A letter from a local
Desert out one door, alpine out the other.
The Lunch Loops trailhead is ten minutes from downtown — chunky, technical desert singletrack with the Colorado National Monument's red cliffs standing over it. The Monument itself is the daily drive: sandstone towers, bighorn on the road cuts, Independence Monument for the climbers.
Eighteen Road's flowy fruita trails are half an hour; the Grand Mesa — the world's largest flat-top mountain — puts alpine lakes and nordic skiing forty-five minutes the other way, with Powderhorn's lifts on its shoulder. Ruby-Horsethief's canyon flat water floats you past petroglyphs on the weekends.
Wine country in Palisade, a real regional hub economy, three hundred days of sun. Junction quietly built the most balanced outdoor life on the Western Slope.
— Marge