and enjoy soaking in your own hot tub or making private times in our family sized hot tub. Commemorate your Christmas in the Rockies with a specially made ornament. Enjoy a scrumptious dinner at our favorite Bird and Jim’s.

• Any 1 Bedroom Cabin or Suite priced for 2 People: $2,295

• Any 1 Bedroom Spa Cottage priced for 2 People (Castle Mountain): $2,895

• Any 2 Bedroom Cabin or Suite priced for 4 People: $3,295

• Any 3 Bedroom Cabin priced for 6 People (Castle Mountain): $3,995

5-night, 6-day package

Note: Extra people may be added for $100 per person as cabin size allows. A deposit of half of the total is due at the time of booking to confirm

• Next to that Colorful Colorado sign (selfie!)

• After you hucked that backy off a cornice

• Around the campfire

• Over the backyard fence

• In line for tickets at the big game (go local sports!)

• Between the opening act and the headliner

• The front seat of a pickup on your way to work

• The tailgate of a pickup after youʼre done with work

• The gun range (of course)

• The gun store (of course)

• The gun show (OK we get it)

• In the checkout line at the organic grocer

• When you drop your kids off

• After that meeting that couldʼve been an email

• While youʼre mucking the stalls

• After anyone starts struggling emotionally

• Before anyone starts struggling emotionally

• The trailhead (Colorado has more than 1,400 of 'em!)

• While youʼre setting up a ground blind

• During potlucks at your house of worship

• When youʼre programming the code to your new quick access safe

• Over burgers (soy, beef, bison, whatever)

• Waiting for a double oatmilk latte

• At the mechanic

• With your parents

• Around the kitchen table

• At the pool, lake, beach or swimming hole

• The local brewery (you know the one)

• Walking your dog to the dog park to play with dogs

• Everywhere not on this list too

FEATURES

22 Photographer Tad Bowman

Bold and beautiful Colorado fall colors set the slopes ablaze in this photo essay, where even wild waterfalls and misty mountaintops seem to take the backseat among singing yellow aspens.

Story by Matt Masich

Photographs by Tad Bowman

30 Fall in the Flat Tops

The “Cradle of Wilderness” remains largely untouched by human hands and as such is allowed burst with color and life through all seasons – and fall is one of the most beautiful to behold.

Story and photographs by Joshua Hardin

38 Famous Fort Morgan

Displaying honors like being the boyhood home of Glenn Miller and the birthplace of Mosqueda Delicacies Ice Cream & More, Fort Morgan is a gracious host to her ever-growing melting pot population.

Story Tom Hess

52 Flying W Ranch

The days of the crooning cowboy and chuckwagon cooking, live on alongside the memory of ranch founder Russ Wolfe at this must-visit hootenanny.

Story by Tom Hess

Photographs by Joshua Hardin

Fall in the Flat Tops, p 30

Famous Fort Morgan, p 38

Flying W Ranch, p 52

Trinidad Lake State Park RAD Dirt Fest

West Spanish Peaks

ON THE COVER

Colorful Colorado mountainsides are blanketed in gold and orange during the height of the fall season. Story begins on page 22.

PHOTOGRAPH BY TAD

BOWMAN

IN EVERY ISSUE

9Editor’s Letter

Observations

Boulder, p 12

46 Kitchens

‘Tis the season for curvaceous orange gourds, ripe for the pickin’. Dig a fork into this trio of perfect pumpkin favorites, including bread pudding, mufﬁns and, of course, pie.

50 Poetry

Poets from Colorado celebrate the beauty of aspen trees.

60 Go. See. Do.

Enamored arachnids hit the road in search of love, Boulder kids get creative with play, a Branson football ﬁeld has visitors green with envy; and old trolleys get a new life. 18 Trivia

Test your knowledge of Colorado’s animals, big and small.

20 Peak Pixels

Avid landscape photographer Joshua Hardin explores Guanella Pass as it turns the corners of fall.

Lumber-slingers gather in Avon to test their skills, Estes Park lights up for the holiday season and aviation enthusiasts look skyward in Grand Junction.

66 Camping

The Lottis Creek Campground gives visitors easy access to a nearby river and the beauty of the Sawatch Range.

70 Top Take

Photographer Jim Shoemaker captured a storybook-worthy scene of fall at Mount Sneffels.

Map by Raven Maps & Images

La Junta, p 12

Estes Park, p 60

Colorado Springs, p 12, 5

Grand Junction, p 60

Meeker, p 30

Fort Morgan, p 38

Guanella Pass, p 20

Branson, p 12

Avon, p 60

Almont, p 67

Mount Sneffels, p 70

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2023

Volume 12, Number 5

Publisher & Executive Editor

Chris Amundson

Associate Publisher Angela Amundson

Editor

Matt Masich

Photo Editor Amber Kissner

Design

Rebecca Velazquez, Karlie Pape

Advertising Sales

Marilyn Koponen

Subscriptions

Lea Kayton, Katie Evans, Janice Sudbeck

Colorado Life Magazine

PO Box 270130 Fort Collins, CO 80527 970-480-0148

ColoradoLifeMag.com

Subscriptions are 1-yr (6 issues) for $30 or 2-yrs (12 issues) for $52. Please call, visit ColoradoLifeMag.com or return a subscription card from this issue. For fundraising and corporate rates, call or email subscriptions@coloradolifemag.com.

ADVERTISE

Advertising deadlines are three months prior to publication dates. For rates and position availability, please call or email advertising@coloradolifemag.com.

CONTRIBUTE

Send us your letters, stories, photos and story tips by writing to us, visiting ColoradoLifeMag.com or emailing editor@coloradolifemag.com.

From the Editorial Team

Colorado’s happy little trees

WHEN I WAS A KID, I loved watching Bob Ross on his PBS show e Joy of Painting. e highlight of each episode was when he invariably painted his “happy little trees.” I think it made me feel good to know that I wasn’t the only person who assigned human emotions to non-human things.

But I sometimes wondered if maybe trees weren’t always as happy as Bob Ross would have us believe. For instance, I became convinced that evergreens must be jealous of deciduous trees – especially during fall.

ink about it: Evergreens work hard year-round to maintain their needles, while evanescent trees get to take half the year o to laze lea essly about. But do we fawn over evergreens for being so unchanging? Only in the lyrics to “O Christmas Tree,” which, I might add, is no one’s favorite carol. No, instead, we glorify these trees for giving up each autumn in a glorious blaze of color.

I confess to feeling a bit guilty about the role I play in this as editor of Colorado Life. In this issue, we have three stories highlighting the changing fall foliage – or four, if you count the poetry section on aspens – but zero stories on the constancy of evergreens. So I’d like to take this opportunity to say thank you to our coniferous friends. We appreciate you – keep on keepin’ on.

When Coloradans talk about how much they love the fall colors, they’re almost always talking about the changing aspen leaves in the mountains. eir golden glory is undeniable, yet I’d also like to praise all the non-aspen trees in the non-mountainous parts of Colorado. In other words, let’s hear it for the city trees.

I can pinpoint the exact date when I rst became aware of how much I love city trees: Sept. 20, 1995, when a freakishly early blizzard dropped 7.4 inches of thick, wet snow on Denver.

It was still technically summer, and the trees all had their full complement of green leaves, which caught the heavy snow. Branches began to droop lower and then the popping sounds began. All that evening, my family listened as the strange silence of the snowstorm was punctuated with the sickening pops of tree limbs snapping o under the weight of the snow.

We had recently planted two young trees in our front yard: a linden and a honey locust. Terri ed that they, too, might break beneath the snow, I put on my coat and boots and ventured into the night to shake the baby trees as hard as I could to release the snow from their straining branches. I went out every few hours throughout the night, and when morning came, our wee trees were completely intact.

I wish I could say the same for the rest of our neighborhood’s trees, whose broken limbs lay scattered across the streets like barricades and obstacles around which cars tried to navigate. All told, an estimated 80 percent of Denver’s trees were damaged that night. But life has an admirable habit of going on living, and trees are no exception. So thank you, trees, in the city, in the mountains and on the plains. You bring us so much joy. If Bob Ross is right, and you can feel happiness, then I hope you do – you deserve it. Even the evergreens.

Matt Masich Editor editor@coloroadolifemag.com

MAILBOX

Please pass the garlic

In your July/August 2023 issue, the Balsamic Roasted Tomato Pasta recipe on page 46 references garlic in the instructions, but garlic is not listed in the ingredient list, or how to prep it. How do I nd that information?

Dayna White Colorado Springs

Editor’s reply – Oh, sorry about that, everyone. is recipe uses 2-3 cloves of garlic, minced.

No ghost towns here

Congratulations on your amazing magazine. I look forward to every article and beautiful pictures. I read each page; however, as a proud native of Colorado, I must take issue with the letter “Wonderful Colorado Places” (July/August 2023), which states that in the 1950s, both Aspen and Telluride were “ghost towns.”

As a teenager in the ’40s and ’50s, friends and I skied many times each winter in Aspen. At that time Aspen was a bustling town and a skiing destination for many outsiders, including international skiers. Each winter, friends and I would rent a room in a private home from a local resident and travel from Grand Junction to ski two or three days in Aspen. Keep up the good work – your magazine is a treasure.

JoAn Fiﬁeld Grand Junction

Backroads to the grassland

My rst journey into the Pawnee National Grassland (“Pawnee National Grassland: Buttes, birds and a sea of invite explorers to a timeless stretch of northeast Colorado,” July/August 2023) was in 1968. I was an engineer working at Colorado State University. I was assigned the task of overseeing the construction of a cobalt site for our researchers to study the e ects of ra-

diation on the prairie. On my rst trip to the grassland, I went through Nunn and was struck by the water tower at Nunn which said, “Watch Nunn Grow.”

On many – too numerous to count –trips through Nunn, I watched Nunn, but didn’t see any growth, until 10 to 15 years ago. I had the good fortune to meet John Fielder at a signing of his Weld County book (Weld County: 4,000 Square Miles of Grandeur, Greatness & Yesterdays). I kidded him about showing the new tower and not the old one, which was still standing.

I have spent countless days in the grassland. I would target shoot or just roam the grasslands for pleasure. Even now when we go to Potter, Nebraska, for a day’s jaunt, I always go through the grassland. My usual route is through Briggsdale and north on Weld County Road 77 to Wyoming and Nebraska, returning down Colorado State Highway 71 (Heartland Expressway) to CO-14 and back to Briggsdale. at way I catch the eastern

SEND US YOUR LETTERS

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

part of the Pawnee National Grassland. If you know when and where to look, you can see the Pawnee Buttes in the distance.

Richard Conard Windsor

Editor’s note: Renown Colorado photographer and published author John Fielder died on Aug. 11, 2023, following a prolonged struggle with cancer. Our sta sends condolences to the Fielder family and shares our appreciation – on behalf of all Coloradans – for John’s life to photograph and protect Colorado’s wildlife, open spaces and agricultural way of life.

Prior to his death, Mr. Fielder donated a curated selection of photography collection to History Colorado, which has a new exhibit at History Colorado Center in Denver: REAVEALED: John Fielder’s Favorite Places. e donated collection also can be viewed online by visiting the webpage found at this shortened link: https://tinyurl.com/462jevc8

Checking o the byways

Since I have started taking road trips on the Colorado scenic byways, I enjoy your pictures and articles on places I want to visit. I did six of the 26 byways trips last year and am looking forward to making more trips this coming year. I especially like your recommendations for places to stay and restaurants to try. I have lived

here almost all my life, and there is still so much to see and experience in Colorado. ank you also for your suggestions on trips to see the fall colors.

Cyndi Powers Parachute

Dad served in the 10th

ank you so much for the great article in the January/February 2023 issue about the 10th Mountain Division. It was a detailed, very informative article and very close to my heart.

My father was in the 87th Mountain Infantry Regiment, which originally formed and trained at Fort Lewis, Washington, in the winter of 1941-42 and became part of the 10th Mountain Division.

Dad and the 87th arrived at Camp Hale in December 1942. My mother kept a scrapbook which has pictures of Dad’s time at Fort Lewis and Camp Hale and includes the original letters of recommendation nominating Dad for the ski troops.

Not all the ski troops were East Coast rich college kid volunteers. Dad was a Western Slope farm kid from Fruita; they ranched in the mountains near Crawford, and he was a member of the Grand Junction Ski Club in the late 1930s which built a rope tow li on Grand Mesa using a tractor engine for power. He had already been in the Colorado National Guard since 1934 when he applied to join the “ski troops,” as he called it.

As your article mentioned, he would occasionally get 36-hour passes where he would ride the train from Leadville home to Grand Junction to see my mom. O en, he would bring other soldiers home with him, who lived too far away to go home. He was always proud to show o western Colorado.

He was deployed with the 87th Regiment to the Aleutians and landed on Kiska Island on Aug. 15, 1943, at 6 a.m., per his eld notes. As was the case with most World War II vets, my dad never really talked about the war. He was visibly upset the one time he talked about the friendly re casualties su ered on Kiska.

He passed away in 1984. When my mother passed away 20 years later, we found in her stu a eld operations map from Kiska where he had hand-written dates and locations where they landed and departed from. ere were also photographs he had taken during the Kiska landing and the four months they were on the island. If he

did talk about Kiska, he just talked about how cold and wet they were the whole time they were there. From Kiska, the 87th returned to Camp Hale and trained there until mid-1944 when the rest of the 10th shipped out to Italy.

When I was old enough to become interested in skiing, I asked him why he never kept in touch with the guys in the 10th who went on to build Colorado’s ski areas. He said the war took all the fun out of skiing for him. He continued to enjoy hunting and shing, but he never spent time in the mountains in the winter.

Bill Barnes Pueblo

Always more to learn

I have been reading and subscribing to Colorado Life for years. Kudos for producing a high-quality magazine with excellent content and amazing photographs. I am a native, so I know lots about the state, and your coverage is unparalleled in its overall product, quality and integrity.

Vince Ackerman Monte Vista

A treat to read

I have never had an awareness of Colorado Life Magazine until now. I was overwhelmed with my rst May/June 2023 issue. What a treat in all aspects of your coverage. I can’t wait for the next issue, as I will try to share my excitement with others. Great work.

Steve Miller Parker

DO NOT RUN

Remembering a Colorado friend

When a friend from sixth grade le Wisconsin to live in Aurora, I visited her o en. We enjoyed hiking in Castlewood Canyon, the Highline Canal Trail and spending a day in Colorado Springs, just hanging out together, hiking and shopping. We said we would enjoy hiking together into our 70s.

Unfortunately, she passed away at age 67. It was a er that happened that I heard about Colorado Life. I ordered it so I could to “go down memory lane.”

Mary Yunk Milwaukee,Wisconsin

SLUICE BOX

NUGGETS AND OBSERVATIONS ABOUT LIFE IN COLORADO

Intrepid tarantulas march for mates in La Junta

by SUE KEEFER

The faint fragrance of Christmas trees – or is it spice? – permeates the juniper-dressed canyonlands of Comanche National Grassland in southeast Colorado. Rare birds find sanctuary in the 440,000-acre property in the Arkansas River Valley. So do hundreds of Colorado Brown tarantulas.

Tarantula mating season is in September

and October, when cooler temperatures and mating impulse drive the arachnids along and onto Colorado State Highway 109 south of La Junta. The Otero County seat hosts its second annual Tarantula Fest on Sept. 29-30.

When tarantula researcher Dallas Haselhuhn was a child, he climbed up on his playsets in his underwear, doing his best Steve “The Crocodile Hunter” Ir-

win impression, and then leapt off to find some little bug. Once, he filled a garbage bag with cicada exoskeletons, which his mother found under his bed while cleaning. Now that he’s all grown up, Haselhuhn tracks Colorado tarantulas, affixing little radio transmitters to their backs with super glue.

Last year, Haselhuhn spent every day from Aug. 20 through late October at

Hoards of Colorado Brown tarantuals make their way across southeast Colorado, even traversing Colorado State Highway 109, in search of safe mating grounds.

Devon Matthews

Comanche National Grassland collecting data on Colorado’s annual tarantula migration. Male tarantulas on a relentless march looking for females, traveling as far 20 miles on their quest to mate or die trying.

The males are bold and single-minded this time of year, barely flinching even when humans step right up to them. Step within a few yards of a female tarantula, meanwhile, and she ducks back into her burrow.

But when the weather turns cold, even the males begin seeking the shelter of a nice, cozy burrow. “Unfortunately, that burrow is usually home to a lady,” Haselhuhn said – a lady that, by the late stages of the mating season, has likely grown quite hungry. During mating, the male is directly beneath a female’s fangs. If the male doesn’t move quickly enough, he’s dinner.

Haselhuhn and other spider experts will share all the gory details while guiding tarantula tours on the grassland during Tarantula Fest. Festival-goers can learn more about tarantulas at the event’s information pavilion in La Junta, where they can also browse vendor booths, eat at food trucks and watch the Tarantula Parade at 10 a.m., Saturday, Sept. 30. For more information, visit visitlajunta.net/tarantula-trek.

Boulder kids build their own adventures from junk parts

by TOM HESS

A scrap-metal giraffe standing lifesize at 18 feet tall appears above a fresh wooden fence east of downtown Boulder. A vinyl sign pinned to the fence gives some clue to passing motorists of why a giraffe sculpture should find a home in a city without a zoo. The sign reads: “Junkyard Social Club: The Rebel’s Playground + Cafe.”

The Junkyard Social Club is like a playground or a children’s museum but doesn’t follow the rules typical of either. “Junkyard” describes the myriad items collected on the 6,000 square feet of what used to be the parking lot of a printing company. “Social” describes how visitors of all ages, from 2 to 92, work with each other to engineer and innovate.

Visitors apply their imagination in assembling something new and functional from salvaged items – pulleys, carabiners, auto tires, paracord, golf balls, rubber duckies, PVC pipe, tarps, wood clamps, a claw bathtub, a sink, a slide … the list goes on.

Visitors figure out how to create their own fun, perhaps using water from the ground-floor bathtub to the top of the slide, 15 feet away, to create a waterslide. Parents can join in with their kids at play, or they can simply watch the little ones in action while enjoying a latte from the on-

site coffee shop, a panini from the cafe, or beer, wine or cocktails from the bar.

Junkyard Social Club CEO Jill Katzenberger grew up on Lookout Mountain above Golden. At her family home on a dirt road with no neighbors, Katzenberger would get lost in her exploration of wilderness and wildlife. At Junkyard Social, she wants guests to have a similarly creative space for their imaginations to run wild.

Katzenberger was one of four collaborators who co-founded Junkyard Social as a nonprofit in 2020, with volunteers helping start construction of the playground that summer. Staying true to the Junkyard Social name, they scoured actual junkyards to collect much of the junk they used as building materials.

After launching their first summer camp and special events in 2021 and opening for public summer hours the following year, the Junkyard Social Club had its official grand opening on March 14 this year. In keeping with Boulder’s wellknown affinity for all things alternative, locals have been quick to embrace Junkyard Social’s innovative take on play.

The Junkyard Social Club is open Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m., at 2525 Frontier Ave., Unit A, in Boulder. Children’s admission is $12, with a $5 suggested donation for accompanying adults.

The Junkyard Social Club’s Boulder playground looks like a creative pile of odds and ends, but thanks to visitors the scene quickly becomes more.

Junkyard Social

Sue Keefer

by TOM HESS

Branson is the southernmost town in Colorado, lying less than a mile from the New Mexico state line, where the southeast plains transition into mesa country.

As a member of a family that has ranched in the area for more than a century, Brad Doherty knows this rugged landscape is an ideal place to raise cattle. And as the athletic director and football coach at Branson High School, he also knows it is definitely not an ideal place to put a grass football field.

For years, the Branson Bearcats’ sixman football team played on a field that was mostly dirt. By 2020, conditions had grown so bad that an opposing coach contacted Doherty to say he refused to bring his team to play on Branson’s field.

“I was caught completely off guard,”

The home of the Bearcats football team now stands as an astroturfed oasis among an arid landscape. The school and others raised $520,000 for the project.

Branson High School

Doherty said. “The coach wasn’t a jerk about it – he was very businesslike and concerned about the field conditions.”

Other opposing coaches followed suit, saying it was unsafe to play on what people had begun calling “the worst football field in America.”

Doherty knew well the field’s poor condition. Though the land had been cleared of cactus and rocks – mostly – and seeded for grass, the school lacked the water to grow and sustain it. He continually battled gophers, which tunneled under and around the field, resisting his efforts to remove them.

“It’s like Bill Murray’s battle against the gophers in Caddyshack,” Doherty said. “I would sneak up with shovel, try to gas them out, use poison. They would just come back and mock me.”

The rival coach’s refusal to play at Branson got Doherty thinking. Within two weeks, he launched a giving campaign to

fund a new field. The campaign got a big boost from NBC Channel 9 in Denver, where anchor Kyle Clark publicized the cause. Within 24 hours, donors had sent $80,000 to the campaign’s PayPal account. The school ultimately raised $520,000 –more than enough to put in a new, safe artificial turf field.

Opposing teams love playing on the new field, which has saved Branson a lot of money in travel expenses. When teams had refused to play on the old field, Branson had to travel to the opponents’ home field for games – and because six-man football teams are spread all across the state, that sometimes meant as much as seven and a half hours’ drive each way.

After spending so much time traveling to four extra away games each season, Branson players and their families now have those weekends free to enjoy the comforts of home – and their now cactusand gopher-free home field.

Eat

Play

Stay

Swim

Soak

Camp

Fish

Hike

Bike

Nordic Ski

Snowshoe

Fall Leaf Colors

Fly Fish The Colorado River

The dedicated group of Bearcat football players no longer have to travel for hours to enjoy a weekend match-up.

Branson High School

Colorado Springs museum brings trolleys back to life

by TOM HESS

When John Haney was a boy, he would ride his bike from Colorado Springs’ Old North End to the Rock Island Roundhouse in the neighboring town of Roswell. When the sound of steam engines subsided, he could hear the chickens as they clucked and cackled loudly in the backyards of Roswell’s working-class families.

Roswell no longer exists, swallowed up by Colorado Springs after Interstate 25 split it in half. The 1888 roundhouse is now a museum and workshop for the restoration and display of Colorado streetcars, and Haney is its visionary and manager.

Haney got the idea to create the Pikes Peak Trolley Museum and Restoration Shop after writing his 1983 book, Pikes Peak Trolleys. Colorado Springs abandoned its streetcar system in 1932.

The roundhouse’s high ceilings and work pits in the floor seemed ideal for renovat-

ing retired trolleys. Volunteer craftsmen worked to rebuild trolleys recovered from across the Front Range.

Streetcar Birney #135 ran in Fort Collins until 1951. Haney acquired it from the Colorado Railroad Museum. For more than 20 years, workers took #135 apart – thousands of pieces – and recently completed putting it back together using original materials.

Not yet complete is #59, acquired a quarter century ago. Motors are mounted over each wheel, complicating its reconstruction. Work continues because the front platform didn’t look quite right. “It’s not as accurate as we want it to be,” Haney said. “We try to be as purist as we can. Sometimes, that means starting over.”

Pikes Peak Trolley Museum and Restoration Shop is open Wednesday-Saturday, 9:30 a.m.-3 p.m. at 2333 Steel Drive in Colorado Springs. Admission is $9 for adults, $5 for children 5-12 and free for those under 5.

Streetcar Birney #135 is a proud piece of Pikes Peak Trolley Museum’s collection.

Joshua Hardin

Sept. and Oct. are full of fun events. Check our website and don't miss out!

TRIVIA

COLORADO FAUNA

Test your knowledge of the state’s animal life. by BEN KITCHEN

Come see our New "Shop at Beckwith Ranch" featuring Local Artisans and souvenirs of Beckwith GENERAL

visit our website: www.beckwithranch.com

1 Colorado’s official state bird is what member of the sparrow family, which, despite its name, has yet to be documented playing baseball or setting up Fourth of July decorations?

Colorado is home to Ord’s variety of what rodent, which gets its name from its large legs and propensity for hopping?

3 In the early- to mid-19th century, the fur trade brought many people to what would become Colorado. To meet demand spurred by a trend in men’s hats, the Rocky Mountain trapping system emphasized selling the fur of what animal, whose population in Colorado is nowhere near what it was before it got targeted by trappers (which is a dam shame)?

In 2020, Colorado voters voted for Proposition 114, which dealt with the reintroduction of what endangered species to the state –the first batch is slated to be released by the end of this year?

5 Speaking of conservation efforts, Colorado already has a success story in what sheep species – North America’s biggest and most common wild sheep – whose population dwindled in the early 20th century due to hunting and disease?

Dawn Wilson

MULTIPLE CHOICE

Colorado has the most elk of any state, more than the next highest two (Montana and Oregon) combined. Which of the following is closest to Colorado’s estimated elk population?

a. 29,000

b. 290,000

c. 2,900,000

Colorado is one of several states home to the American dipper, which, per the Audubon Society, is the only songbird in North America with what strange quality?

a. It’s aquatic

b. It can mimic human speech

c. It doesn’t have feet

While Colorado is home to a wide variety of snakes, very few have venom that is dangerous to humans. Which of the following Colorado snakes is one of the potentially life-threatening venomous species found here?

a. Bullsnake

b. Southwestern black-headed snake

c. Western massasauga

There are three species of wild cats that can be found in Colorado. Which of the following is not one of them?

a. Bobcat

b. Canadian lynx

c. Ocelot

10 Unfortunately, invasive species can and do threaten the lives of animals native to Colorado. Which of the following species of fish is invasive, specifically threatening humpback chub populations in the Colorado River?

a. Smallmouth bass

b. Channel catfish

c. Arkansas darter

Every bison to serve as Ralphie, University of Colorado Boulder’s mascot, has been born in Colorado.

Colorado is one of a few states home to the Colorado pikeminnow, the biggest minnow in North America, which can grow as much as 6 feet long.

13 While bald eagles can be found in every U.S. state except Hawai i, Colorado is one of the states where they cannot be found year-round, instead only visiting in winter.

14 The American pika, a small mammal found in Colorado’s alpine tundra, inspired the name and appearance of the Pokémon Pikachu.

Despite the name, black bears don’t necessarily have to be black. The cinnamon bear, which can be found in Colorado, is an example of this: Though it is a subspecies of black bear, it is brown.

No peeking, answers on page 68.

historic charm at Frisco Lodge. Our exceptional hospitality, a ernoon wine and cheese, award winning courtyard, outdoor hot tub and romantic replace are just a few reasons our guests rated us the #1 bed & breakfast in Frisco and all of Summit County!

why our guests think we are the best

TRUE OR FALSE

Dan Walters

PEAK PIXELS

Guanella Pass transforms into gallery of autumn art

by JOSHUA HARDIN

As temperatures cool across Colorado, accents of changing foliage color appear across the state’s peaks and valleys. Nature paints ruddy shades on the scrub oak brush that covers the canyons of the Western Slope, adds a golden sheen to the aspen trees, contrasting with the green ponderosas and blue spruces of the mountains, and puts a copper cast on the mighty cottonwoods of the Eastern Plains. One of my favorite places to view and photograph displays of this natural autumn art is Guanella Pass near Georgetown – a veritable Louvre lled with aspen masterpieces. Readily accessible to Front Range residents, the short scenic byway starts about 50 miles west of Denver o Interstate 70. e 22-mile route can be completed in an hour if drivers don’t stop, but delightful distractions will demand a more leisurely pace. Nonphotographers will nd plenty of sightseeing options along the way and won’t be bored by their traveling companions’ camera or smartphone-wielding whims. e show begins immediately as the road ascends a series of switchbacks above Georgetown. Aspen stands superbly placed for abstract images abound along the byway’s shoulder and glitter as the sun backlights them. South Clear Creek dances alongside the route and lls a series of lakes and hydroelectric reservoirs that can be seen from a plethora of pullouts. More aspens following access roads that service powerlines and towers stripe the mountainsides in broad brushstrokes of tawny tones. e route climbs behind the shoulder of Mount Evans above the tree line to a view of the Mount Bierstadt summit. A parking lot at the road’s apex of 11,669 feet is a great place to stop and

study mountain climbers embarking or returning from a nearby trailhead on quests to bag the surrounding 14ers. Named for romantic landscape painter Albert Bierstadt, the mountain has a rounded top that interestingly clashes with the Sawtooth, a neighboring jagged cli edge. Both peaks shine with scarlet alpenglow at sunset and might have the added plus of a powdery coating of snow, contingent on recent weather.

THE BYWAY’S CREST is a studio to examine the ery patches of willow brush in the boggy areas below the peaks and the kaleidoscopic fractal patterns of diminutive tundra plants and lichens surviving in the higher elevations. Life surprisingly thrives in this harsh environment. Ptarmigan, small grouse birds whose plumage is seasonally transitioning from a speckled mottle to solid bright white, are well camou aged in the surroundings of boulders and snow. Observers might nd the birds by listening to their so clucking sounds more easily than by scanning with binoculars.

Some visitors turn around and head back to the interstate at this point, but other photo opportunities await on the road’s Western Slope, so it is worth continuing toward the byway’s terminus

with U.S. Highway 285 at Grant. Aspen forests re ect in Duck Lake, an idyllic home for waterfowl like prismatically plumaged wood ducks, and a seemingly endless assortment of ponds built by busy beavers damming Duck Creek, Geneva Creek and other area rivulets.

Photographers can choose between composing images of serenely still lake waters or capturing the creeks’ quickly rushing cascades in blurred, silky streams with slow shutter speeds. Circular polarizer lters are a photographer’s best friend, as they can bend the light to emphasize re ections, saturate leaf colors, darken blue skies and help attain blur e ects on waterfalls. Upon returning to Georgetown, photographers will nd many photo-worthy historic attractions. e town is famous for the billowing steam engines of the Georgetown Loop Railroad, which traverse the precipitous Devil’s Gate High Bridge. Georgetown’s remarkably intact Victorian architecture includes ourishes like the Statue of Liberty above Hotel de Paris, opened by French Renaissance man Louis Dupuy, and a oral greenhouse garden t for Monet at Hammill House.

Visiting Guanella Pass is like a boisterous gallery opening attended by patrons, collectors and creators alike, all gathered for one of the most vibrant shows on Earth. Even though Guanella is only one canvas in Colorado’s annual autumn art exhibition, its unparalleled photographic palette makes the perfect vernissage for a season lled with spectacular scenery.

JOSH SHOT this photo with a Nikon D200 camera, equipped with a 35-80mm f/4-5.6 lens exposed at ISO 100, f/22 for 1/4 second.

Into the Au

Straight out of a fairytale, this foggy aspen grove in the White River National Forest enchants the eyes of visitors near Aspen.

tumn Woods

Photographer Tad Bowman spends weeks each fall journeying solo into the Rockies on the hunt for the next iconic Colorado image

story

by MATT MASICH photographs by TAD BOWMAN

When the nights grow longer and the mornings take on a brisk chill, Coloradans take it as their cue to start planning a trip to the mountains to see the aspen leaves changing color. However, deciding exactly when to take that trip can be tricky.

The date when the leaves start changing can vary year to year by several weeks, depending on that summer’s weather. Elevation and latitude also play a role, with leaves changing sooner the farther north and higher above sea level you go. With all those complicating factors, no one knows for sure when the leaves will change until they do.

For Parker-based photographer Tad Bowman, the key date is Sept. 28. Having devoted himself to photographing Colorado’s fall colors each year for the past

two decades, Bowman has come to regard that date as the official start of the Rocky Mountains’ annual autumn extravaganza, with peak color generally lasting through the first two weeks of October.

During that brief window of peak color, Bowman puts his regularly scheduled life on hiatus to become a full-time leaf peeper. Each fall, he takes his camera and goes on a multiweek camping trip ranging all across the state. The images he returns with are some of the best evocations of Colorado’s autumn glory.

Appropriately enough, Bowman began his career as a fall foliage landscape photographer at the locale near Aspen that people often call Colorado’s most photographed landscape: the Maroon Bells, as reflected in Maroon Lake. As it was his inaugural

Mighty and majestic, the Maroon Bells mountain range reflects in Maroon Lake near Aspen. A cluster of aspen trees are bent, but still beautiful, in the Uncompahgre National Forest near Telluride.

A towering waterfall flows through a canyon nestled in the rarely-visited depths of Uncompahgre National Forest near Telluride. Despite foggy conditions, the sun peaks through and fall colors still burn across the mountainsides of the West Elk Mountains near Crested Butte.

autumn expedition, he had yet to learn that, no matter how summery the day’s anticipated high temperature might be, the mornings are already winterishly cold.

Shivering in his jeans and a light jacket – not the down coat he has since learned he needed – Bowman hiked through the predawn darkness to get a vantage to photograph the Maroon Bell aglow in a spectacular sunrise, with the golden rays lighting up the mountains’ golden aspens. He soon discovered he was not the only person who set out that day with that brilliant plan. Upon arriving at Maroon Lake, he struggled to find a spot with an unobstructed view of the Bells and the Lake thanks to dozens, if not hundreds, of other photographers lining the lake’s shores.

As much as he loves the Maroon Bells, Bowman has not returned in recent years.

Though photography is the ostensible purpose of his fall foliage trips, these days he wants to come away with the best possible experiences as opposed to the best photos.

“When I’m out,” Bowman said, “the things I enjoy the most are the quieter moments, where I can reflect and connect to the scene.”

He found one of his favorite locations to do just that an hour’s drive down the Roaring Fork Valley from the Maroon Bells near Carbondale at Mount Sopris. Hiking around on the nearby trails early on in his leaf-peeping career, Bowman discovered a special spot that he knew would be the ideal place which to photograph the mountain.

When he first discovered this special spot, the weather conditions were not right for the photo he wanted to take. He returned the next year – same story. And

so it went, year after year: Either the skies were cloudless and bland, or they were completely overcast and gray. Finally, on his sixth trip, his persistence paid off. When he arrived at the start of the golden hour just after sunset, he was lucky enough to find the clouds had positioned themselves perfectly to catch the colors of the sun’s parting rays.

Though Bowman attributes his photographing this and other scenes in the exact perfect light and weather to “luck,” it is probably more accurate to credit persistence – a more hard-earned variety of luck that only manifests when he keeps trying after years of disappointment.

That’s not to say the regular kind of luck hasn’t smiled on Bowman a few times. In fact, his most famous fall aspen photos came to him thanks to a rare instance of

Surrounded by a sea of golden yellow leaves and framed by mountainous boulders on both sides, the gentle continuance of falling water from this location in the Uncompahgre National Forest, is all that can be heard for miles around.

fate plopping a bit of random good fortune squarely into his lap. In 2011, a man he’d never met, whose name he has since forgotten, gave him a call after seeing some of Bowman’s golden aspen photos in a gallery.

In the mountains outside Telluride, the man told him, there’s a spot hardly anyone knows about that he had to check out – a spot where mysterious natural forces have twisted the trunks of the aspen trees in seemingly unnatural ways, bending them into S-curves that make them look like rearing snakes – or almost like they’re wiggling their hips dancing.

Bowman followed the tipster’s instructions, driving a four-wheel-drive road as far as he could before getting out and walking into the woods, picking his way carefully, as there was not a trail to guide him. Sure enough, right where his informant told them they would be, he found and photographed the strange trees. While others may have photographed the “dancing aspens” before Bowman did, his photos made jaws drop when he displayed them in a gallery in Denver’s Santa Fe Arts District.

In the years since Bowman’s first visit to the dancing aspens, the many photographers who now know about them have quite literally beaten a path to the trees through the previously trackless forest. The scene has become almost as iconic as the Maroon Bells. It’s no coincidence that, also like the Maroon Bells, Bowman hasn’t returned to the famous aspens in recent years – he’d rather try to discover the next iconic Colorado experience.

“There’s nothing wrong with going after the iconic shots,” Bowman said. “There’s a reason everyone shoots them: They’re great. But I try to hike a new trail or drive a new road every trip I go out.”

As he explores those trails and roads for weeks at a time, he is entirely alone, save for his thoughts and the wilderness – and he seeks to commune as closely as possible with both. When he takes photos on his solo autumn outings, he isn’t motivated by aesthetics. It’s more of a spiritual feeling of documenting the relationship he forms with nature at its special time of transition each fall.

FIVE-TIME AWARD-WINNING BEST-IN-CLASS CIDER

A UNIQUE HIGH-ELEVATION EXPRESSION OF

COLORADO APPLES ELEVATED

FALL IN THE FLAT TOPS

Backcountry byway takes travelerspast pristine peaks to the ‘Cradle of Wilderness’

story

and photographs

by JOSHUA HARDIN

Arthur H. Carhart had a sudden realization as he camped at Trappers Lake, deep in northwest Colorado’s White River National Forest. A U.S. Forest Service surveyor there to document the placid pool for future resort developments, he was watching its waters reflect an amphitheater of unusually flat-topped peaks like a polished mirror when the thought occurred to him: Perhaps this pristine place should not be developed at all.

In December 1919, just weeks after his epiphany at Trappers Lake, Carhart wrote in a memorandum to his supervisor: “Time will come when these scenic spots, where nature has been allowed to remain unmarred, will be some of the most highly prized scenic features of the country.”

Carhart championed the cause of wilderness preservation his entire lifetime. The perceptive idea, like a seed planted at Trapper’s Lake, grew nationwide. By the 1930s, it branched into the establishment of Forest Service “primitive areas,” a temporary proclamation of some tracts,

including Trappers Lake, as off-limits to road or building construction.

In 1964, Congress passed the Wilderness Act, giving permanent protection to chosen areas. Carhart lived long enough to see the day in 1975 when Congress granted such protection to the 235,230acre Flat Tops Wilderness surrounding Trappers Lake, whose tranquil waters inspired his dream of protected wilderness areas more than a half-century earlier.

TRAPPERS LAKE, NOW revered as the “Cradle of Wilderness,” birthed Colorado’s place in the nation’s pantheon of public lands. Motorized travel is prohibited in the wilderness, making it a bit ironic that the easiest way to access it involves driving one of the state’s most ruggedly beautiful roads – the Flat Tops Trail Scenic and Historic Byway. This 82-mile route passes over two rarely visited mountain passes amid a vast landscape of subalpine forest decorated with the sparkling golden adornments of autumn splendor, sheer silvery cliffs dusted

Rainbow Lake reﬂects shoreline cabins and a spectrum of peak autumn foliage colors along Trappers Lake Road (Garﬁeld County Road 155). The route is a popular diversion from the Flat Tops Trail Scenic and Historic Byway.

with early-season snow and a mosaic of lichen-accented alpine tundra.

Only about half of the distance is paved. Though passenger vehicles can make the gravelly trip in dry conditions, the road may be impassible after rain or snowstorms. Driving takes between 3-5 hours, not counting side trips for backcountry hikes, stays in rustic lodges and cabins or exploration of the byway’s bracketing gateway towns of Yampa and Meeker, where travelers should make sure to fill up – there are no gas stations anywhere else on the byway, and cellphone service is spotty.

Flat Tops Trail is a “working byway” dotted with active mines, timber-producing woodlands and most notably rangeland for local sheep and cattle ranchers. Motorists may encounter livestock wandering onto the road or horseback riders rounding them up. Abundant deer and elk also frequently cross the curvy mountain switchbacks, suggesting the region’s reputation as a hunting hotspot is earned.

The route begins in the Routt County town of Yampa, near the confluence of

the Bear River and Phillips Creek. These combine to form the Yampa River, the longest free-flowing, dam-free river in the state. The area’s waterways likely inspired railroad engineer Edward L. Berthoud to name the region Egeria Park after a Roman water deity.

On Main Street, the Yampa-Egeria Museum occupies a historic bank building, complete with its original vault and photographic displays detailing the town’s deep agricultural roots, as well as its lumber harvesting and coal mining backgrounds. Nearby is the Old West-style false-front Montgomery’s General Store, where a cashier might use an antique hand-crank cash register to ring up the snacks and supplies travelers buy for the journey ahead. On the next block is Crossan’s M&A Market, a century-old building recently renovated into Yampa’s Town Hall, where a visitor center offers maps and up-to-date road condition reports.

Drivers embark on County Road 8 (which may also be marked as County Road 17 near the intersection of State

Highway 131) in Yampa’s north end. The byway cuts westward into White River National Forest, with the road climbing about 20 miles to the first major pullout at 9,764-foot Dunckley Pass. A short hike leading to a photogenic overlook is a great opportunity for passengers to stretch their legs or savor a picnic among quaking aspen groves ablaze with yellow foliage framing the far-reaching panoramic views.

As the byway makes a southerly straightaway, two peaks appear on the horizon, their uncharacteristically triangular shapes making them stand out from their flattopped neighbors. To the west is Pagoda Peak, which is, indeed, shaped like an Asian temple. To the east is the equally aptly named Pyramid Peak, which has a pointed prominence resembling an Egyptian monument. Before the byway suddenly curves northward, a short spur diverts to the Pyramid Guard Station. The Civilian Conservation Corps built this Forest Service office in 1934. The log-walled buildings, including a dwelling, barn and blacksmith shop, are definitive examples of rustic architecture.

Rolling mountainsides are covered in fruiting shrubs and aspen in fall foliage near an overlook at the summit of Dunckley Pass. Horses feed under a colorfully-hued hill along the Flat Tops Trail Scenic and Historic Byway.

THE ROAD VEERS back westward as it ascends 10,343-foot Ripple Creek Pass. An overlook here has a sweeping vantage of the White River Valley and the verdant Flat Tops Wilderness Area. Ochre aspen stands coating gentle slopes below the turnout sway in the cool breeze as the distant, white-capped Little Marvine Peaks gleam in the sun. Forest Road 205 detours 8 miles to Trappers Lake just below the pass and Ripple Creek Lodge, an outpost for elk hunting and trout fishing tours.

In August 2002, the Big Fish and Lost Lake fires, caused by lightning, burned more than 22,500 acres – almost 10 percent of the wilderness area – and an original lodge near the lake. The Forest Service planned to demolish the remaining 19thcentury cabins, but two sisters bought the property in 2005, rebuilt the lodge and preserved the cabins. Today, now under new ownership, Trappers Lake Lodge and Resort still offer cabin rentals, non-motorized boat rides and a restaurant open for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The area is an ideal basecamp for easy day hikes, such as the 5.5-mile Arthur H. Carhart Trail encircling the lake. Though burned spruce skeletons linger, carpets of tenacious pink fireweed bloom even in the crisp fall temperatures around Trappers Lake, mixing with orange-hued Gambel oak and chokecherry leaves.

Longer trails lead to other geological features deeper in the wilderness, including the Chinese Wall, a 7-mile-long escarpment of banded basalt resembling a natural Great Wall of China, and Devils Causeway, a narrow, vertigo-inducing ridge with 800-foot drop-offs that connects two plateaus. As legend has it, early cowboys blindfolded their nervous horses to lead them across the traverse, which is only 4 feet wide at its narrowest point. Contemporary visitors can choose to hike from Trappers Lake as part of an up-to30-mile loop. Blindfolds are not advised.

Back on the byway, Marvine Campground offers further opportunities for wilderness exploration. This is the limit of road maintenance from Meeker in winter months. As such, snowmobiles may be the only motorized way to travel farther, while miles of groomed, corduroy trail and natural powder on the Marvine Snow Trail are perfect for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. Before the snow flies, this area attracts horseback riders from the guest ranches surrounding the community of Buford. Most visitors here travel into the wilderness from Meeker, the quaint town 22 miles west.

Meeker is a hub of history, which visitors can explore at the White River Museum. Occupying an original late-1800s U.S. Army officer’s quarters, the museum

displays such rare artifacts as guns used in an 1896 bank robbery, a Victorian wreath made of human hair and a mounted two headed calf. More artifacts await at the Meeker Hotel & Cafe, where guests can examine a cavernous century-old lobby whose walls are mounted with massive trophy elk and mule deer, as well as biographies of past visitors, including President Theodore Roosevelt.

One of Colorado’s most unique annual events, the Meeker Classic Sheep Dog Championship Trials, is held in town every fall. About 135 teams compete on a 600-yard obstacle course, testing the dogs’ ability to maneuver sheep in a calm, controlled manner while handlers guide the dogs with a series of commands. Only 12 teams vying to be crowned top dog will make the finals.

With more than 350,000 acres of National Forest and wilderness, the Flat Tops remain a veritable “choose your own adventure” of public land experiences that would make Carhart proud. No matter the method of travel, hiking from the heart of the wilderness at Trappers Lake, or driving the region’s backbone of the Flat Tops Trail, natural treasures abound. Anchored by the friendly rural towns of Meeker and Yampa, featuring herding dog competitions and historic museums, this home on the range remains wild and free.

Forest Service surveyor Arthur H. Carhart coined Trappers Lake’s nickname “Cradle of Wilderness.” A Jeep is parked at Antlers Cafe & Bar in Yampa. Trapper’s Lake Lodge owner Becca Nielsen hangs shirts with the help of her herding dogs.

The Plains town famed for launching a music superstar makes the most of its latest turn in the national spotlight

by TOM HESS

VVIEWED FROM A SATELLITE, the farm fields surrounding Fort Morgan appear as a ribbon of green on a swatch of brown. South Platte River waters fill the canals and reservoirs built by the city’s founders, who dubbed their northeast Plains community the “Fort Morgan oasis.”

Viewed from Interstate 76, the 210-foottall silos of the Western Sugar Cooperative dominate the Fort Morgan skyline, symbolizing the towering importance of agriculture to the city of nearly 12,000 residents. Morgan County as a whole ranks fourth out of the state’s 64 counties in agricultural production.

As the silos come into view on the interstate, so does a highway sign proclaiming another source of pride: “Fort Morgan – Boyhood Home of Glenn Miller,” leader of one of the most popular big bands of the swing era in the 1930s and ‘40s. While swing aficionados still make pilgrimages to the Glenn Miller exhibit at the Fort Morgan Museum, a new contender recently emerged for the title of Fort Morgan’s biggest celebrity: ice cream shop owner Gloria Mosqueda.

At Mosqueda Delicacies Ice Cream & More on Main Street, as many as 20 customers a day ask for and get a selfie with

Mosqueda. The cheerful Mexican American grandmother became an overnight sensation in April when she and her shop appeared on an episode of the HGTV show Hometown Takeover

Mosqueda’s family had watched for years as other families wept with joy on TV when they saw their homes made new after a TV crew’s extreme makeover. When it was the Mosquedas’ turn, there was no holding back tears when the HGTV crew revealed her shop’s makeover.

“We all cried on camera” on a rainy Reveal Day – the day the TV crew filmed the family seeing the shop for the first time in three months, said Mosqueda, who is co-owner with her sister-in-law Blanca. After HGTV’s 9.6 million viewers saw the episode lines of customers started forming around the block.

Hometown Takeover devoted its entire second season to Fort Morgan, remodeling 18 total homes and businesses. The show chose Fort Morgan from the hundreds of towns that applied. Across the season’s six episodes, it highlighted some of the things that made the city stand out from the pack: its ethnically diverse population, a uniquely historic bridge and, of course, as the community of nearly 12,000 residents Fort Morgan’s original biggest

Fort Morgan strikes an even balance between agricultural and urban, as the sprawling metropolitan area is surrounded by lush fields. The city’s growing population represents an eclectic melting pot in the heart of Morgan County.

celebrity.

THOUGH NO LONGER the household name he once was, Glenn Miller was one of the biggest superstars of the 1940s. As leader of the Glenn Miller Orchestra, he received the music industry’s first gold record for selling more than 1 million copies of his 1941 hit “Chattanooga Choo Choo.” RCA Victor gave him a spray-painted gold record because the gold record award hadn’t been invented yet.

Miller died in 1944 when the plane he was on disappeared over the English Channel, but he lives on in Fort Morgan’s memory. The beating heart of Fort Morgan is downtown’s Glenn Miller Park, where music rings out year-round. The park hosts Thursday Night Live, a weekly summer festival that sometimes attracts headliner bands – typically older rock bands such as Starship and 38 Special –but always draws a crowd of families from across the 1,291 square miles of Morgan County, kids and adults alike happy for live music and food trucks. The park also hosts an annual music festival, Bobstock, in July.

Platte Valley Band – a community band

Joshua Hardin

Fort Morgan is famously known as the boyhood home of musician Glenn Miller. He is recognized throughout the city, including at a park that carries his name. Various community music events are held in the space throughout the year.

of teachers, lawyers, dentists, doctors, IT professionals playing wind instruments and percussion – performs three or four seasonal concerts in the park.

The band’s conductor for the past 20 years has been retired music teacher and basketball coach Chuck Morgan. Morgan helps a band member transition from one instrument to other, for example from the slide of a trombone to the fingering of a French horn. That experience gives Morgan special appreciation for what Glenn Miller accomplished as a band leader. “He was in the genius category,” Morgan said. “The style and the quality of music – it just doesn’t get old.”

Platte Valley Band played Miller’s “Chattanooga Choo Choo” for HGTV cameras. Hometown Takeover honored

Due to a never-ending demand for workers at many of Fort Morgan’s industry plant locations, the city welcomes a large (and always growing) immigrant population. This trend started 100 years ago with the building of the Western Sugar Cooperative.

Miller by installing three musical sculptures in the downtown park named for him: a treble clef, which resembles a fancy ampersand; a quaver, or eighth note; and a crotchet, or quarter note.

Miller left Fort Morgan to attend the University of Colorado Boulder in 1923 – the same year the Western Sugar Cooperative silo was built. The silo stores sugar beets from 850 growers, who own the operation. The Fort Morgan sugar processing plant is the only one in Colorado still operating; in sugar’s Colorado heyday, plants operated from Fort Collins to Rocky Ford. The plant employs 90 seasonal and more than 100 full-time staff.

The Western Sugar silo stands next to two other agribusinesses in Fort Morgan that are among the city’s biggest employers. Cargill’s plant supplies processed beef to the Colorado locations of Walmart, Kroger, Costco and McDonalds. It employs 2,100. Leprino Food supplies the mozzarella cheese that tops the pizzas of most of the best-known chains – Pizza Hut, Domino’s, Little Caesars, Papa John’s – and frozen brands – DiGiorno, Jack’s, Tombstone and Tony’s. It employs about 380.

Driven by the constant need for workers at the plants, Fort Morgan has a large and growing immigrant population. Immigrants from Mexico first started working at Western Sugar in the 1920s. Latin

American immigrants are still moving to Fort Morgan, joined in more recent decades by immigrants from Africa.

Houefa Akpamoli and her husband, Arnold Akele, immigrants from Benin in West Africa, came to Fort Morgan when Houefa found work Cargill and Arnold at Leprino’s.

The Cargill job gave Houefa a foothold in a community where she knew no one and spoke heavily accented English. Houefa is now the health equity manager for the Northeast Colorado Health Department. She ran for Fort Morgan City Council Ward 3 in 2021 and lost. She says she’ll keep running until she wins, or until a new generation runs, to bring representation of immigrants to city government.

Houefa’s new kitchen was one of Hometown Takeover’s makeover projects. She makes friends through hospitality and food, so the television crew doubled the kitchen’s size and installed new appliances. They painted the walls orange – not exactly Houefa’s first choice.

“I didn’t hate orange, but I never liked it,” Houefa said. But more important than color, she said, is the sense of community that the bigger kitchen makes possible.

“A sense of belonging is a huge issue here, if you are a newcomer and can’t speak the language,” Houefa said. “My family is not only African – it is every-

Joshua Hardin

Keeping the tempo alive are individuals like the Platte Valley Band, which features a full range of community members. Fort Morgan’s people are its biggest asset and allow the area, and its businesses, to flourish.

body, everybody that welcomes us and opens their hand. That can be Latino or Mexican. I like to cook for them.”

WHEN THE CREW from Hometown Takeover first talked with Fort Morgan Mayor Lyn Deal, they told her one of the things that intrigued them most about the city was its historic Rainbow Arch Bridge, which had been preserved thanks to her efforts.

When Deal moved to Fort Morgan in 1968 at age 22, she immediately wanted to know everything about the place. “When I go to a town, I want to know the history of it,” she said. But Deal knew nothing about the shut-down bridge over the South Platte River that once connected Fort Morgan to northern Morgan County. Pouring herself into researching it, she discovered that the overlooked bridge was, in fact, an engineering treasure.

In the Denver archives of Colorado Preservation Inc., she found that the Rainbow Arch Bridge is one of only a few Colorado bridges – the Royal Gorge Bridge is another – listed in Great American Bridges and Dams, a national guide that puts Rainbow Arch Bridge in the same company as the Golden Gate Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge.

The bridge’s unique feature is that, as a suspension bridge, its arches point up,

not down. Arches on the underside of the bridge would have caught river debris, such as downed trees, raising the water level and endangering bridge traffic. The 11 topside arches on each side of the quarter-mile span give the bridge higher clearance. This purely functional design came with an aesthetic bonus, as the arches mimic the shape of a rainbow’s arc.

An experimental bridge when it was built in 1923 over South Platte River, Rainbow Arch was like no other in Colorado at the time. Rainbow Arch withstood the force of two major floods 30 years apart in its first half century. Marking its 100th birthday this year, the bridge is bringing national attention to Fort Morgan, but only after enduring hardships its builders could not have anticipated.

Designed to be just wide enough for passing Model Ts, the Rainbow Arch Bridge proved too narrow for modern two-way traffic. And the freeze-thaw cycle weakened the concrete at the edges, so it was shut down in 1967.

Deal included the bridge in her successful application for establishing the Pawnee Pioneer Trails Scenic and Historic Byway, a 128-mile route that includes Pawnee Buttes. The Colorado Department of Transportation approved the route in 1992. The renewed Rainbow Arch Bridge reopened to pedestrian and bike traffic in 1995.

At the foot of the bridge, Hometown Takeover installed a welcome sign that labels Fort Morgan the “Oasis on the Plains,” harkening back to the community’s nickname in its earliest days.

When explorer Stephen Harriman Long traveled through northeastern Colorado in 1820, he described the land as the “Great American Desert.” Fort Morgan sprouted up as a military post built in 1864 to protect settlers and gold seekers on the Overland Trail. The post stood in what a newspaper called “a plain sparsely covered with buffalo and other grasses and cactus plants.”

Settlers who arrived after the post closed built a series of canals and reservoirs that turned Fort Morgan from desert to oasis. With water from the South Platte River and tributaries like Bijou and San Arroyo creeks, the town flourished, and flourishes still.

Its water also drives visitors to the city.

Platte Valley Band

top: Mosqueda Delicacies, bottom: Joshua Hardin

The annual Fall Harvest Car Show packs downtown Fort Morgan with classic cars and the people who love them. This is just one of many hometown events that bring the community together to celebrate the life and growth in the “Oasis on the Plains.”

The swimming pool at Riverfront Park hosts state and regional swim meets. Jackson Lake State Park offers something you rarely find in Colorado: a clean, sandy, uncrowded beach with warm, clear water. Owners of private homes next door keep an eye out for trash and trouble. The prospect of relief from summer heat lures Fort Morgan residents a half-hour drive north of town.

AN OFF-CAMERA contributor to Hometown Takeover projects, Jason Labonte, constructed the oasis welcome sign and many other HGTV projects.

Labonte painted a new farmhouse door periwinkle blue for a local horse ranch that got the HGTV treatment; he provided elm boards for Zazzy’s Café in downtown Fort Morgan; he created a “live edge” wood countertop for a private home; and for the town sign, he put together its wooden rainbow using cedar he harvested.

Labonte left a career designing military fighter jets, and his wife, Leah, quit her job with the National Western Stock Show, to move their family from Denver to Morgan County to their family business, Just Rustic. The company makes and sells heirloom wooden furniture. Demand for it is

growing among the aﬄuent second-home community in Morgan County, fueling an unending search for wood. Labonte can’t drive anywhere without continually scouting for black walnut, aspen and more. “It drives my wife crazy,” he said.

The Labontes recently purchased a former bank building in downtown Fort Morgan from Jim Forstedt, owner of Fort Morgan Furniture and the self-described “old-timer” of downtown. The old-timer is helping a new generation of entrepreneurs. Labonte is one.

Gloria Mosqueda is another. Gloria was born in Durango, Mexico, and emigrated with her family to America at age 4. She attended school in Fort Morgan and now has a 6-year-old grandchild. Forstedt self-financed Gloria’s acquisition of the building where Forstedt’s late father ran his furniture business.

“When Gloria told me what they wanted to put in the building, I had doubts,” Forstedt said. Their hard work changed his perspective. “They worked their tails off. Upstairs, where they run the ice cream machines, it looks like a surgical suite; it’s all white. I could not be more proud of those kids.”

Gloria confirms that she needs at least

three people at the counter handling walk-in business when, before the shop’s TV appearance, one worker sufficed. The Mosquedas also picked up the pace of their ice cream production, from twice a month to twice a week.

Gloria and Blanca enjoy their remodeled workspace. Gloria especially loves the colorful mural the crew arranged for one wall of the shop. Blanca loves the waﬄe-cone pattern on another wall. “I wouldn’t change anything,” Gloria said. “They did everything perfect.”

Forstedt’s furniture store and Mosqueda’s ice cream shop share parking in the back. Mosqueda buys furniture from Forstedt and refers ice cream customers to his business.

Forstedt keeps an autograph book, and he had Gloria sign it. She did, dedicating her signature “to my biggest fan – biggest underlined,” Forstedt said. “Which is true. I am bigger. I’ve put on 20 pounds” since Mosqueda moved in.

With his favorite ice cream shop to his left, an heirloom furniture store coming soon to his right, and music playing in Glenn Miller Park just a few blocks away, Forstedt is happy to call Fort Morgan home.

Morgan County Tourism

Joshua Hardin

THOSE CURVACEOUS ORANGE gourds we call pumpkins are just as fun to eat as they are to carve faces into. Hollow out the appropriate pumpkin and usher in autumn with this trio of delightfully festive favorites, rich with warmth and spices, like nutmeg and ginger, that are sure to terrify your taste buds (in a good way)!

Pumpkin Bread Pudding

This delectable dessert from The Cherry Cricket in Cherry Creek ushers us from summer to fall in each delightful bite.

In a large bowl, mix all wet ingredients, plus salt, and stir well to combine. Add bread to mix, stirring gently to ensure bread is evenly coated. Pour into a 13-by-9-inch baking pan, packing bread mixture evenly. Bake at 350° for 45 minutes.

Cut, drizzle caramel and white chocolate topping over each portion. Top with dollop of fresh whipped cream and healthy sprinkling of candied pecans.

1 15 oz can pumpkin

4 eggs, lightly beaten

1 tsp vanilla extract

5 cups milk

1/4 cup heavy cream

3 tsp salt

2 lbs brioche buns, cut into cubes

Caramel topping (such as Smucker’s)

White chocolate topping (such as Ghirardelli)

Whipped cream

Candied pecans

Serves 8-12

Pumpkin Pie with Nut Crust

Fresh pumpkin pies already rate high in terms of flavorful fall harvest season desserts. With brown sugar, ginger and maple syrup in its creamy custard filling, this pie from Angela Garbacz’ cookbook Perfectly Golden: Adaptable Recipes for Sweet and Simple Treats – served with a dollop of homemade whipped coconut cream – is the cream of the crop.

For crust: Combine almond flour, sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse until thoroughly mixed. Add coconut oil and pulse until mixed.

Spray 9-inch pie pan with nonstick spray. Press dough into pan. Make sure crust reaches top of pan. Bake at 400° for 15 minutes, or until edges begin turning brown. Remove from oven and allow to cool.

For custard pie filling: Combine pumpkin puree, brown sugar, maple syrup and starch in a medium bowl. Mix well. Add milk, coconut oil, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cardamom. Mix thoroughly. Pour pie filling into baked pie crust. Bake at 400° for 45 minutes, or until shine on top of pie is gone.

While pie is baking, prepare whipped coconut cream by scooping solidified coconut milk from each can into medium bowl. Reserve remaining liquid for other use or discard. Add vanilla extract to bowl and mix with electric mixer on medium-high for five minutes. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Remove pie from oven and cool at room temperature 30 minutes. Then place in refrigerator to firm up 4-6 hours. Serve when completely cool with dollop of whipped coconut cream if desired.

Crust

2 cups almond flour

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp sea salt

1/3 cup coconut oil, melted

Custard pie filling

1 15-oz can pumpkin puree

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup maple syrup

3 Tbsp cornstarch or tapioca starch

1/4 cup milk, almond milk or other nondairy substitute

2 Tbsp coconut oil, melted

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger, ground 1/2 tsp cardamom

Whipped coconut cream

2 15-oz cans coconut milk, refrigerated 24 hours

2 tsp vanilla extract

Serves 6-8

Daniel Muller

Pumpkin Spice Muﬃns

Of all the recipes Nicole Hampton of Aurora had created for her cookbook Sugar High: Sweet & Savory Baking in Your High-Altitude Kitchen, she probably gets the most requests for these muﬃns, which her husband asks her to make whenever he has the chance. Although she generally only makes them in the fall, she finds the muﬃns’ signature aroma instantly conjures nostalgic memories of autumn no matter what season she bakes them.

For muffins: Line 16 muffin cups with paper liners. In bowl, whisk together flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, ginger, allspice and cloves. In large bowl, beat together sugar, brown sugar and oil until combined. Add eggs, pumpkin and vanilla extract; stir until combined. Slowly add flour mixture and beat until batter is smooth. Fill each muffin cup about 3/4 full with batter.

For crumble topping: In bowl, stir together butter, flour, sugar, brown sugar and cinnamon until mixture is crumbly. Sprinkle top of each muﬃn cup with crumb mixture, dividing evenly. Bake at 375° for 20-22 minutes, until toothpick inserted into center of muﬃn comes out clean.

Muffi ns

2 cups flour

1 tsp ground cinnamon

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp ground allspice

1/4 tsp ground cloves

3/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup vegetable oil

3 eggs

1 cup pumpkin puree

2 tsp vanilla extract

Crumble

6 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted

3/4 cup flour

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

Makes 16 muffins

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.

Nicole Hampton

COLORADO POETRY

TOUR STATE THROUGH THE WORDS OF OUR POETS

Grant Collier

he blue spruce might be Colorado’s state tree, but during the fall, the aspen reigns supreme in the hearts of Coloradans. In this issue, we bring you poems – including a record four haikus – celebrating aspen trees, as well as the similarly named town.

Family Tree

Robert Basinger, Riﬂe

My bark shimmers and shines in the a ernoon light

And gives o a faint glow on moonlit nights

Upon my trunk, with an eye above

Someone carved the name of the one they love.

As you walk through this forest of timeless trees

Each and every trunk is my family

We started as one many years ago

And it’s by our roots that we spread and grow.

So enjoy the so and dappled sunlight

As we quiver and quake with pure delight is is how life is meant to be

We’re all one big happy Family Tree.

Twirl

Shirley Kobar, Loveland

what do they murmur aspen lanterns in moonlight one bright yellow twirl

Aspen’s Offering

Celeste Blundell-Camden, Englewood

Gently quaking leaves

Whispering invitations

To come – to commune …

Aspen Haiku

Charles Ray, Evergreen

aspen leaves tumble summer lost to autumn winds past pages of time

Best in Show

Janice Volz Schefcik, Centennial

Ready for display

Quaking, golden and sparkling

Aspen showing o

Together

Holly Myers, Wheat Ridge

e eyes of the aspen trunks

Watch me as I write.

e other trees, heavy with leaf, Stand still and listen

As the shimmering aspens

Laugh in the breeze.

Aspen Town Roots

Marina J. Ashworth, Denver

Aspen Town was west settled and born built with sweat, and tough as can be Town grew fast like a newborn babe But it rose from an ancient clan tree

Aspen trees stretch all over our globe New England through China they sing Our Aspen Town in Roaring Fork patch Shines bright from inherited bling

Gawk the Bells and Glenwood Hot Springs Sawatch Range vaunt mountains supreme Deep underground lay the fount colony Parent seed from eons’ foredreams

Town and trees stand rm against all re Roots steadfast since their time began Town and trees high, the roots lodge below Both are kin from the same ancient clan

Town and Tree

J. Craig Hill, Grand Junction (With apologies to Robert Frost)

Some say that Aspen is a town, Some say a tree.

When faced with folks in bling and down I hold with those who favor town.

But when the hills become a sea Of golden leaves in quaking woods at ll my heart with joy, then tree Is ne and good Enough for me.

Sunlight and the golden glow of plentiful aspen trees bathe the Telluride valley and surrounding San Juan Mountains in warmth and color.

Aspen

Andrew

Ceroni, Colorado Springs

As the morning sun slips over the peaks, e saw’s teeth of mountains reach To touch the face of God, e melody in their valley sanctuaries Sung by choirs of aspen.

Gold doubloons

Flutter in an autumn breeze, O ering treasure free for e eyes of a beholder.

A stand of silver sentinels Edge an alpine meadow Crouching on its knees in A late December snowfall.

Paper thin bark

Etched by the seasons, O ers a crisp repast For wandering elk.

Robert wrote that one could do worse an be a swinger of birches, But he’d never seen the Glory of aspen dancing on a hillside.

For Stacia

Pam Paricio, Littleton (Upon hearing of your breast cancer’s return)

Aspens awaken and arrive at their dance, moving to the Wind’s melodies making the Day’s moments

Laugh

Skip

Shimmer

Float

Chitter Chatter

Twirl

Sway en coming together to intertwine down Mountain sides

We know these songs summon Snow’s stealthy unease

But not yet.

We still must share the Sun’s Measure –

DO YOU WRITE POEMS about Colorado? e next poetry theme is “Only in Colorado” for November/December 2023, due Oct. 15 the theme is “Fresh Powder” for January/February 2024, deadline Nov. 15. Send your poems, including your mailing address, to poetry@ coloradolifemag.com or to Colorado Life, PO Box 270130, Fort Collins, CO 80527.

Blaine Harrington III

The Flying W Ranch

The daughters of a cowboy and war hero honor his memory by carrying on a family tradition of Western hospitality

story by TOM HESS

photographs

JOSHUA HARDIN

The cowboy on stage at the Flying W Ranch speaks and sings in a baritone that sounds as deep and as dark as a water well. His higher-voiced tenor singing partners sound as smooth as a tranquil lake. Blended with stringed instruments and drums, the Flying W Wranglers ood the full spectrum of the human hearing for the ranch’s hoopin’ and hollerin’ guests, who sit nearly eye level with the band.

ough faces have come and gone in the Wranglers’ lineup, the group has been performing together for 70 years, making them the second-longest running Western singing group in American history. And while they have played everywhere from the Grand Ole Opry to Carnegie Hall, no venue is more special to these cowboy singers than their home base at the Flying W Ranch in northwest Colorado Springs.

Flying W Ranch

The Flying W Wranglers delight the audience from their home stage at the Flying W Ranch in Colorado Springs. These ve cowboys are just one part of the ranch's longstanding display of tradition and hospitality. Flying W founder Russ Wolfe lives on in spirit through the ranch, which has been entertaining guests and providing a delicious cowboy meal since the doors opened in 1953.

Wild West days are never far away at the Flying W Ranch, thanks in part to a band of crooning cowboys dressed to the nines in denim. The decor, high timber ceilings, chuck wagon meals and the spirit of current owner Leigh Ann Wolfe only add to the ambiance and fun.

FROM MAY THROUGH October, the Wranglers form the musical backdrop for the “Chuckwagon” dinners at the Flying W Ranch’s towering stone-and-timber lodge. e Wranglers’ authentic cowboy songs and the dinners are a beloved Colorado Springs tradition that began in 1953 and has continued to the present day. It is a tradition so strong that not even one of the worst natural disasters in Colorado history could break it.

e ve Flying W Wranglers wear cowboy hats, vests, denim jeans and scarves to match their cowboy lyrics. e evening will be a journey through Western standards that feeds the audience’s nostalgia for the Old West and their love for Colorado.

On a oor-to-ceiling screen behind the band, it’s a night of horses – esh and iron. As the Wranglers sing “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” galloping horses ash on the screen. Next is “Orange Blossom Special,” set to video of steam locomotives, smoke bellowing across western landscapes. As the song’s tempo mimics a train gaining speed, the Wranglers’ ddler follows suit, each round of the song going faster – the pace so fast that his bow becomes a blur.

e audience cheers him on.

e baritone gets the audience laughing and applauding with a familiar cowboy tune, Marty Robbins’ “El Paso,” when suddenly he makes it a funny Cli sNotes version: “Down in the west Texas town of El Paso, I fell in love, I got shot and I died,” he sings. “ e beginning, the middle and the end in one sentence.”

On another night, a er a heartfelt musical tribute to Colorado, one of the Wranglers nonsensically breaks out in Italian opera, singing “O Sole Mio.” at gets a laugh, too. But the baritone is the enforcer – he cuts it short in comedic exasperation. He responds likewise when another Wrangler tries to sidetrack the Western music by playing the rock tune “Back in Black” by AC/DC on his electric guitar.

Entertainment from the Wrangler's ddler Luke Tripp and other band members keep tables spilling over with entire families laughing along all night.

The packed dining hall has come a long way from its origin days in 1953. The original venue stood solitary in a pasture, with a low-clearance hall of borrowed lumber. After it was destroyed in the 2012 Waldo Canyon Fire, the Wolfe family reopened with the new, modern dining hall in 2020.

INTRODUCING THE WRANGLERS to the audience and cheering them when they leave the stage is a spry woman dressed head to toe as an authentic cowgirl: Western hat, pearl-snap denim shirt, big belt buckle. It’s not a stage out t – it’s her lifestyle.

hundreds of hungry visitors, just as her father had done.

When her father’s version of Flying W opened in 1953, it stood alone, far back into the woods at the western end of a cow pasture two miles north of Garden of the Gods. Old-timers remember as children tossing cow patties like Frisbees in the Wolfes’ vast, empty barbed-wired enclosed meadow.

Leigh Ann Wolfe is the Flying W Ranch’s owner and emcee. As one of three daughters of Flying W founder Russ Wolfe, this is something Leigh Ann was born to do. A microphone in her hand, facing a darkened hall, she’s smiling a smile bigger than her belt buckle. She’s happy to welcome

her belt buckle. She’s happy to welcome

e Flying W served its meals in a low-ceiling dining hall of reclaimed lumber that had been surrounded by trees –a “funky old barn,” some locals called it,

that nonetheless held special memories of what Colorado Springs once was: a much less sprawling, less urban town.

Russ had moved from Kansas to Colorado to help his father-in-law with his ranch. Russ was skilled at it – cattle and horses.

Russ started hosting guests for a chuckwagon meal twice a week. Demand for Flying W meals and Flying W Wrangler entertainment grew so rapidly that within a decade, Russ was hosting dinner shows every day of the week. So visible was he that Russ became the face of Colorado Springs tourism, helped attract the U.S. Air Force Academy to Colorado Springs and founded the Western Chuckwagon Association. Russ took time for everyone – guests by the busload, Flying W sta , Wranglers, his daughters.

“He was a giver to humanity,” Leigh Ann said. “And he was my best friend.”

Leigh Ann wants everyone to know just how much her dad gave, because he would not have done so himself. She provides a visitor with a list of his accomplishments. At the top: Russ Wolfe’s service in World War II as rst lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, aboard a wood-hulled mine sweeping vessel, the USS YMS-298. A er the Japanese had surrendered, and a er the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, YMS-298 approached Hiroshima Bay and a much larger, metal clad Japanese warship. e ship lowered its Japanese ag in response, as a sign of its surrender. Leigh Ann and her sister Terry love that story –the big ship bowing to the tiny ship.

Russ didn’t talk about all the times he helped people, like the time he helped a Flying W Wrangler who faced a family crisis.

Vern omson had not worked long at the Flying W when his wife, Kathy, needed surgery he could not a ord. Russ paid the bill, and never spoke of it again. omson worked every night from 1977 to 2003, from Memorial Day to the rst of October. “I didn’t see a summer sunset for 30 years,” omson said. It was all he could do to honor Russ Wolf’s generosity. Russ didn’t seek recognition in return. He didn’t want handouts, either – not

from the government, and not from anyone else. He didn’t need accolades, or ego strokes. He simply worked hard at making people happy. When the gut punches that life can deliver struck him – his wife Marian’s death a er 54 years of marriage, and the 2012 Waldo Canyon Fire that burned nearly everything he had built – Russ carried on, just as he had done on the range, and in the Navy.

A 2,600-DEGREE FIRE moving straight downhill at 65 miles per hour got the Wolfe family thinking fast and hard about who and what needed saving.

e day Leigh Ann will never forget was a Tuesday, June 26, 2012, when the temperature in Colorado Springs rose to 101 degrees, a er four straight days of red ag warnings and mandatory evacuations. Strong winds pushed res over the crest of the Front Range and down into Colorado Springs at approximately 4 p.m.

Early on, Colorado Springs Police thought the re, which they saw jumping from treetop to treetop toward hillside neighborhoods, might overwhelm the whole city, too – perhaps becoming as big as the San Francisco Fire of 1906 or the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

Even so, police allowed Leigh Ann and her sister Terry to stay at the ranch until the last minute. Terry and Leigh Ann removed gi store inventory but also prized family antiques, such as Western paintings and American Indian artifacts, as the re crested the ridge above them. en they saw the ames racing toward them. ey were the last two people to leave; re ghters had already retreated in hopes of saving nearby houses.

“You didn’t have time to be afraid,” Terry said.

Within hours, the re destroyed everything that Russ had built, as well as 346 homes downslope.

A er the re, the sta cut down trees and trimmed back burned vegetation to remove what Leigh Ann called an “eyesore” for the Colorado Springs community. Without paying customers for their dinner show, cash ow became a trickle. To fund the rebuild, Leigh Ann sold a

THE NEW DINING HALL opened in 2020, and with a program familiar to long timers and refreshing to newcomers.

business and launched another – a forestry management business that provided re mitigation services on federal lands.

Finally, in 2018, the Wolfe family was ready to sign a letter of intent to build the new dining hall. Leigh Ann desperately wanted her dad to walk with her through the construction process, but at his age –he was 93 – there were good days and bad days. Russ died March 29, 2019, before he could see the new dining hall built.

Leigh Ann and Terry believed their dad would love the new hall, especially the leather saddles straddling the ra ers. ey

used re-damaged lumber from one of their reclamation projects to build 41-footlong dining tables.

Only now, years later, can Leigh Ann begin to see the re’s silver linings.

“ ere’s two good things that come out of this re,” Leigh Ann said. “One is that the old dining hall is gone, because it was antiquated. And two, our ranch is like the Garden of the Gods now, because you can see the rocks.”

Terry is still amazed, years later, that a wooden tepee where her mother stored a thousand cookbooks survived the re.

Early in the program, the guests will hear the most important announcement of the night: how not to burn their hands on the tin plate carrying their hot cowboy dinner. ey pick up the plate from a stack outside, hand the plate to servers at each station, who quickly serve their part of the meal dish, and who will add a little more if you ask. It all moves at a fast pace, and you soon learn why you’re happy for it. e plate is getting hotter at each stop.

Everything is hot: rst, a choice of smoked beef brisket or spicy chicken, then sausage and nally trail beans. e cold applesauce arrives just in time to cool one edge of the plate that guests can hold before their next test of endurance.

At the end of the line, Flying W’s “boot sock” co ee is served hot, without lint or foul odor, in a tin cup whose handle is almost but not quite too hot to touch. is gets guests moving quickly to their seats for relief.

e ranch is well practiced in moving people through the food line. At full capacity, it serves 850 people in half an hour before the show.

At Leigh Ann’s request, the baritone Wrangler sings a nightly tribute to Russ, and a remembrance of what Flying W had once been. is is the land he fell in love with, the land he wouldn’t leave for a return to Kansas. It’s land that his daughters won’t leave either. ey’re staking their stand. Flying W is here to stay.

Lead singer Michael Amidei croons a nightly ode to Flying W Ranch's founder. Below, Russ was a skilled horseman when he started entertaining guests to Colorado Springs.

Flying W Ranch

16x World Champion

GO. SEE. DO.

COLORADO’S CALENDAR OF EVENTS

by LEAH M. CHARNEY

CULTURE

MAN OF THE CLIFF

OCT. 14 · AVON

Lumberjacks and lumberjanes converge on the mountain town of Avon to compete in axe-throwing, keg-tossing, speed-chopping and other pastimes popular with the burly, flannel-shirted crowd.

Local married couple Adam and Amanda Williams founded the event based on the simple premise that it would be fun to throw a party, enjoy good beer with good friends, hurl some axes and shoot some arrows – and do it all to raise money for a local charity.

They launched in 2009, remaining true to that intention to raise money for local causes. Competitors and spectators visit from across the country, contributing to the more than $150,000 raised for Eagle

County organizations in the time since. That tradition continues today, with 100 percent of funds now benefiting Can Do Multiple Sclerosis, an Avon-based nonprofit with national reach.

Attendees and aspiring loggers are encouraged to dress the part. Plan to wear your best flannel, if there is such a thing, to cheer on competitors or to join in the fun – some of last year’s competitors even received flannel beer koozies as registration prizes.

Speaking of beer, area craft brews and food trucks containing a variety of delivious fuel are available on-site, but organizers remind you: Don’t drink and spear throw. manofthecliff.com.

WHERE TO STAY THE WESTIN RIVERFRONT RESORT & SPA

Located at the base of the Riverfront Express Gondola, skiers may recognize this property because of its easy access to Beaver Creek Mountain. The space is less crowded and perhaps more breathtaking in mid-autumn, when guests can enjoy a roaring fire pit while taking in a landscape shifting from fall colors to serene winter scenes.126 Riverfront Lane. (970) 790-6000

WHERE TO EAT KAI’S ISLAND GRILL

Bringing the Aloha spirit of Hawai‘i to the heart of the Vail Valley, this no-frills grill offers hearty portions of tender kalua pork, crispy katsu chicken and tuna poke bowls. Be sure to try the macaroni salad, a plate lunch staple made with a sweet and sour zing. And don’t forget: Spam musubi makes a great pocket snack for later. 137 Benchmark Road, Suite E. (970) 393-5462.

FAMILY CATCH THE GLOW PARADE

NOV. 24 · ESTES PARK

Straight out of a storybook, this beloved annual holiday kickoff parade, which brightens Estes Park each year on the day after Thanksgiving, is all about both catching the figurative glow of the holiday spirit while enjoying the literal glow of an illuminated parade.

After visiting Santa and supporting the many local shops along Elkhorn Avenue, as many as 20,000 people line the street, where festive floats, marching bands, firetrucks and others cruise by. Dubbed “the brightest event of the year” by locals, most vehicles cover themselves in twinkling Christmas lights, while others haul decked out trees, oversized nutcrackers or shining snowmen. Gleaning the reason for the season has never been more picturesque, especially with the snowcapped backdrop of the nearby Rocky Mountains.

Though the marchers are all representative of Estes Park’s tightknit community, as a town built on tourism, revelers from all over the world are welcomed to bundle up and get together to witness the heartwarming holiday fun. (970) 586-6104.

WHERE TO EAT WAYFINDER RESTAURANT

When you’re hungry for breakfast, find your way to the Wayfinder Restaurant. From omelets to benedicts to hashes, nearly all meals can be smothered in chorizo gravy or pork green chile. Those with a sweet tooth won’t mind choosing from more than a half-dozen waffle and pancake options, while the more adventurous can feast on the breakfast trout. 900 Moraine Ave., Suite 301. (970) 586-3098.

WHERE TO STAY

MCGREGOR MOUNTAIN LODGE

Guests rest easy in this quaint mountain setting, complete with fully equipped cabins, suites and rooms (some boasting spectacular panoramic views). Good pups are welcome in a select few cabins and wifi is free! Those who don’t feel like sleeping can enjoy the bordering Rocky Mountain National Park and the town of Estes Park. mcgregormountainlodge.com. 2815 Fall River Road. (970) 586-3457.

Other events you may enjoy

OCTOBER

Spoketober

Through Oct. 31 · Durango

Riding the slipstream of the first Spoketober, this month-long celebration of all things cycling is back. Organizations in and around Durango team up for events to cover all forms of biking, from road to mountain to BMXing, and that newest addition: e-biking. Enjoy group rides, bike swaps, parades, prizes, and even a sweepstakes. spoketoberdurango.com.

Oddities & Curiosities Expo

Oct. 7 · Denver

This gathering screams out to the lovers of the strange and unusual, complete with hand-selected vendors, dealers, artists and other small businesses catering to curiosities. Guests will gaze upon the likes of taxidermy, funeral collectibles and more as they take over the Colorado Convention Center from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. for one day only. odditiesandcuriositiesexpo.com.

Rocky Mountain Women’s Film Festival

Oct. 20-22 · Colorado Springs

The longest-running women’s film festival in North America returns to Colorado College to celebrate its 36th year. Cinephiles should expect a range of films from animated and documentary to shorts and narrative features. Passes and individual movie tickets both available. (719) 226-0450.

Ciderfest

Oct. 27-29 · Hotchkiss

This harvest festival includes all things deliciously apple, like tastings, pressings and classes from area cideries, but also brings the best of Hotchkiss, Paonia and the North Fork Valley’s music and food scenes. For the most fun at this family-friendly festival, consider camping in one of the area orchards. bigbs.com/ciderfest.

Chris Amundson

GRAND JUNCTION AIR SHOW

OCT. 14-15 · GRAND JUNCTION

The jaw-dropping demonstration of the power of flight on the Western Slope is a tradition dating back to 1912, when Grand Junction sponsored its first “Aviation Day,” wowing locals with a biplane that had to be brought in by train because it was unable to fly over the mountains. More than 100 years later, the Grand Junction Air Show continues in the tradition of its predecessor, and while the aircraft have certainly increased in power and speed, they retain that same “wow” factor that has amazed audiences since the very beginning.

The air show brings the aerial acrobatics of the U.S. Navy Blue Angels, as well

as other military and entertainment flying acts, to the Grand Junction Regional Airport. Hotstreak, a 1940 Ford that’s the Guinness World Record-winning fastest firetruck, will also hit the runway, showing off a more than 24,000-horsepower twin Rolls-Royce Bristol Viper jet engine.

Over a weekend of both air-based events and ground-bound entertainment, visitors can get close-up looks at the planes, helicopters and cool cars on display, then plop down a camp chair and witness the show in the sky – and all of this with the unique grandeur of Mount Garfield and the Book Cliffs as a backdrop.

WHERE TO STAY HOTEL MAVERICK

Located on the beautiful Colorado Mesa University campus, this boutique hotel doesn’t only cater to students and their families but also attracts outdoor enthusiasts headed to the nearby Book Cliffs, Colorado National Monument or Grand Mesa, the largest flattop mountain in the world. While the views from the rooftop bar and restaurant are lovely, the food is even better. 840 Kennedy Ave. (970) 822-4888.

WHERE TO GO DOWNTOWN GRAND JUNCTION

Downtown Grand Junction is, in a word, darling. The tree-lined Main Street boasts a bookstore and bike shops, a tasting room for Carlson Vineyards and the Avalon Theatre. Don’t miss A Robin’s Nest, which hosts antiques, collectables and vintage vendors. Main Street. downtowngj.org.

Grand Junction Air Show

Other

events you may enjoy

NOVEMBER

Handweavers Guild

Fiber Art Show

Nov. 1-5 · Longmont

For five days, the Boulder County Fairgrounds hands itself over to all things woven, felted, knitted, crocheted or otherwise handmade. Admission and parking are both free, which will help lessen the impact on your wallet as you peruse the gorgeous goods made by the more than a hundred guild members participating in the show. hgbsale.org.

Boulder Balkan Bash

Nov. 4 · Boulder

The culture of this eastern European peninsula roars to life at the Avalon Ballroom, aided by festive music, dancing and food. More than a dozen musicians will perform throughout the evening and guests will hear genres ranging from village-style Bul-

garian folk to Greek taverna-style tunes. vw.ticketleap.com/2023-boulder-balkanbash/details. (720) 936-5055.

Arkansas Valley Balloon Festival

Nov. 4-5 · Rocky Ford

While Rocky Ford’s name might have you thinking of cantaloupe, the agricultural hub is also home to a flying festival held the first Friday of November since 1988. An easy drive from Pueblo and La Junta, balloonists come from around southern Colorado and northern New Mexico to take advantage of the clear skies – and photographers follow. (719) 254-4354.

Bighorn

Sheep Festival

Nov. 11 · Georgetown

Did you know: the Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep is the only native sheep species that resides in Colorado? Or that bighorn sheep can weigh upwards of 320 pounds, most of it muscle? Find out your own sheep facts at this family-friendly festival that also has children’s activities, viewing and photography opportunities, and educational programs. (303) 569-2405.

Denver Fashion Week

Nov. 11-19 · Denver

Denver Fashion Week has one major goal: To support local fashion and design communities by raising awareness of our area talent. Colorado’s largest fashion showcase features both longtime fashion favorites as well as emerging and up-and-coming designers (found locally, nationally and internationally), as well as hair and makeup artists, and models. Each day of the event carries a different theme. Have fun figuring out what to wear. denverfashionweek.com.

Castle Rock Season of the Star

Nov 18-Jan. 20 · CastleRock

Fireworks follow the Nov. 18 ceremony when the star atop Castle Rock – built as a sign of hope during the Great Depression – begins to shine brightly for all driving along I-25 between Denver and Colorado Springs to see. This ushers in the holiday season for many in the area, with other events like the Starlight Market, and Downtown Trolley rides and other reindeer games occurring on following weekends. (720) 896-8696.

Uniquely you

in the Estes Park valley, at the base of the Rocky Mountains, our custom studio has been crafting unique ﬁne jewelry since 1976.

Years of Brilliance

Keep Colorado Wild

AsColoradans,we live life outside — andwiththat comes the responsibilityfor all of us to care for Coloradoandkeep itwild.

Newthisyear,Colorado residentswillseea $29 Keep Colorado Wild Pass added totheir annual vehicle registrationthroughthe

our great outdoors andwildlife in ameaningful way.

Colorado is home to more than 960 species of wildlife and23 million acres of public lands, ranging from wetlands toforests, canyon landscapes tomountainlakes.Soit is no surprise that Coloradans cherishanoutdoor lifestyle and want to protect the wild spaces and wildlife they treasure.

Keep ColoradoWild PassQuick Facts:

•Save 60% over the traditionalannual state parks pass

•Available only withyour vehicle registration process

•The $29 pass is included inyour price total

•When purchased, the ColoradoParksand Wildlife (CPW)logo prints onyourregistration cardwhich becomesyour pass.

•Noadditional window sticker is provided

• Keep yourregistration card/passwith your vehicle

•The pass is not transferable between vehicles

•The pass can be linked to the MyCPW app

•All regularly pricedColoradostate park passesare still available

•You can opt out of the pass

The KeepColorado Wild Passis way more than state park entry, the money raisedfrom the pass sales supports your local:

•State parks system

•Searchandrescue teams

•Avalanche safetyprograms

•

•Outdoor learning opportunities

All of Coloradowins whenyou stay opted in! Joinus inkeeping Colorado,Colorado.

Read more aboutthe Keep Colorado Wild Pass andhow it cpw.info/keepcoloradowildpass and cpw.info/keepcoloradowildpassspanish.

EnglishSpanish

Staunton State Park

COLORADO CAMPING

LAUNCHING POINTS FOR OUTDOOR EXPLORATION

by DAN LEETH

GLOCATION

Sawatch Range

TENT/RV SITES

Both

ACTIVITIES

Boating, shing, hiking, paddleboarding, swimming

ETAWAYS SOMETIMES REQUIRE compromises. For example, when my wife suggested we vacation in the islands, I bought her a pineapple and booked us a campsite in the Island Acres section of Colorado River State Park near Grand Junction. When she proposed a getaway to the Alps, I gave her a packet of Swiss Miss and booked a campsite near Ouray, the self-proclaimed Switzerland of America. Now she wants to go on a cruise to Italy, so I did the next best thing. I bought a package of spaghetti and booked a site at Lottis Creek Campground, 27 miles northeast of Gunnison. is national forest facility lies between its namesake creek and the Taylor River, 6 miles downstream from Taylor Park Reservoir. It o ers 45 single-family campsites, 38 of which feature electric hookups. Shaded by lodgepole pines, campsites here o er a pleasant retreat in the woods,

complete with a broad menu of outdoor activities in which to engage.

Anglers, for example, will nd the Taylor River rife with brown and rainbow trout. e Evian-clear ow released from Taylor Dam tumbles down a rocky canyon whose banks lie hemmed in winsome wild owers and towering trees.

A wilder way to enjoy the beauty of the stream is to paddle a ra down it. e upper section of the Taylor o ers a thrilling, whitewater ride through Class III rapids. For a calmer adventure, the lower Taylor o ers more relaxed, tamer currents. With ow controlled by the dam, the ra ing season typically extends into September.

Campers who prefer their water at will nd opportunities for boating, shing and swimming in Taylor Park Reservoir behind the dam. Lake anglers can hook northern pike and kokanee salmon as well as rainbow, brown, brook and cutthroat

Dan Leeth

trout. e Taylor Park Marina rents boats, shing gear and stand-up paddleboards. eir store sells bait, tackle and camping supplies, their grill menu features burgers and burritos, and they claim to own the only liquor store for miles around.

For those of us favoring hiking boots over waders or lifejackets, the area features several trails to hike and peaks to scale. Behind the campground, South Lottis Trail accesses peaks, streams and lakes in the Fossil Ridge Wilderness Area. Campers with higher ambitions can tackle the Collegiate Peak 14ers or their slightly less-lo y neighbors lining the mountain crest east of Taylor Park.

While not authorized for use in the campground and banned from wilderness areas, ATVs abound in Taylor Park, where the knobby-tired machines ply the area’s backroads and OHV trails. A popular pitstop for o -roadersis the ghostly town of Tincup, a 14-mile drive on paved and graded roads from the campground. e onetime boomtown is now a summer

home community complete with a general store, souvenir shop, restaurant and many restored structures. My favorite place to wander here is the old cemetery, which features separate sections for Jewish, Protestant and Catholic corpses.

To satisfy my wife’s longing for an Italian cruise, I booked us on a Float ’n’ Dine voyage o ered by ree River Resorts in Almont, 16 ½ miles down the road from the campground. From there, we would ra 10 miles down the velvety ow of the Gunnison River to Garlic Mike’s Restaurant, which sits along the river’s banks north of Gunnison. With our guide, Joelle, at the oars, we oated past streamside anglers, dri ed gently under bridges and glided past the backyards of riverfront homes. Reaching the restaurant, we sipped Chianti and dined on ne Italian cuisine while ensconced in a piazza-like outdoor setting complete with deer occasionally peering at us from the trees.

Now, I’m not sure what my wife is going to do with that pack of spaghetti.

The Lottis Creek Campground is home to a selection of sites in a quiet and peaceful setting. The adventurous have their opportunities too, as it isn’t far from river access.

The Lottis Creek Campground lies 16 ½ miles northeast of Almont and 40 miles west of Buena Vista over Cottonwood Pass.

The campground offers 45 individual sites with fees of $34 per night for an electric site and $24 for nonelectric. There is no dump station. Twenty-five of the sites can be reserved in advance (recreation. gov, 877-444-6777) with the remainder first-come, first-served. There is one reservable group site.

Raft paddle trips can be booked through Scenic River Tours (scenicrivertours.com, 970-641-3131) or Three River Resorts (3riversresort. com, 888-761-3474).

The Float ‘n’ Dine dinner cruise to Garlic Mike’s costs $105 per adult, which covers the raft trip with a $50 per person credit for dinner. Book in advance through Three Rivers Resort.

TRIVIA ANSWERS

Questions on p 18-19

1 Lark bunting

2 Kangaroo rat

3 North American beaver

4 Gray wolf

5 Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep

6 b. 290,000

7 a. It’s aquatic

8 c. Western massasauga (it’s a rattlesnake)

9 c. Ocelot (it’s actually the mountain lion)

10 a. Smallmouth bass

11 False (the vast majority haven’t been)

12 True

13 False (there are 200 nesting pairs, many of which live here yearround).

14 False (Pikachu is based on a mouse; the name similarity is a coincidence)

15 True

Page 19 Proud eagles in Longmont. Trivia Photographs

Page 18 A bull elk bugels on a cold morning in Estes Park. A black bear lounges in a tree on a sunny day in Estes Park.

Dan Leeth

Photo credits (t) Sherri O’hara (b) Gerado Brucker

TOP TAKE EDITORS’ CHOICE

PHOTOGRAPH BY JIM SHOEMAKER

EVEN IN A state abounding with spectacular fall foliage drives, the backroads south of Ridgway enjoy legendary status as some of the premier leaf-peeping routes in Colorado. In September, Ouray county roads 5, 7 and 9 are aglow with golden aspen leaves that are made all the more breathtaking by the dramatic backdrop of Mount Sne els.

e highest point of the Sne els Range of the San Juan Mountains, the 14,158 feet Mount Sneffels embodies the rugged, jagged character of this relatively young mountain system. Viewed from County Road 5, it looks rather wide, but it takes on a pointier appearance from county roads 7 and 9.

While many of the best-known mountains in Colorado are named a er people – Pikes Peak, Longs Peak, Mount Elbert – Mount Sne els’ distinctive name is a literary allusion. In Jules Verne’s classic 1864 science- ction novel Journey to the Center of the Earth, the protagonists begin their subterranean adventure by going inside an inactive volcano in Iceland called Mount Sne els. e book’s volcano is based on the actual Icelandic mountain Snæfell, which means “snow mountain.”

Colorado’s Mount Sne els is not a volcano, but the members of the 1874 Hayden Survey thought its western ank looked enough like a volcanic crater to justify naming it a er the mountain from the popular and still relatively new novel.

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.

This photo was taken with a Canon 5D Mark III camera with a 24-105 mm f/4 lens, shot at 58 mm at f/16, exposed for 4.0 sec at ISO 100.