Colorado’s Yampa River is one of the best trout streams in the Rockies—and locals are working to keep it that way. It was in May, when melting snow turns the Yampa River into fire hose, that the water almost took my daughter. She was two, and we were walking on the paved bike path that…
Phasing out old infrastructure creates opportunities for Coloradans to envision futuristic ways of moving, managing and treating water In 1937, teams of men swung their pickaxes into the Colorado sod just north of Golden to build Ralston Dam and bury veins of pipe that would carry water south toward the fledgling city of Denver. That…
From elk to bighorn sheep, our valley’s wildlife population is crashing. Are trail users, residents, and visitors ready to make sacrifices to protect the iconic animals they profess to love? Insomniacs count sheep. Craig Wescoatt counts elk. And lately the numbers have been keeping him up at night. Driven by a love for wildlife that…
Colorado is in the midst of a trail-building bonanza. But research has revealed an inconvenient truth: The humans recreating on these trails are negatively impacting wildlife populations throughout the state. Is there a way to spend time in the backcountry responsibly without endangering the state’s fauna? One morning this past August, I pedaled my mountain…
River advocates recently secured nearly $8 million to revitalize a roughly 30-mile stretch of the Colorado River headwaters. It’s the largest such restoration ever attempted on the Centennial State’s signature waterway and it required nothing short of a miracle to pull off: a truce between sworn enemies. In the fall of 2002, while his fellow…