A letter from a local
Cold nights, empty trails, gold-medal water.
Gunnison is the coldest town in the lower 48 some winter mornings, and that thermometer is the gatekeeper: it keeps the valley cheap, the trails empty, and the riffraff in Crested Butte. Hartman Rocks — 8,000 acres of granite-studded singletrack — starts ten minutes from campus and rides eight months a year.
The Gunnison itself is gold-medal trout water through town, with the Taylor and East filling out a fly-fishing trifecta. CB's lifts are thirty-five minutes north; Blue Mesa, Colorado's largest lake, twenty west; and Black Canyon's terrifying grandeur forty-five.
College town, ranch town, honest town. Bring a real coat and you can have the West the way it used to price out.
— Nan