A letter from a local
Gateway is the wrong word. It’s the front row.
Rocky Mountain National Park's Beaver Meadows entrance is ten minutes from town — 415 square miles of tundra, elk herds, and granite as the standing weekend. But the local's secret is Lumpy Ridge, ten minutes the other way: golden granite domes with classic climbs and zero entrance line.
The Big Thompson fishes right through town, Trail Ridge Road tops 12,000 feet for the world's best road-bike sufferfest, and September means bugling elk in the meadows and aspen gold up every drainage.
Tourist-season traffic is the tax; October-to-May quiet is the rebate. Thirteen winters in, watching the Divide catch the last light still feels like getting away with something.
— Cal