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Almost in spite of its often abstinent neighbors in Utah, the Western Slope is Colorado’s wine country. It’s also its peach country, cherry country, and, strangely enough, it's fertile mule and headless chicken country.

As the bulge of the Rockies slims down on the west side, there are plenty of reasons to veer north or south before hitting the state line. This region, either the state’s fertile underbelly or its interestingly sculpted torso depending on your perspective, is a high desert full of colorful geological wonders, sculpted by snowmelt that invariably ends up in the Colorado River. Before picking up steam on its way to the Grand Canyon, the Colorado has plenty of highlights in the state from which it took its name. 

Named for the intersection of the Colorado and Gunnison rivers, Grand Junction is the region’s population center and something of a crossroads between Denver, Salt Lake City, and the way to Vegas and L.A. The population and economy tend to ebb and flow with energy prices, and the boom will continue until the end of the world if we get desperate enough to scrape off the irreplaceable surface to get at the huge reserves of oil shale underneath. All the oil shale below the vineyards means this was once home to thriving dinosaur population. The fossil bonanza is centered on Dinosaur National Monument on the Utah state line. 

It's also a pristine, sparsely populated place that's just as devastatingly pretty as Utah, only a Utah that is more into wine and more tolerant of winos.


STATS & FACTS

The stretch of river from the headwaters in Rocky Mountain National Park to its confluence with the Green in Canyonlands was initially dubbed the Grand, but renamed in 1921 because state leaders found it awkward that the Colorado River technically started in Utah.

In the 1970s, archaeologist Jim Jensen made several fossil discoveries near Delta, including some from the largest dinosaur to roam the west, the 130-foot, 50-ton Supersaurus.

The plutonium and uranium in the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was from mines near Grand Junction.



SEE & HEAR

Read: High Country News, the great Western publication out of Paonia

Listen: Mad Dogs & Englishmen, Joe Cocker, whose home away from the road Mad Dog Ranch, in Crawford, Colorado

Watch: Thelma and Louise, who took part of their fugitive road trip in Unaweep Canyon and Bedrock, Colorado


TO-DO CHECKLIST

Pick fruit

Taste wine

Sleep in a shady spot

Repeat




regions

denver & the front range
high rockies
southwestern colorado
western slope
eastern plains

places

big things & road art
r.i.p.
debauchery
huh?
grub & sleeps
misc.

all content (c) eric peterson                                www.ramblecolorado.com                                    rambleusa@gmail.com