Frosted with snow and reeking of money, Colorado’s High Rockies are a haven for myriad opposing pairs: broke stoners and retired millionaires, environmentalists and real-estate developers, and Hollywood superstars and anonymous illegal immigrants.
The thin air catalyzes the heady atmosphere, making it easier to get drunk, sexually aroused, and nauseous. (Or all three at once, if you’re daring.) With more high points than any state outside of Alaska, Colorado is home to over 50 fourteeners—14,000-foot peaks, for the uninitiated—which attract far too many people who are in general far too ambitious for my taste. If you want solitude, skip the fourteeners and head to a thirteener or maybe even a twelver.
Up here, skiing is the dominant religion, practiced at resorts like Steamboat, Vail, and Aspen. Shopping is also big. But things have changed. Take Aspen. In the 1880s, everything revolved around silver. In the 1980s, cocaine had taken its place. By 2080, who knows? Beachfront property might be the latest Aspen craze, if earthquakes and global warming shear off and sink everything to the west.
But not every mountain has been sold to the highest bidder, not yet anyway: Plenty of them remain pristine and protected in the form of Rocky Mountain National Park in addition to several national forests and wilderness areas. There are more elk living in Colorado than any other state, some 300,000 of them. And since wolves and grizzly bears were long since killed off here, the mountain lions, hunters, and infectious elk diseases are enjoying a smorgasbord.
But there is much more to the High Rockies than the wide-open wildlands and the ski towns’ glitz and glamour. You’ve got huge open pit mines and the resulting toxicity. You’ve got the illegals who do most of the hard work. And nowhere to live if your income is less than six, uh, make that seven figures.
STATS AND FACTS
Three-quarters of the land over 10,000 feet in the United States is in Colorado.
In Leadville, the country’s highest incorporated city at 10,200 feet above sea level, approximately one-third of the planet’s atmosphere is below you.
With over 12 million skier-days annually, Colorado’s ski industry is by far the largest of any state, about twice that of second-place California.
The dinky town of Marble is named for its main industry: This is where the marble for the Colorado State Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier originated. It’s also great for cheap souvenirs from a box of snow-white marble chips at the mill, the suggested donation a buck a pound.
When listed by its Saudi prince owner in 2006, the 95-acre compound north of Aspen known as Hala, centered on a 15-bedroom, 56,000-square-foot mansion, set a real estate record for asking price: $135 million.
SEE & HEAR
Read: Anything by former Woody Creek resident Hunter S. Thompson
Listen: Official Colorado State Song (and ode to smoking marijuana at elevation) “Rocky Mountain High,” by former Woody Creek resident (and Thompson neighbor) John Denver
Watch: South Park, Dumb and Dumber, and The Shining
TO-DO CHECKLIST
Get as high as you can
Ski naked
Be one with nature (don’t forget toilet paper—and pack it out)
The thin air catalyzes the heady atmosphere, making it easier to get drunk, sexually aroused, and nauseous. (Or all three at once, if you’re daring.) With more high points than any state outside of Alaska, Colorado is home to over 50 fourteeners—14,000-foot peaks, for the uninitiated—which attract far too many people who are in general far too ambitious for my taste. If you want solitude, skip the fourteeners and head to a thirteener or maybe even a twelver.
Up here, skiing is the dominant religion, practiced at resorts like Steamboat, Vail, and Aspen. Shopping is also big. But things have changed. Take Aspen. In the 1880s, everything revolved around silver. In the 1980s, cocaine had taken its place. By 2080, who knows? Beachfront property might be the latest Aspen craze, if earthquakes and global warming shear off and sink everything to the west.
But not every mountain has been sold to the highest bidder, not yet anyway: Plenty of them remain pristine and protected in the form of Rocky Mountain National Park in addition to several national forests and wilderness areas. There are more elk living in Colorado than any other state, some 300,000 of them. And since wolves and grizzly bears were long since killed off here, the mountain lions, hunters, and infectious elk diseases are enjoying a smorgasbord.
But there is much more to the High Rockies than the wide-open wildlands and the ski towns’ glitz and glamour. You’ve got huge open pit mines and the resulting toxicity. You’ve got the illegals who do most of the hard work. And nowhere to live if your income is less than six, uh, make that seven figures.
STATS AND FACTS
Three-quarters of the land over 10,000 feet in the United States is in Colorado.
In Leadville, the country’s highest incorporated city at 10,200 feet above sea level, approximately one-third of the planet’s atmosphere is below you.
With over 12 million skier-days annually, Colorado’s ski industry is by far the largest of any state, about twice that of second-place California.
The dinky town of Marble is named for its main industry: This is where the marble for the Colorado State Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier originated. It’s also great for cheap souvenirs from a box of snow-white marble chips at the mill, the suggested donation a buck a pound.
When listed by its Saudi prince owner in 2006, the 95-acre compound north of Aspen known as Hala, centered on a 15-bedroom, 56,000-square-foot mansion, set a real estate record for asking price: $135 million.
SEE & HEAR
Read: Anything by former Woody Creek resident Hunter S. Thompson
Listen: Official Colorado State Song (and ode to smoking marijuana at elevation) “Rocky Mountain High,” by former Woody Creek resident (and Thompson neighbor) John Denver
Watch: South Park, Dumb and Dumber, and The Shining
TO-DO CHECKLIST
Get as high as you can
Ski naked
Be one with nature (don’t forget toilet paper—and pack it out)