Mount Evans Wilderness: High Altitude, High Adventure

Mount Evans Wilderness

At 14,264 feet, Mount Evans is one of Colorado’s most well-known peaks and is part of the vast Mount Evans Wilderness, whose boundaries start about 35 miles west of Denver. With 74,400 acres stretching from Echo Lake to Grant, the wilderness is a great place to forget about the city and enjoy some high-altitude trails. [...]

Alpine Loop Scenic Byway: Colorado at its Loftiest

Alpine Loop Scenic Byway

Beyond the sleepy hamlet of Lake City, pavement ends and the forest road I follow turns to dirt. Mountains define our state and provide its identity. Within Colorado’s rectangular borders, the Rockies thrust their highest summits. Peaks form backdrops for our cities, provide venues for our recreation, control our weather, capture our water and furnish [...]

Scenic Byway: Colorado River Headwaters

Scenic Byway Colorado River Headwaters

High in Rocky Mountain National Park, the Colorado River is a mere ribbon of water as it starts flowing westward, gathering momentum, breadth and depth on the descent. The Colorado River Headwaters Scenic and Historic Byway accompanies this treasured water source for about 80 miles of its 1,450-mile journey to the Gulf of California. As [...]

Colorado Guest Ranches: In Touch With Your Inner Cowgirl

Colorado Guest Ranches

Purple lupine, pink wild roses and yellow arnica color the green hillside directly outside my cabin. Any moment, I expect to see a deer wander through the thick forest of aspen, pine and spruce trees. It’s this gentler side of my inner cowgirl I seek to cultivate on this Colorado ranch outing. While I yearn [...]

Head for the Hills: Denver Mountain Parks

Head For The Hills Denver Mountain Parks

Everyone knows that in our frantic world of cell phones, e-mail and the Internet, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to get away from it all. And, even without such high-tech items, who has the time to escape? It might be hard to believe, but 100 years ago conservationists were thinking about you, your stress and [...]

Colorado’s Road Less Traveled: Fort Collins to Steamboat Springs

Road Less Traveled Fort Collins Steamboat Springs

The last car passed 30 minutes ago. Since then the only life along this lonely length of highway has been four-legged or feathered. Even the radio offers nothing but crackling static. In this high chaparral landscape more suggestive of Outer Mongolia than Colorado, antelope outnumber people. To an urban dweller the sprawling nothingness can be [...]

Stuck in the Mud: Spring Trail Running in Vail

Stuck In The Mud Spring Trail Running Vail

As in many of Colorado’s resort towns, Vail’s summer season technically kicks off on Memorial Day weekend. The Beaver Creek Rodeo is in full-swing and the Teva Mountain Games once again drew a sexy flock of world-class paddlers, climbers and cyclists. The pictures, of course, show happy people running in shorts and sports bras. What [...]

Grand Lake, Colorado: Water, Wilderness and Western Charm

Grand Lake Colorado: Water Wilderness And Western Charm

The sky blushes as the first rays of dawn creep over the Colorado mountains. Grand Lake appears glassy smooth, forest and rocks reflecting in its mirrored surface. One peak dominates. “That’s our signature mountain,” says resident Polly Lawler. “It’s called Mount Craig, but we affectionately know it as Baldy.” Covering 600 acres, Grand Lake is [...]

Wily Wildlife: How Daniel Boone Got His First Coonskin Cap

Wily Wildlife Daniel Boone

Somehow it’s become entrenched in American cultural mythology that if life deals you a savage blow, you simply have to move to the mountains and your girlfriend comes back and your dog gets more handsome. The fact of the matter is that life above 9,000 feet in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains isn’t always that elegant. Take [...]

On Mountain Time: Slowing Down in the Fraser River Valley

On Mountain Time: Fraser River Valley

I’ve driven this road a hundred times, but it doesn’t matter. I still strain my neck trying to take in the scenic view as my car climbs the foothills out of Denver and heads into the heart of the Rockies. I rise above the city, now just a tiny speck in my rearview mirror, and [...]

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