An ancient gas station; Two scary close calls; Horse polo in Colorado?; State park visitation; & More...

[00:00:09] Welcome to the OutThere Colorado Podcast. I'm Spencer McKee here with Seth Boster. That's me. And once again, we've got some very interesting Colorado topics to bring you. How about all that snow this last weekend though, Seth? I was in Chicago area. Yeah, getting some good food. Looking at more snow. I mean, in Chicago, you know, I'm from the suburbs, by the way, and it just piles up. Oh, I bet. Oh, I mean. Like your mailboxes. Dang. Getting up to the mailboxes.

[00:00:39] Dang. Dang. That's a lot. Yeah, the mountains out here got like four to five feet in some areas. Yes. But that's mountains. Yes. I mean. Right. In Chicago, you're dealing with that lake effect probably, right? That cold, that wet cold. Yeah. That just hits you like a wet rag sometimes. Man, I've said it before. Like a snap of a wet rag on your cheek, you know? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I've said it before. I've spent a good amount of time in Chicago, and I've said it before. I think it has the best food. Absolutely. Of any major city in America. Shout out. Shout out to Lou Malnati's. Yeah. I would love it if we could get Lou Malnati's. Yeah.

[00:01:09] Lou Malnati's to sponsor this show. Why they would want to do that, I have no idea. Send some like dry ice pizzas out to Colorado. Exactly. That's what I'm getting at. I would love just a train of Lou Malnati's coming to my place. Man, I love it. Coming here every now and then. I love that combo sandwich. And you can find it in many places, you know, many places in Chicago. But the one with the Italian beef and the sausage. Gotcha. And then they dip it. Yeah. It's so good. Oh, yeah. Wrecks your stomach, though. Yeah. Worth it.

[00:01:37] In the Euro, I was telling you earlier, man, like, you don't hear people. I feel like you don't hear people talk so much about like Euros in Chicago. But, man, there's some Euro places that are just. All the Euro places always have the best fries, too, I've found. That's right. It's like a weird, like, I don't know why. Dude, I was putting the fries on the Euro. That's probably sacrilegious, but I did it. Sorry. I think you can get it that way in some place. I mean, it's kind of like you can get Philly cheesesteaks that way, right? Yeah. Somewhere in that regard. Hey, if you're in Colorado Springs, though, shout out to Med Cafe.

[00:02:06] Med Cafe. That's my favorite. For sure. Man, it's been a while since I've been here. Yeah. Med Cafe. Also good falafel there. Yep. As well. Yep. Definitely. Right downtown. Very, very convenient location. Boy, it's been a while since I walked over there. Slightly inconvenient hours, as I've found. I think they close relatively early in the day. But yeah, if you're Colorado Springs, check out Med Cafe.

[00:02:26] So I'm like five pounds more today. Yeah. There we go. See if it slows down your rhythm here as you tell us about the first story on our list today, which is a certain extremely old kind of building. Very, very old. Very old building materials. Yeah. Building that is in a remote part of Colorado. Not many people have probably heard about this. Yeah. Not many people have been there. So yeah, tell us about that, Seth. The petrified building.

[00:02:54] You know, you can feel like you're back in the Midwest when you drive out to Lamar, Colorado. Oh yeah. A lot of fields. Yeah. So what's in Lamar, Colorado? A petrified wood building is in Lamar, Colorado. What's that mean? So that means, you say old. I mean, you know, they call it the oldest gas station there ever was at 175 million years old. That's the bit. They say that the petrified wood very well could be 175 million years old.

[00:03:23] I was going to make a Fred Flintstone joke, but they don't use gas in there. Oh. 175 million years is way before Fred was around. Yeah. So it's right there on Main Street. You're driving into Lamar. You cannot miss this thing. Yeah. A building made of petrified wood that was said to have been collected from a petrified wood forest out in the countryside, they say, out in Lamar. Yeah. And the photos of it.

[00:03:50] Can't confirm or deny the existence of said forest, but there is plenty of petrified wood, clearly, that went into this building. And the photos of it, it looks very unique. Like if you saw it, you'd be like, what is that? Yeah. It's kind of like has like this, like almost looks like bark. Yeah. In a sense. Yeah. Yeah. Very, very interesting.

[00:04:08] And I, you know, I could, I never could tell from the, I didn't, the detail that you maybe struggle to see, at least from the photos I was seeing before actually seeing it in person is like the little cement encasing between all of the, the wood and parts looks like, like vine crawling up it. And that was intentional. And when this was designed going back to the 1930s, this was built. Yeah. So built in the 1930s? Built in 19, what is it? 32?

[00:04:36] 1932 by a, yes, I'm trying to confirm that. Yes. Got it. 1932. Built by a local lumber man who just had this supposedly this idea to showcase the curiosities of the West as tourists drove through as an increasingly motorized America, right?

[00:05:00] It was driving through this part of Colorado on the Southeast Plains to attract people to pull over and see what, what the heck is all this about? And then the idea seems very clearly all along was to like lease it to a gas and oil company like Phillips 66, which did indeed was one of the early companies to lease that building to make a gas station.

[00:05:28] This was in the days when the industry like wanted to make kind of roadside attractions out of their gas stops. Oh, yeah. That makes sense. I was going to be like, that's an interesting dream when you're building a Petra-Fedden builder, just being like, man, I can't wait to lease this to a gas station. Right. It was stated. That makes sense though. The newspaper in 1932, for years he dreamed, this is a man about W.G. Brown he went by.

[00:05:53] For years he has dreamed of making some of the wonders of our great Western country more available to the thousands of tourists that pass through Lamar. Was it Colorado Petrified Wood? Yes. Yes. Like I said, locally. The story goes that this was brought out of the countryside nearby. Highly illegal now. Forest remains. Oh, yeah. I would imagine. Yeah. There's kind of some conflicting reports on maybe this guy maybe scavenged it from some of the area farms and ranches around there.

[00:06:23] Interesting. But, yeah, locals will tell you that they're aware of petrified wood existing in that area just from millennia, right? Yeah. I'm no scientist, but from millennia of wood weathering, right? And this just so happens to be where it was deposited and remains. Dang. Dang. Well, I mean, you got the petrified wood at the fluorescent fossil beds. We've chatted about that a few times. Yep.

[00:06:52] That's all the remnants of the redwoods, I believe, that were encased in volcanic ash when Pikes Peak exploded or something wild like that. Yep. Don't quote me on that. Also not a scientist. But, dang. So what's it being used for now? So, yeah, I should say. Down in southeast Colorado. Definitely not a gas station anymore.

[00:07:12] In fact, while a remarkable building, it has a very unremarkable use as storage for one family that has overseen it since the 60s. And this was a really touching story of Jim Stagner. I got to meet Jim Stagner, who's going to be 90 in April. And he took over this building in 1962 to start a tire shop where he was recapping tires for all these truckers, right?

[00:07:42] He tells the story of staying up all night, sleeping on a piece of cardboard and finishing off the tires so they'd get it back on the road in the morning. A very hardworking man who came out of the Dust Bowl era. His family grew up in the San Luis Valley. His family tells the story of him. Very, very poor family. Literally being born in a dugout in the San Luis Valley. And he's gone on to...

[00:08:11] Runs a very successful mechanic shop there. Sold used cars for years. Built houses mostly with his bare hands. And two generations later, his grandkids all went through college. And all had very successful business careers. And part of that story starts in, of all places, this petrified wood building. You know, where he started his business. And kind of touching, yeah. And now it's just used for storage. Now it is used for storage. And look at the photos, too, to kind of clarify.

[00:08:41] Since everyone listening cannot see the photos, but you can find them online. Yep. Petrified wood building in Lamar. Pretty easy to find. But it's not a big building. Like, it is, like, the size of an office. Like, a single office. I could barely walk around in there with all the storage. I mean, yeah. They packed it out. Yeah. Yeah. That's, dang. That's wild. I mean, I guess, what do you do with a petrified wood building? Like, what is the ideal life?

[00:09:06] His granddaughter mentioned that she always imagined, like, a coffee shop out of there. Oh, that'd be cool. World's oldest coffee shop. It would be very cool. Yeah. I kind of pushed her on it. Yeah. That'd be sweet. Yeah. Bring it back to the public. Yeah. There's obviously economic considerations that go into something like that. I think utilities is a big consideration there, right?

[00:09:31] If you run a business, you might want to think about having a bathroom and things like that. I mean, what you see is what you get out of this building. That's literally, you know. Four walls and a floor. It is like a glorified shed, you know. Oh, it was built in 1932. So. Right. I guess that makes sense. For sure. Yeah. Kind of a neat little thing. But, you know, if you pull over, Mr. Stagner very well might mosey over. The mechanic, his family's big.

[00:10:01] It's now a very big shop, essentially next door, that his son's still working. And Jim very well might mosey over and give you a brochure that goes over all the history of that building. Oh, that's beautiful. He's very friendly. Nice. Very cool. And you were down in Lamar writing about the Cow Palace? Yeah. And then I went and got lunch over at the Cow Palace, which there again, if you're driving through Lamar, you would have recognized over the years this big blocky hotel.

[00:10:30] It was a Best Western at one point. I think more recently it was a Roadway Inn. And now it's an independent hotel, 90 room, something like that, with some finer dining inside of it. Tavern 1301. It was very tasty. Yeah. I think one of your quotes from the story was like, you'd never expect to find watermelon radishes on a salad in Lamar or something like that. Yeah. The chef there was saying that. Yeah. He said, all these people, you can't put watermelon radishes on a salad.

[00:11:00] You can't make, no one's going to get a bunch of fancy cocktails around here. But it's been a hit. Well, there you go. Yeah. What was your favorite food from there? We got these, they simply call them the poppers, which you think you're getting like jalapeno poppers, you know? But they came on the plate. I think they were like Anaheim peppers. Mm. Just flattened out with cheese and seasoning and sauces on them. And man, it was tasty. Ooh. Very good. That sounds good. Highly recommend. Yeah. Well, there you go.

[00:11:28] Next time you find yourself in Lamar, maybe go into the dinosaur trackway. Yeah. If it's out in that direction, stop by Cow Palace and maybe check out the petrified wooden building. Get a selfie with the oldest gas station ever built. 175 million years old. Kind of to bring us into a different part of the state and back to what we opened with here. Talking about a lot of snow in Colorado this last week.

[00:11:56] Obviously, with a lot of snow comes some avalanche risk. And avalanche risk has been very high in Colorado in recent days, especially in that still remaining very high in that central and northern part of Colorado. You can always find the risk report on the Colorado Avalanche Information Center website. They make it very easy to find right on their homepage. But yeah, two avalanche incidents that I wanted to chat about today, starting with one that

[00:12:24] took place on Saturday, February 15th. Basically, all this snow is pouring down, right? And we're talking feet of snow in the mountains. Loveland Pass, one of those roads that traffic tends to get diverted to whenever you have problems on I-70. But it drops down into Arapahoe Basin and Keystone area from the I-70 area. So a relatively heavy trafficked mountain pass road.

[00:12:52] And there are some big drop-offs, some steep grades, some winding curves. Throw a little bit of snow into the mix and you can get a potentially very dangerous situation. So essentially what happened, though, CDOT maintenance personnel decided that Loveland Pass was too dangerous to drive. And this was at about 6.30 p.m. So they closed the highway. And obviously there were cars still on the highway when they made that decision to close the highway.

[00:13:20] So CDOT maintenance crews were trying to help a string of motorists off of that pass safely. And while they're doing this, at about 7.15 p.m., so 45 minutes after that closure, a natural avalanche released. It came down an avalanche path that is known as the Seven Sisters Six. And it actually hit a pickup truck and swept it off the road. One person was in the vehicle at that time.

[00:13:48] So you don't hear very many cases in Colorado where vehicles are actually hit by an avalanche. And a lot of that has to do with just all the mitigation effort that Colorado Department of Transportation does around the state. Pretty good example of that or how mitigation probably helped earlier this week whenever there was another avalanche alongside I-70. You could see it from the road, but it wasn't quite big enough to actually hit the road and strike cars.

[00:14:18] This case on Loveland Paso, that was not the case. This avalanche hits the pickup truck, knocks it off of the road, goes tumbling down. The man ended up coming to in the pickup by himself. He was the only person that was in the pickup. He was still in the pickup despite it rolling. And he's able to essentially get out of this pickup truck and kind of start walking back up toward the road.

[00:14:49] He had very minor injuries. I forget exactly what happened, but I think it was like Zand got hurt or something pretty minor there. And eventually people throw him a rope. He's able to get back up to the road and escape this very dangerous situation. That's some scary, man. Yeah. And I mean, you see photos that were published by the Summit County Sheriff's Office and the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. And this truck is, you know, it's covered in snow from this avalanche.

[00:15:19] Like, it's kind of a scary reminder of just how even though we do so much to make sure these roads are safe to travel in the winter, you know, it might not be the case. Mother nature. Mother nature. It's still powerful. Gosh, I remember last winter driving over. Wow. Why am I hitting a brain fart here, man? Going over to Winter Park. Birthy. Thank you. Yeah. Golly. I was driving over that and that thought just lingered. Oh, yeah. With me.

[00:15:49] There's all the signs along. Because they'd been doing avalanche mitigation the days before, you know. Yeah. I just thought, man, you know. And all those signs just all the way along. Yep. It's like avalanche slide path. Yep. There's slides in. Yep. Like, do not stop and sit here, basically. Yep. Yeah. I mean, I think maybe like once every other year, if that even, we cover something where a car actually gets hit by an avalanche on a major road, at least. Yeah. There was one on I-70 a while back where a few cars got hit. Yeah.

[00:16:18] And those cars were essentially just pushed into that median. Yep. No one was injured. Birthy Pass, I think a couple cars got hit. Maybe that was earlier this season. Mm-hmm. But the mountains are the mountains. Yeah, scary situation. I mean, and there's been, you know, examples of recent years of, I guess, just how I would think many everyday drivers maybe wouldn't think of themselves as being in an avalanche risky area, right? When they're driving through these highways that they've always driven through. Yeah.

[00:16:47] Just as I feel like, you know, like an everyday dog walker, right? I remember, what was that story from last year where someone walking their dog got caught up over like off Hoosier Pass, maybe? Oh, that was a few years ago. A few years ago. There were the snowshoers. Yeah. There were two snowshoers and a dog. And they were walking on flat terrain below an avalanche. That's right. Yeah. Or below an avalanche prone area. And then that fractured up the mountainside. Yeah. Yeah. They unfortunately passed away. Yeah. Yeah. Very sad and tragic situation.

[00:17:16] But yeah, no, yeah, you're right. People don't necessarily see that risk. Yeah. Especially when you're on a road. I feel like when you're on a road, you assume you're safe. You're like, yeah, the crews have taken care of it. Going from A to B, right? Yeah. Rock slides, similar thing. Probably even rarer that people get hit by rock slides. But yeah, I mean, in Colorado Department of Transportation, though, they do put in a ton of work. I forget the number of avalanche mitigation situations there are.

[00:17:44] I want to say it's like over a thousand a year or something crazy like that where they're setting off little bombs here and there, trying to knock these slides down before they get too big and too dangerous. Well, and that was, you know, gosh, I did a story, was it last year? The Colorado Avalanche Information Center, I think, was marking, was it 50 years? Oh, really? Of existence last year, maybe? Dang. Something like that? And it very much grew out of that. We need to mitigate the highways.

[00:18:13] You know, that's how the Information Center very much came into being. Makes sense. Coordinate with CDOT. Yeah. I mean, if you look at that entire I-70 corridor, it's like once you're in the mountains, you know, you're just flanked by massive cliff sides. Yeah. I can imagine there's just slide paths all up and down that road. But yeah, shout out to both of those organizations for keeping us safe. Not the only avalanche situation. Not the only avalanche situation. Yeah, the other one I wanted to touch on. So this is something I was covering yesterday.

[00:18:44] And I mean, the actual story itself isn't that exciting. I mean, it is an avalanche. It's a crazy situation. But there weren't a lot of details released quite yet. So, but essentially what happened February 17th in the area of Shrine Mountain, which is right up there off Vail Pass, popular to a very popular, or not popular, home to a very popular summer trail that I would recommend. The Shrine Mountain Trail, I think is what it's called. The Shrine Pass Trail. But beautiful, beautiful area up there off Vail Pass. Yeah.

[00:19:14] But anyway, two snowmobilers are in the area on separate snowmobiles. Avalanche gets triggered. One of the snowmobilers gets hit and buried. And the snowmobiler who was above the ground still had no sign of his partner out in the debris field, right? So he actually had all the safety gear with him that he needed. He had a transceiver. And he initiated that search for the rider under the snow, but was not able to get a ping.

[00:19:41] So kind of a case where it shows even if you do have the safety gear, you know, it's not not 100% that that's going to get you out of a sticky situation. But anyways, once he realizes he can't find his buddy, he calls for emergency services. Summit County Sheriff's Office and the Summit County Rescue Group respond to assist. And then while this crew is walking in this debris field.

[00:20:07] And so this to kind of give you a baseline of what makes this so crazy, the slide took place at about noon. All right. So keep that in mind. And then once they're walking around this debris field, one of the rescuers spots a corner of the buried rider's deployed avalanche airbag sticking out of the snow. So and the footage from this rescue is published by Summit County Sheriff's Office.

[00:20:35] Pretty wild scenario to see and just watch these events unfold. But essentially, they find this airbag and just start digging. They know the rider is under there most likely. So start digging. And they're able to extract this buried rider from the debris. However, that rider's extracted from the debris about an hour or they say more than an hour after he was buried. Man.

[00:20:59] So pretty wild when you start thinking about the how just the time you spend under a snow under the snow after an avalanche really impacts your chances of survival. According to the American Avalanche Association. Got all these agencies out here. Right. Keep them all straight. Cited in a report from the Sierra Avalanche Center.

[00:21:26] The chances of survival after less than 15 minutes of burial are about 92%. But that drops to 37% after 35 minutes of burial. So keep in mind, this guy's buried over an hour. And then there's also a Canadian study that the Sierra Avalanche Center cites as well that puts that chance of survival even lower at less than 10% after 35 minutes of burial. So this dude's buried almost double that time, or it sounds like about almost double that time.

[00:21:57] And then they essentially are able to get him out of the snow. He's conscious. He's breathing. Albeit he's cold. And then they are able to transport him to medical care. So extremely lucky scenario for this gentleman. And he's very fortunate to survive. Boy, gosh. What a relief. Yeah, just kind of two avalanche stories there. Really try to drive it home to take those warnings seriously. And they came early, right?

[00:22:25] I mean, there was a lot of talk about how the recipe was setting up for disaster this season. Early snowpack. Yeah, and also interesting. So February is the deadliest month for avalanches in Colorado. The deadliest weekend was last weekend. If you break it down to be that granular level there. But yeah, President's Day weekend is historically the deadliest weekend in Colorado for avalanches. Is it the snowiest month?

[00:22:56] I don't know about that one. Probably a toss-up between February and March. January tends to be a little drier, I think. But yeah, it is a very scary weekend, so to speak. And the month is still going on. So typically scary conditions sticking around in February. I think you probably tend to get some of that early season snow. And then you get that drier end of the year in January.

[00:23:22] And then all of a sudden, February starts dropping some big powder. And that big powder on top of a weak snowpack really can create a dangerous situation. Snowpack in Colorado is up, too, significantly after the storm. Going into the storm, last week, snowpack was at like 81% of what's normal for that time of the year. And now it's at about, I think it's 95% or 96% of what's normal. Southwest really needed it. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:23:52] And Southwest got some big snow, too. I think the snowiest resort in Colorado remains Copper Mountain. Gotten 246 inches so far this year, as of yesterday, at least. Wolf Creek ski area, though, Southwest Colorado, to kind of show how much they need it, I think they're reporting like 140. And they build themselves as the most snow in Colorado. So it's been a bad year for the Southwest. I've been thinking about Wolf Creek. Like, man, you think there's obviously there's a lot of, you know,

[00:24:20] when it comes to snowmaking, there's a huge water picture there. Right? But, man, you think about places like that who are thinking, do you think we should think about snowmaking? Can we do snowmaking? Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah, that is a, I mean, Wolf Creek generally, like they pride themselves in getting about 400 inches of snow. Most natural snowfall in Colorado. Yeah. So they're at 140. I mean, even if they double that. I mean, who knows? I mean, you saw a lot of these resorts in that Summit County area

[00:24:47] getting about 20% of the snow of the season in these last few days. So pretty wild stuff. But, yeah, let's bring it back to Colorado Springs. Okay. Kind of a thing that not many people know about. It's about to take place in Colorado Springs. But it has a really storied history there. So you want to tell us about that? Oh, yeah. Polo. Winter polo. Which, for those of you who don't know, the word's still kind of getting out. Polo is back in Colorado Springs.

[00:25:16] Polo is back. In a winter form, right? Which is a very niche form of polo in a very niche world that is polo, you know? There we go. But, so, yeah, this is going to be the third annual. Was it this weekend, did you say, Spencer? Yes. Yeah, this weekend. You went last weekend, right? Last year. Last year. Last year. Yeah, yeah. I went last year. Yeah, so, it's the, what, the Broadmoor Winter Classic? That's right. Something's what it's called. At the Norris Penrose Events Center. And polo, if you can't picture that right off the bat, it's the people with the mallets

[00:25:46] riding around on horses trying to whack a little bit. It was described to me once as field hockey on a horse. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. This seems accurate. Yeah. Don't know much about field hockey. I was going to say, does anyone know field hockey? Compare it to another obscure sport that is played in America. Not a knock against field hockey or polo. Yeah. Just board side. Can we go lacrosse on a horse? Yeah, maybe something like that. You saw it. You would know. Yeah. You tell the people. Yeah. Lacrosse on a horse sounds kind of right.

[00:26:14] You're not, you're hitting the ball with the mallet though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's at the, was it the Norris Penrose Center? Yeah. It's a big field. It's also where they do the rodeo. The rodeo. So it's this big dirt patch. It's mountain facing and all the seating, at least last year when I was there, all the seating was on that, that mountain facing side. So you're kind of in the sunlight, kind of get a good view. And then this polo match is taking place or I think it's a match. I don't know. We couldn't even find the scoreboard.

[00:26:44] We had, we had no clue what was going on. But people are there for the vibe, right? I won some tickets. So I had to go. So it was, it was a fun time and it's kind of, it's kind of like the Kentucky Derby is like the vibe. You see the hats. Floppy hats. Got the cocktails. Yeah. The vests. Like colorful clothing. Yeah. A good excuse to get a little bit fancy. Yeah. I think. Tickets. We were just looking up tickets. General admission is 35 bucks. Yeah.

[00:27:11] So yeah, it's, you know, you don't, don't get to do that in Colorado much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you want to watch some humans ride around on horses and have a few, few little fancy cocktails and spend your Saturday, I believe it's Saturday, but spend your week, weekend afternoon doing something that you'll probably remember for a long time. It's a nice view. Yeah. It's a nice view over there. Good view. Yeah. Yeah. So tell us about the history of it though. Cause that's, that's the cool part. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:27:39] So it came back a few years ago as a way of kind of honoring this, the, the history of this sport in Colorado Springs. So going back more than a hundred years ago, very much in line with the Broadmoor coming into being right. Um, in this city, uh, Spencer Penrose being the founder of the Broadmoor and the brains behind many of the tourist attractions that we know here in the Springs today, including

[00:28:04] the highway up the mountain, including Cheyenne mountain zoo, including the railroad up the the cog rail road up the mountain, right. Very much a visionary. And one of his early visions in Colorado Springs was to make this city like the epicenter of equestrian and equestrian sport in the West. At one point he was known to even breed in, bring in like noble blooded stallions to his

[00:28:32] ranch in the Southern countryside where he kind of had this idea of breeding the finest stallions and mares, uh, in, in, in the country. I imagine if you're into polo, that's a very big thing. And he was very much into polo. He was known to have a glass eye, which I think like, it seems like commonly that's associated with like a boating accident. I was about to ask, I'm like, not to totally be real. I've never heard of him. I didn't know he had a glass eye. So I was told it's in fact, uh, it was from a polo accident at Harvard, at Harvard.

[00:29:01] A polo accident. A polo accident. Huh. When he was playing polo at Harvard. Yeah. Polo does sound a little bit dangerous maybe, I guess. You're riding on a horse, you know, things happen, I guess. Um, but yeah. Um, so yeah, we're talking like back in like 1920s when the Broadmoor, what was it? The, when Broadmoor's Polo Association came into being, um, you know, the newspapers have stories going back to the 19, like 1913 of people gathering en masse to watch, uh, polo on green fields.

[00:29:31] Very much different from the winter version we're talking about on the dirt there, right? At North Penrose. Um, but yeah, even if you're driving around the Broadmoor, uh, neighborhood today, you'll see street signs like polo drive and polo circle and polo pony drive. It's the vibe I feel like. It's all, yeah. Alluding to the sport that had very strong roots, uh, in, in this area back in the day. And now it's kind of back in a form. Yeah. Third year running. Right. Yeah.

[00:30:00] So what, uh, what, what, why'd it fail the first time around or why'd it disappear? Mm-hmm. Uh, Spencer Penrose died and he died in 1934. I should make sure I have that right. We have the technology. Um, 1939 when he died. Um, connected or unconnected to the fall of polo, um, whether it's him or really forces beyond him.

[00:30:29] Um, worth noting that, you know, the sport in America really came out of a tradition of the Cal, uh, cavalry and, and, and the army, um, in world war one, obviously was waged very much on horseback. There was strong horse connections during the war. Um, which kind of faded with world war two, right. When things got more mechanized, it's all to say, like, there's a lot of talk of just

[00:30:55] in general, the sport kind of fell off after world war two because the pipeline of participants who had been on horseback just wasn't as much. Those men coming home weren't playing polo as much. Interesting. That's one way it was described to me in America. In America. Very much so. It's very much associated with, with, with, um, European royalty, the sport. Yeah. That makes sense. As it is today. Yeah. So this is interesting too, as I'm just Googling who invented horse polo. Uh huh. Uh huh.

[00:31:22] Um, this says competing tribes in central Asia are thought to have invented polo over 2,500 years ago. Originally a training exercise for the Persian cavalry. Yep. So then it made its way to Europe, made its way to the noble, noble, uh, population. And then that makes sense. Interesting. Interesting. Even the horse industry in general just isn't as, as vibrant as it was. Yeah. That's fair. Um, you know, 50, a hundred years ago.

[00:31:49] Man, one thing I've always, uh, wanted to check out and they still do this and Colorado Springs is pretty avid club, I guess. I don't know if it's a group of organization, whatever you want to call it, but bicycle polo where they're on bicycles instead of horses. I have never heard of that. And yeah, you pretty much, you have like the bikes where it's like fixed gear where you can kind of, uh, go forward and backward on the bike. Yeah. And then you're bouncing and then whacking the polo ball around. Yeah. I have never heard of that. The amount of coordination that that must take to be able to like dodge other bikes

[00:32:18] and like, make sure you're not hitting other, you know, hitting, hitting other players and stuff like, yeah, that's pretty interesting. What a trip. So look that up. They probably are accepting new, uh, new participants I would imagine, but, uh, Maybe they'll be competing at the Norris Penrose center one of these days. Yeah. Perhaps, perhaps. Um, yeah. So something else we touched on last week and we didn't have the numbers yet, uh, but we kind of touched on it.

[00:32:45] We gave a shout out to a few of our favorite state parks, but we were talking about state park visitation and I was saying how it always feels like the state parks feel like this little pocket of just kind of untouched outdoor recreation in a way. Obviously it's developed, but it seems like a lot of people overlook the state parks, uh, for more of your local trails or more of your, you know, the national parks or the ski resorts or the 14ers, uh, seems like the state parks tend to get overlooked, but now you have the numbers on visitation, Seth.

[00:33:15] Um, so maybe you can tell us about that. And see, I've always thought, I mean, especially here we are staying in the Colorado Springs again, places like, you know, Cheyenne mountain state park, Mueller. Oh yeah. They just don't seem as, as trafficked as you would think. Yeah. And I've always thought the reason was obvious. You got to pay to go to a state park and there's so many other options for free, right? City park and open spaces. Um, so now you get the pass though on your license for $29 a year. So that's why I've been kind of interested to see what happens to state park visitation

[00:33:43] with that keep Colorado pass that you just mentioned. So 2023 was, it launched in 2023. Um, um, and for people unfamiliar. So with your car registration, anyone who goes to re-up their car registration, which I need to do, um, next month, um, can opt to add this $29 keep Colorado wild pass, which serves as a, as an annual pass to the state parks. That annual pass is typically like $80.

[00:34:13] So it's a big savings. Yeah. Um, and yeah, I was curious to see if we start seeing some trends there and what I'm hearing from Colorado parks and wildlife is too soon to tell essentially is what they're saying. Um, so let's get into the numbers and then I can unpack a little bit on that. I was like, I was expecting numbers, so too soon to tell. Um, so 2020 or 2021, right during COVID where we saw outdoor surges everywhere.

[00:34:43] Of course, the state parks also saw that record 20 million, 20 million plus in 2021. Um, as we all know, that's very much trailed off since then people, there's more stuff to do, more places to go maybe that people realized, whatever. Um, so in 2022, we were, they were looking at 18.4 million for that calendar year visits across, what is it? 50, 53, 54 state parks, 43, 43, my bad. Yeah.

[00:35:12] All these numbers, 43 state parks. Oh, I'm just, I'm just looking at your piece right now. Maybe I should look at that piece. That was something you knew. Not something I knew. 2022, 18.4 million. Next year in 2023, um, remember the Keep Colorado Wild Pass launched, what could be said during that calendar year, um, was 18.6 million. And then. Slide uptick. 200,000 more. And then in 2024, very similar. 18.9 million.

[00:35:43] Right. All right. So another small uptick. Another small uptick is what we're seeing. 2%. Yeah. Every, yeah. And so I get. I mean, that's half a million people. Yeah. Right. That's half a million. And that's true. It's all about how you look at it. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. And split up between 43 parks. I mean, I would imagine that some of those parks are probably benefiting more from an uptick in visitation than other ones too. You know, I'll guess that half a million is not evenly distributed.

[00:36:09] So I sense Colorado Parks and Wildlife is also very interested in this trend. But like I said, they're not, they're not really, at least, um, when I asked, they're not stating anything, um, firm in terms of what Keep Colorado Wild Pass is meaning for visitation right now. As they told it to me, they're, they're very much monitoring this. As you can imagine, if there's a massive surge at the state parks because of this pass, all of a sudden economics coming to play, right?

[00:36:39] Are we able to meet, uh, that growing demand? Are our goals for conservation and wildlife management still being met while we're essentially selling a reason for people to come to the state parks? Worth noting, very importantly, that Keep Colorado Wild Pass is not just marketed as a pass to the state parks. It helps search and rescue, right?

[00:37:05] Money, very largely it goes to, to Colorado Parks and Wildlife. But another million or two goes to search and rescue teams. Another million or two goes to Colorado Avalanche Information Center. Hmm. So the question is, are people, could people be buying it to help those organizations? That's a good point. Like, are people buying this to go to the state parks? That is a question that at least Colorado Parks and Wildlife says they aren't clear on right now.

[00:37:34] Well, and I'm, I'm looking at your piece right here. It says the opt-in rates were 30% of vehicle registrations. That's pretty good. For last year and early on, it seems like they're staying right around there. Yeah, and I just did a registration recently and there's a little box. It's like, you check yes or no. Do you want to, do you want to buy this? So yeah, 30% opt-in rate, pretty high. It says 1.5 million drivers opted in, um, in the first year. So yeah, this revenue number here you have is pretty wild too.

[00:38:02] 39.7 million in revenue beyond their expectations. Yeah. That's pretty wild. Yeah. So what was that? Two and a half million reportedly was spread across search and rescue and then another million to Colorado Avalanche Information Center. So yeah, very much largely staying in Colorado parks and wildlife. And worth noting, part of that marketing too is, is wildlife conservation efforts, right? Not just state park maintenance, but also wildlife. So maybe people care about that. Maybe that's why they're buying it, right?

[00:38:27] But only thing that can be said is that state park is, visitation is ticking up, call it slightly up or not. I don't know, 2%, whatever. Um, but like you said, 200,000 people seems to matter all about how you look at it. Yeah, for sure. But yeah, this is interesting too, just going into like the most popular parks says Lake Pueblo. Um, most visited park, 2.9 million visits of, so of those 18, 18.9 million, 2.9 million

[00:38:56] of those were Lake Pueblo. That's interesting. Go into the lake. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a fan of Lake Pueblo. I've always said it. A perfect place to rent a little pontoon with your friends and cruise around for the day or whatever. Yep. Yeah. And then second most visited, uh, Chatfield State Park, 2.2 million. So you have almost, you know, what is that like close to around a third about of all,

[00:39:20] uh, or not quite a third, but, um, you know, 20, 28% ish of all visits taking place at those two, two parks, uh, which is, that's, that's significant. Two of the 43 get that much. Yeah. It's really like when you get to the land, the state park by land, you got to go to the, what is it? Is Golden Gate the fourth most popular? Am I right in thinking that? Ooh. Somewhere around there. Yeah. I'm not sure. Um, yeah, it looks like a few of these parks.

[00:39:50] So if you, oh, and both of those were down too. So Lake Pueblo, it's in Lake Pueblo and Chatfield, uh, state park, both of the visitation were, was down here over here there. So that's kind of interesting. Uh, meanwhile, Cherry Creek state park, um, 1.8 million visitors up 11%. So that's interesting too. Golden Gate Canyon was up 1.7 million compared to the 1.5 million. Both of those in the Denver area. Yeah. So I wonder if this pass is maybe pushing, pushing people from the Denver area to kind of explore those local state parks.

[00:40:20] Cause that's what those, this brief little dive into, uh, the data seems to indicate. Yeah. I just like Cheyenne mountain state park under 200,000 with a massive population like Colorado Springs. Dude, that, it blows my mind. There's just so much to do in Colorado Springs. I think that's a factor. And it's also kind of, it's more on the Southern side of the city where I think people tend to think West or North or, you know, they're really just West, I guess. But, uh, it is on that Southern side of the city.

[00:40:50] Um, so it is. And I mean, if you're looking at where Colorado is expanding in terms of population growth, that's kind of going North and Northeast, you know, so it's just kind of further away from, it's a good point from those people. But every time I've been to Cheyenne mountain state park, I'll be like the one of a few cars in the parking lot and no one on the trails. And yeah, that's a great, I love it out there. And what you could easily call it the second most iconic mountain in the region. Oh yeah. Yeah. For sure. I mean, it's yeah. Yeah.

[00:41:20] It's like if you, if people recognize two mountains in the, in Colorado Springs area, looking up at the skyline, they're going to know Pikes Peak and Giant Mountain. Yeah. But it's probably what, like, isn't it? Like 9,500 feet or something in that ballpark, I think. Um, for Colorado Springs residents that don't, don't recognize it, it's the one with all the antennas on top of it. Yep. Um, home or formerly home to NORAD, I believe. I don't know. Big hulking mountain there. But yeah, there's an entire base built inside of that mountain. It's funny how we keep coming back to it. Off limits to the public.

[00:41:49] I feel like three of the past four weeks we've talked state parks, man. Yeah. Yeah. Why is that? State parks. They're hot, man. They're hot. Well, I don't know. You know, I always think about, like, when I'm on, like, a public platform like this, I guess I'm always aware of talking about places and being responsible with that. And when it comes to state parks, there is very clear management there, right? There is a very clear expectation of management and maintenance. And so, yeah, I'm okay pointing out state parks.

[00:42:19] You know what I mean? Yeah. And it's one of those things where it's like they're literally designed and developed for people. That's right. You know, once they're in a state park. So, yeah, go enjoy them. Hopefully, we'll reduce some of the traffic on some of those lesser traveled trails, so to speak. But yeah, I think that's about everything we got on our list today. You got anything else, Seth? I'm good, man. All right, cool. Hey. Can't spoil everything until the next show. Yeah. Can't spoil everything. But yeah, we will see you next week around the same time.

[00:42:47] And we'll have more Colorado news for you. So, until next time. Yes. And could there be a roadside attraction as interesting as the oldest gas station ever? You just said we were done. And now you're about to get me on like a 50-minute. That's what I'm saying. Can we get you something next week? We could do an entire episode on weird roadside attractions. Come back next week. I don't think we've talked about that yet. That's a great one. There you go. We always get nice little teasers at the end of this. Yeah. Okay. So, maybe yeah. Roadside attractions next week.

[00:43:16] I've got some good ones on my sleeve that I can share. Sweet. Yeah. So, we will see you next week one last time. I'm Spencer. I'm Seth. We'll see you out there. Indeed we will. Yes. We will. We will. Thanks. Thank you.