Welcome to Steamboat Springs

By Johnny Walker

Now I’m unemployed, so I found a private spot to camp down by the Yampa River. Just a few weeks earlier I was living on my sailboat anchored off a beautiful sea island on the coast of South Carolina - It made me realize how drawn I am to natural beauty and clean water. This was a good spot to assess my immediate future as funds were running low and I’ll soon need an airline ticket back to the boat.

I was walking early that next day across the meadow. I could hear a tractor cutting hay in the distance. I thought, “Why not ask?” John Moore, on the tractor, saw me coming from across the meadow. I figure he’d ask me to move on, but he shut down the engine and he asked, “You lost?" I replied, “Nope, I’m looking for work, I can stack hay and I know a bit about cattle.” (Actually, I rode rodeo for a while as a teenager while trying to be a cowboy), John said, “Find me on this tractor first thing tomorrow morning. Make yourself at home, you can camp where you are and “shower” in the river.” is now under water. This took about a week as the cattle were grazing on public lands on Sarvis Creek, Morrison Creek and all of Stagecoach. One evening I drove my camper to Steamboat and spend the night after dinner at the Cove. I needed this visit to Steamboat before flying back to my little Tumbleweed. I picked up a local newspaper and sat at the Cove bar for a glass of wine. The Chinese food tasted great and I spent a good hour just looking at the old sailboat photos on the wall. Before leaving I tore out an ad from the last page of the paper. The ad said, “Bus driver wanted.”

I lived out that summer, now fully employed stacking bails during the day and riding a horse named Goose in the evening. I would swim in the river and dine on fresh trout. My camper truck was my mountain home where I soon learned every corner of that winding Yampa River. This lifestyle seemed, at first, a radical change from my previous three years living and sailing alone on the Tumbleweed.” After a week or so, I could see that these high mountain valleys and streams were oddly similar to the coral reefs and protected coves of the Bahamas. The natural wonders of both presented to me a peaceful and comfortable feeling and I felt somehow connected to both worlds.

A few days later I was heading back to Hilton Head Island to live and work on the Tumbleweed before a quick sail over to the Bahamas. I had to think over a few things including that ad.

Yes, I answered the ad, and yes, they said you’ve got the job. Show up about mid-November and we’ll send you to Mississippi to pick up, which would become the “Free Bus.” Looks like I’m moving to Ski Town USA for the winter. I was about to be part of the biggest change Steamboat had seen since Carl Howelsen built the first ski jump in 1910.

Change never seems to come easily, especially if it does not seem to benefit you. The first questions that any newcomer to the valley ask me is “How do you feel about all the change that has happened over the last few years and especially post COVID. I always reply that history usually repeats itself after a generation or two and the recent changes were bound to happen. We have seen it coming for years and we always knew that Steamboat would be “discovered.” We all can remember joking about putting up the proverbial “gate” at the top of the pass.

I came to the valley in ‘74 to work at a proposed ski resort called Stagecoach. I lived in my pickup camper near the base of the ski hill that was about to begin its 3rd year of operation. I soon found that the Woodmore Corporation, owner of Stagecoach, was going into bankruptcy and would immediately stop construction of the project and defaulted payment on the existing debts owed too many contractors. Stagecoach came to a sudden halt. The condos sat unfinished and empty. It was a modern day ghost town. The Stagecoach dam was postponed and the ski lifts lay abandoned. The meadows that are now submerged under Stagecoach Lake were leased to a rancher named John Moore. John was an “old school” cowboy right out of the Marlboro commercial. In the bankruptcy hearing, John told the judge that he’d personally shoot down the chair lift cable if they tried to run it without paying their debts. That was John Moore!

A few miles away a little town called Oak Creek had established itself as a hippie mecca in northwest Colorado. Walking Main Street in Oak Creek was truly an interesting experience. The men dressed in baggy pants that looked like my childhood pajamas and the women didn’t shave their legs and wore combat boots. There were two bars in town. The Colorado Bar was for “hippies” and the VFW bar was attended by the locals, mostly miners and ranchers. I felt somewhat out of place in both. After years of listening only to the Bahamian weather forecasts, the Oak Creek local radio FM station (KFMU) was a dream come true. Folk music and bluegrass played all day long along with no commercials and soft spoken DJs.

On the ranch I worked with two south Routt cowboys, Johnny Moore and Doug Werner. On a couple occasions we’d travel over to Steamboat for an evening at the Hatch. The Hatch was the local cowboy bar which was located below the Cove, the hippie bar. A hippie would never visit the Hatch. I had learned early not to mess with cowboys. I didn’t wear pajamas or smelled like pot so I managed to fit in along with my two cowboy locals. I drank beer (Coors, of course) and and took a “2-step” lesson on the dance floor. The people were friendly and I made it back to my camp well after midnight. My next visit to town would be the Cove.

My evenings were pretty quiet out in the hay meadows and the hay was now cut and stacked. The last thing to do, as a hired hand, was to round up the free-ranging cattle and bring them onto winter range near the ranch, which

In the early 70s, when many of us just arrived to the Yampa Valley. We witnessed a cultural change, not just in the cost of living and a housing shortage, but a change in culture. Steamboat was previously a sleepy little town with one stop light and two restaurants. The economy was primarily based on agriculture and mining. Skiing had been part of Steamboat since the early 1900s, but the skiing industry didn’t begin until 1963 and then only provided winter jobs. It wasn’t until the early 70s that began the great migration of middle and upper class, well-educated liberal younger people with progressive ideas moved in from all over the country. We came here to ski and that suited any “ski bum” just fine. Driving the Free Bus was the perfect job. I made a little money, skied a lot and discovered the pleasures of the incredible backcountry. My truck and camper were suitable housing and I found that the old Fish Creek Falls campground was plowed out and made for good nightly sleep in my rolling home - it was about a cozy as my sailboat anchored back in Hilton Head. Life was good. The Steamboat native community generally welcomed us to town. Despite the pot smoking, long hair, and “casual” attire, we did bring some vibrancy to town and we shared a passion for the outdoors with the locals. And, with that, Steamboat was redefined as a ski townfull of lots of friendly people.

Steamboat has been changing ever since. The ski hill became world class, and the back-country has always been an outdoor paradise. We know now that Routt County has been discovered and it’s too late to put up that gate. Years ago our more conservative culture (pre-70s) welcomed us and now it’s our turn to pass it on and keep the smile. I suggest we try to appreciate the incoming changes as our incoming, somewhat affluent culture, also finds Steamboat the perfect place to call home.

We all agree that Routt County needn’t be “loved to death.” We just want to protect the beauty and we have so our grandchildren can love and enjoy our “undeveloped” open space forever. Good luck to all of us.