Buried treasure; Colorado's moose problem; Denver's 'beer spa' experience; A new water destination; & more

[00:00:08] Welcome to the OutThere Colorado Podcast. I'm your host Spencer McKee with Seth Foster, who is back from the land of Cincinnati, Chile. The land of Cincinnati, Chile. One of my favorite types of Chile. I'm not gonna lie. I'm sad every day we don't have Skyline Chile in Colorado. It's controversial, I know. I was gonna say man, I think I might be on the other side of that controversy. Yeah, we can still be friends. Definitely nothing against Cincinnati though. Yeah. Big fan of Cincinnati. Yeah, it's a cool city. Yeah. Cool city.

[00:00:38] Often gets overlooked. I feel like it's kind of like a hub in the Midwest where there's a lot going on. I think a lot of people probably heard like, what? Sundance is between going back to Utah, Boulder, or Cincinnati. Remember that? Oh yeah. Cincinnati was on that very short list. Yeah. And as we all know, a week or two later, what? Coming to Boulder. But walking around Cincinnati, I get it. I get it. I could see Sundance there for sure. Very artsy city. Very cool city.

[00:01:08] Very walkable. Very parkable. In fact, it occurred to me like walking around like, you know, Cincinnati could probably use Sundance more than Boulder. Well, hey, it will be cool to see it come to Boulder. Boulder is interesting though. No doubt. No doubt. Because both Cincinnati and Boulder, in terms of that, they're very different than Park City. Yeah. Right? Like it's like. I know.

[00:01:27] It's a totally different vibe, but yeah. I was, and again, nothing against Cincinnati. I was just very stunned when I saw that. Like the news, the short list that Cincinnati was on the short list. I was like, Cincinnati. What was the highlight of your Cincinnati trip? It was not Cincinnati. Not the chili. For those not familiar, it's a sweeter, it's a sweeter meat heavy chili blend. Right? And it has like things like cinnamon and clove and stuff like that. It's like a manwich.

[00:01:55] You get it, you get it served on pasta, like thick spaghetti noodles. You get it topped with Skyline's like finely shredded cheese. That's the best part, in my opinion, I think. The best part was the wedding I went to. My good buddy from college got married. That was the best part. Congrats to him. Congrats to him. For sure. But I went in confused about Cincinnati chili, and I'm kind of leaving a little more confused. I'm a Midwesterner, right?

[00:02:23] So, you know, I should understand weird heavy food. Love Chicago pizza, right? But I was kind of like, you know, I don't know. It was fine. It was all right. And then I had a Coney dog for the late night wedding, you know, with Cincinnati chili. And I was like, yeah, I've had many, many, many better chili dogs. All right. Well, this is the chili review from Seth. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah, this weekend I got a run-in. It's been a while since I've ran, so I got a run-in in the Garden of the Gods.

[00:02:52] Dog, dog and girlfriend. So it was a nice little jog. I could have used that after the Cincinnati chili, for sure. Hit up Fossil Brewery. Do you ever go to Fossil Brewery? Love Fossil Brewery. Yeah, it's been popping off lately. It's just very, like, you can tell it's that warmer time of the year where you get all the people from Red Rocks Open Space that pop over there after their ride down in Colorado Springs. And yeah, they have some good beers. They have a strawberry wheat on tap or something along the lines of that. It's delicious. In the past, they've had this Oreo milk stout. Ooh. That sounds good.

[00:03:22] That sounds good. Hopefully you all could hear me kissing. So, speaking of beer, other cool things that I've done lately, kind of involving beer, I guess totally involving beer, but not to the – there seems to be some misconceptions around it, we'll say. So, Oakwell Beer Spa out of Denver, we picked them up as one of our clients. Us talking about this now is not included in that package by any means. The disclosure notice.

[00:03:51] Yeah, disclosure notice, but I did go up there to check it out last week, and it is the top-rated spa in Denver, which – And it's a beer spa. And it's a beer spa, right? So, it's like, what's a beer spa, right? That's probably what most people are thinking. That's what I'm feeling. Yeah, and I mean, honestly, like, my takeaway – or, well, I guess going into it, right, like, you know, came across a client list. I was like, okay, I've always thought this was, like, a gimmick.

[00:04:18] Like, I was like, are they just capitalizing on people loving craft beer in Colorado, right? And then I started looking at the reviews, man, and it's like across TripAdvisor, across Yelp, across Google reviews, it's like – I think they're 4.9 stars on Yelp and Google and five stars on TripAdvisor, again, as a top-rated spa. So, I was like, all right, something must be up with this place that makes people really like it a lot. I went there, and I was totally blown away.

[00:04:46] I did kind of their base-level spa package at their new location, which opens this week. It's in Highlands Ranch. Their original location is downtown Denver. But you basically go in, staff's super friendly, which that's – you notice in the reviews. That's like everyone mentions how friendly staff is. That seemed to hold true for sure. But you go in, and they have this tap wall, kind of those, like, self-service taps, you know, where you get a card, you swipe it, you pour your beer.

[00:05:15] You're surrounded by kind of this plant scene. There's some, like, bamboo-looking decorations, really cool aesthetics in there. And then, yeah, you pour your beer. All the beer has been, like, hand-picked, so to speak, to be, like, lighter beers. Like, even the IPA that I tried was pretty light. They have a house beer that's, like, a cucumber lime sour, too. So, cool vibe just from that. You're kind of, like, waiting in the lounge area. But then they take you to this private spa, right?

[00:05:41] And that's kind of where this – the beer component of the spa kind of shines through, so to speak. But you walk in, and it's like – I've been watching White Lotus. So, it feels like you're, like, walking to, like, a jungle oasis, you know, like something you'd see at one of these – Oh, got an alarm going off here. Sorry about that, guys. It's – but, yeah. I'm going to take the – it's time to record. Time to record.

[00:06:06] I'm going to take a moment here to turn that alarm off instead of just muting it for the sake of all y'all out there. Was that your check-in notice for the White Lotus Hotel? Who wants to go to a White Lotus Hotel? Are they going to make another season? I mean, spoilers. I haven't seen the third season, so, yeah. I'm halfway through the second season. Things don't always end well in a White Lotus Hotel. Let's just – yeah. Yeah. We'll see. I'm just saying that, and it's like, are they really – you know, are rich people really going to go for this again? Well, I'm excited. Not to go off on a tangent. Back to the beer spa. Yeah, back to the beer spa. Yeah.

[00:06:35] So, you walk into this spa room, and it's like this jungle oasis. Yeah. That's kind of the words that come to mind when you're trying to describe it. It has, like, this, like, moody, like, kind of dark greens and, like, this moody vibe with, like, you know, wood paneling in one area and, like, some – like, the gold kind of – the gold mirror and stuff. Like, it's a cool vibe. Yeah.

[00:06:57] And basically, the experience for just their, like, standard spa package is you have – so, you have your own private sauna in that room, and you basically get the room for, I think it's like an hour and a half, two hours. You have your own private sauna. You have your own shower, which is, like, one of those raindrop showers, and then you have this giant tub. Mm-hmm. And in that tub, you get to kind of pick these ingredients that you want to, like, soak in, essentially. Like Cincinnati chili. Yeah. Exactly right.

[00:07:26] I think – and there is a component of, like, the beer aspect there where it's, like, hops and barley are in some of those mixtures, and then they also have things, like, that are meant to, like, stimulate your senses, relax your muscles, et cetera. Skincare. Whatever you pick. It's a very customizable thing. But you're not actually, like, bathing in beer. I think that tends to be the biggest misconception. I definitely thought that's what it was. Yeah.

[00:07:55] It's a very good customer that comes in. And, yeah, I mean, pretty much what you do is you go to the sauna for 20 minutes. You go from the sauna to a – I did an ice-cold shower with, like, the rain shower thing. Kind of shock the senses. That's what they recommend. And then you soak in the tub, and it, like, bubbles and stuff. You soak in this, like, tub for, like, you know, 40, 50 minutes. I walked away, like, shocked. I was like, this is incredible.

[00:08:19] And then they also have these little, like, chair massages, which they're not – or massage chairs, which they're not, like, the massage chairs you see in, like, the mall or an airport. It's, like, this zero-gravity technology where you, like, feel like you're floating at times at least. And it's cool. So I did that whole thing. My brain was, like, mush after I left because I was so relaxed. Huh. Yeah, genuinely, like, had it. I really liked it. Now, did I miss where the beer is factoring in?

[00:08:49] Yeah, so you can have beer the whole time you're there. You're just sipping beer the whole time. You're sipping beer. And then, like I said, that mixture in the tub has that, like, hops and barley in it. Got it. And, yeah, I mean, it was cool. It has, like – compared to most spas that I've been to, it kind of has this more, like, I don't know, like, gender neutral feel. Yeah. A lot of spas tend to be feminine. Yeah. And, yeah, this one, I mean, I could see it being one of those things where you go with, like, a group of friends or, like, a bachelor party or a bachelorette party. Whatever it is.

[00:09:19] They do, like, romantic packages. I was going to say, sounds like a good little anniversary gift. Yeah. Oh, for sure, yeah. They do a whole – it's like they throw rose petals out. The owner was saying they get, like, five, six proposals there a month, which is pretty – I mean, that, like, you know, sells it in itself in a way. But, yeah, I went in there skeptical, and I'm already planning to go back. No, no. Yeah. So pretty cool stuff. Oh, man. But, yeah, that was maybe the most exciting thing I've done in the last week.

[00:09:48] I've heard of them over the years, and it's kind of just always been, like, an enigma in my mind. And I've never really looked into what it's all about. Yeah, they've been around. I think it's been, like, four years. Time Magazine actually said they were one of the greatest places on the planet a couple years ago. They were, like, one of their picks for that. So, yeah, interesting stuff. But, yeah. That's cool.

[00:10:09] One thing that we were both chatting about before we started recording off the air is Forrest Finn and this new documentary that Seth binge-watched over the weekend. Everyone's like, does Seth ever get off his couch? I hear about White Lotus. I hear about the Forrest Finn documentary. Yeah, hey, I could go on and on, too, over here. I went straight through that Forrest Finn documentary. Yeah, for people that don't know, Forrest Finn, right? He's a, or he was, he recently passed away.

[00:10:38] But an art collector out of Santa Fe, New Mexico, I think it was back in 2010, he buried, like, $2 million worth of little artifacts and gold and things like that in a treasure chest. And then he essentially released a series of clues that pointed to the Rocky Mountain region of the U.S. as where this could be hidden, spanning several states. And he would do all these little interviews and drop little hints and it would just fire people up even more. And, yeah.

[00:11:09] Whole websites, like, dedicated to deciphering this code. Blogs and. Yeah. And I don't know. Yeah. I don't know what's all considered a spoiler. People familiar with this story probably already know how it ends. But the Netflix documentary has a little more to say. Seth, you watched it. So what was your take? I'm going to walk the line carefully here. Because like we were saying, I was like, I don't know what's a spoiler and what's not a spoiler.

[00:11:33] I'm hesitant to even say, to talk about, I mean, do people know the hunt, how it went down? I mean, if you've been following out there, Colorado for long, we've covered several deaths that have occurred associated with the sun. Two of which were in Colorado. Right. So by people looking for it. And obviously, like, the clues are vague. So people are going into some pretty scary places on this grand adventure to find their riches.

[00:12:02] And I guess in general, that's what the documentary, I mean, very much I thought the documentary like explored like the dark sides of this thing, like where obsession led people. I mean, maybe like the kinds of people it kind of attracted, right? I mean, when people get millions of dollars in their heads, you know, it does things to people. Yeah.

[00:12:26] And then just like maybe the pure aspect of it, too, like a treasure hunt in this modern age, you know, like the stories we read about treasure as kids, you know, we can be those characters now and we can go, you know, there's a lot of that, too, you know. So there's a lot of interesting characters that are kind of revealed throughout the three episodes. And then it all ends with quite a big surprise.

[00:12:56] Quite a big surprise. And maybe that's all I say? I don't, I mean, I don't, I guess it is like the main spoiler of the show. I don't know. It is one of those, I mean, you can Google it and find the surprise, I guess. But pretty wild, though. I mean, it's one of those things where it's like the idea, like, you know, when I found out about Forrest Fenn's treasure, immediately when I found the poem that he wrote, I was like, I will be the one to decipher this poem. I'm like, it's in Buena Vista. Yeah. I know what this is talking about. It's in Buena Vista.

[00:13:25] The treasure was not in Buena Vista. Where a lot of other people were like, it's in Wyoming. It's in Utah. Yeah. They were like clues that were like familiar enough and vague enough to kind of. And he clearly relished it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it seemed like he loved every ounce of it. That people were, yeah. He'd like respond to emails. Yeah. Yeah. And calls. People like, you know, his number got out there and people were just calling him. Yeah. Dang.

[00:13:55] Very weird. That is weird. Just all around very weird. You meet his family, you know, like what it meant for his family over that time. The good and bad of that. I wonder how much he made selling the book. That's the real question. Yeah. Did they talk about that? He talks about that. And he just like walked into the local bookstore. Really? Is how it started. Dang. I just wrote, because it was like a, wasn't it like a memoir or something? Yeah. It's like, by the way, there's a treasure. Probably a weird book. Yeah.

[00:14:22] But the, but yeah, there's the little, the owner of this little bookstore was like, yeah, sure. I'll, I'll carry a few. And then it went bonkers. Yeah. You know, probably the biggest economic boon for that little bookstore. Oh, I mean, you probably had thousands of people around the country that were like, man, if I get my hands on that 2 million and they, I would have met, I mean, I haven't seen the documentary yet. I'm looking forward to watching it. I would imagine people were like, I'll put my life on hold for a year for this chance to be that person that finds $2 million.

[00:14:51] People put a lot on the line, man. Their livelihood, definitely their lives. Yeah. And I guess it occurred to me, like, I guess I didn't really follow along with that. I think you followed it more than I did. Yeah, I followed it quite a bit. Yeah. The two people that died in Colorado specifically, one of them was in the Arkansas River. Right. And I think that was a drowning incident. And then another one was up in Dinosaur National Monument area, like kind of on the Colorado-Utah border. I think they got their car truck, or their truck stuck in snow.

[00:15:19] And one of the people in, I think it was two people, and one of them survived, the other one did not. Yeah. Very sad. Yeah. And just the controversy of him, like, you know, he got a lot of pressure to call it off, obviously. And he did not. And there's a lot of back and forth on that. Is that, you know. Yeah. Hey, I mean, it's like any other outdoor recreation sport, kind of. That would maybe be my take. I mean, just like, yeah, you kind of know the risks. He also said it wasn't anywhere dangerous.

[00:15:48] It was also part of his thing. But I mean, granted, you can maybe encounter danger along the way. I don't know. I mean, it's a treasure hunt. There's risk there. Obviously, it's a sad situation a lot of those times, too. It was a fun watch, though. Yeah. Like I said, I just, I binged it straight through. Yeah. Three parts? Yeah. And I think they were like, maybe, were they maybe an hour each episode? Something like that? So yeah, maybe I don't have much of a life. I don't know. Hey, that's not that bad.

[00:16:17] That's like three hours on a weekend night. I mean, that's one Lord of the Rings movie, right? Yeah. Yeah. Might as well. Might as well. So yeah, you can find it on Netflix. It's Netflix original, I think. Yeah. What is it called? It's called Golden. Golden Greed or something? Golden Greed. Yeah. Man, we republished a story. This reminded me of it. We republished a story written by Tamara Twitty a few years ago over the weekend. And written about the missing treasure in the cave. Have you heard about that?

[00:16:47] In the San Luis Valley? Yeah, in the San Luis Valley. I've heard of this. It was like back in 1880, these three dudes were in the middle of a snowstorm. And while they're like waiting for the snowstorm to pass, they kind of are like exploring for cover, et cetera. And they end up in this cave that is apparently just like filled with gold bars. They said there's at least 400 gold bars was what was being reported. I've heard this. They grabbed like five of those bars. Remember, this is 1880.

[00:17:16] Took them down to Silvercliffe and got them appraised at like $900 each. Whenever they go back to find the rest of the gold bars, they couldn't find the cave. So probably covered by rockfall. Probably impossible to find if it even exists. But granted, they did have five gold bars apparently. Isn't it steeped in Spanish lore or something like that? Yeah, I mean, people have tried to go and find this. And I'll say it right now. Do not go looking for this. Like it's probably lost the time.

[00:17:46] The directions on even where it would be are very vague in a very vast landscape. Your life is worth more. Yeah, your life is worth more. Do not go do that. But so I crunched the numbers. And whenever we covered this back in 2022, the price of all that gold would have been about $30 million. Gold was priced then at the time of writing in the original publishing at $1,600 an ounce roughly.

[00:18:14] Now gold is $3,000 an ounce. So that raises that value to $50 million of potentially lost gold. So pretty wild. Have you seen Costco starting to sell gold? It's been selling. I don't think it's hardly ever available, I feel like. Yeah, it flies off the shelves. It flies off whenever they list it for sale. But like a bar of gold. Yeah, you can get your little. Fun to own one. Looking at the website right now. Here you go. One ounce gold bars.

[00:18:44] It's a member item only. 4.8 star review. Is it for sale or are they out? It says member only item. Oh, yeah. Sign in to see the price. I am not. You've got to be a member to be at Costco. Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. Which I am. But is it? Yeah. Pretty interesting stuff. I think that's been hugely successful for them too. Yeah. In terms of from the business side of things. Good old Costco. Yeah. What else we got here? What else we got? Let's talk about moose. This is a really interesting topic that Seth has coming up.

[00:19:13] Want to get into moose. Yeah. I'll just, people may or may not know moose are non-native to Colorado. Yep. That's probably a good way to start it. Yeah. Reintroduced in the 1980s? 1978. 1978. And their population has since boomed. How many are in here now? Or in the state now? Parks and Wildlife estimates at around 3,500. Dang. Hard to know if that's, I mean, there's reason to think that's probably an underestimate. Hmm. Because moose are pretty hard to, hard to count.

[00:19:43] Hmm. But it's particularly, if people have heard about this lately, it's because it's become pretty acute in Rocky Mountain National Park, this issue. But yeah, like you mentioned, it's probably good to start with. 1978. Important to note, moose are not native to Colorado. As synonymous as they seem with Colorado. You know, I mean, it's so iconic and, I mean, how many moose-themed restaurants and moose-themed bars and moose-themed lodges have we gone into, you know? Yeah.

[00:20:13] Yeah. I mean, you would never, if you asked the random person walking down the street in Colorado, they would never think that moose weren't native. Yeah. And the thinking is, before 1978, you know, there'd been sightings. They probably trickled in to Colorado here and there, right, is the popular thinking. But yeah, more native to the north, far north. And there's a great big boundary referred to as the red desert, you know, between Wyoming

[00:20:38] and Colorado that is pointed to as the reason why they probably were never able to establish a steady population here. Right? Just that tough migration down. Also explaining the wolf thing. Why wolves probably never re-established a population until that reintroduction, right? Yeah. But anyway, yeah, moose were flown in here. A lot of people know around Walden, right? Now the moose-viewing capital of Colorado. Mm-hmm.

[00:21:05] That's where what is now Colorado Parks and Wildlife flew them in. And there's a lot of interesting conversation about, you know, why the state brought them in in the first place at that time. You know? And a lot of people point to simply to have a game animal in the state. You know? A big, again, big iconic animal representing Colorado. Yeah. You know? A lot of people would say that the thinking kind of started and stopped there. You know?

[00:21:34] So for the sake of hunting them ultimately? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And to have the viewing experience, right? People might say, how much ecological thinking went into that can probably be debated. But for sure, in Rocky Mountain National Park, those impacts of moose are at least highly suspected is probably the best way to put it, right? The park would tell you they're still in research mode, still in information gathering mode in

[00:22:04] terms of what is the impact, ecological impact of moose on this landscape. Mm-hmm. But a few important points to note on that, why Rocky Mountain specifically where we're talking about this as an acute issue. Because there's no hunting in Rocky Mountain National Park. Mm-hmm. Because there hasn't been a natural predator for over a century, right? No wolves and grizzly bears. In other words, to quote-unquote regulate that moose population.

[00:22:35] And what do moose do? They eat a bunch of willow. I didn't realize how much they eat. The park thinks that they can eat over 60 pounds of vegetation a day. Wow. And again, that's primarily willow, right? So these riparian areas where willow grow in our county. Like right on the edge of wet areas. And there's a few important points to note there, right?

[00:23:02] Like those riparian corridors are viewed simply as biodiversity hotspots, right? Where you have that natural biodiversity, where you have that natural balance of things. Water flowing properly. Mm-hmm. It's to credit for water quality. It's to credit for fire breaks, like a lot of people don't realize. When we look at the East Troublesome Fire of 2020, how that was able to so rapidly spread through Rocky Mountain National Park.

[00:23:29] You very well could maybe link that to what's been a drastic loss of wetland habitat in Rocky Mountain National Park. Wow. They've amounted to that. Attributed to the moose? Potentially? Yep. So again, there's kind of some complicated point of that. One being, obviously elk have been extremely abundant. They do the same thing. They browse, though not as abundantly as moose.

[00:23:58] I was told like they think moose can, in terms of browsing, represents like 15 elk in terms of what they're capable of munching on. There's way more elk, probably hundreds of more elk. The park thinks, you know, did an estimate of like 145 moose, but that is most definitely an underestimate because they were only able to aerial survey like 60% of the park. Oh, wow. So they know there's more moose out there for sure. Dang.

[00:24:24] Moose initially had been spotted around the west side, right? So from Grand Lake. And now they're like in every drainage. They know that. They know they're in every drainage of Rocky Mountain National Park. That west side, research has shown that tall willow loss has been tracked to around like 90% lost. Wow. On the east side, closer to Estes Park, right? They're thinking that's probably closer to 50% lost.

[00:24:54] So on the elk side, the park has responded to what they saw as elk being a problem. Back in 2008, there was this elk and vegetation management plan, highly controversial plan. Called for fencing, right? Like to protect wetland habitat. Among other management strategies called for some sharpshooting, killing some of the elk, right?

[00:25:23] So when there's a question of what do we do about moose, you see where that controversy could be. And again, that's all very, very preliminary. You know, no one in Rocky Mountain National Park is saying we need to come up with a management plan. But they definitely know that moose eat a bunch of that willow.

[00:25:44] The impact of it is maybe easy to assume, but there's also a long history of ditching and ranching going back before the park that had a role to play in that. Obviously, elk has had a role to play in that. But there's a lot of like biologists, a lot of like pure National Park Service biologists that I've talked to who say like the park needs to get going on a plan for moose.

[00:26:10] And it'd probably be a hard conversation about what do we do about moose? There's a long legal history of national parks. You know, courts have pretty much ruled like culling is an option for non-native species. Like there's policy that states the role of national parks is to try to maintain a natural ecosystem, right?

[00:26:36] And there's a lot of people obviously who think moose don't have an ecological natural place in Rocky Mountain National Park. Dang. So it's kind of an interesting conversation, man. Like statewide, Parks and Wildlife thinks they've been able to manage the population by hunting. They've ramped up licenses by like five-fold in the past 15 years. Wow.

[00:27:06] But also during the past 15 years, their estimates of moose have doubled. Yeah. So to what extent is hunting working? To what extent should hunting play a role, right? There's maybe some ethical questions about that. But yeah, but within the park, that's not an option, right? So yeah, kind of an interesting conversation about an animal we all very much love, but how do we live with it, right?

[00:27:37] Man, and you do see moose like in all, it feels like all corners of the state. At least the mountainous, you know, forested areas. And like even last summer, I was on Bar Trail and there was a whole situation where there was a moose up on the trail and everyone had to kind of be aware of that. And when we went by, we didn't see it, but apparently it was kind of like bluff charging some people with dogs and stuff. Yeah, yeah. That's what people don't realize.

[00:28:03] Like if someone asked me like, what would you be the most scared of to run into on the trail, Spencer? I would not say mountain lion or bear. I would say a moose. Moose or rattlesnake for me. Yeah. Moose or rattlesnake. Also scary. Yeah. Yeah. And then those conflicts, right? I mean, again, those are probably, there's reason, again, reason to think they could be underreported, but wasn't it like in 2022, there were six attacks and that was considered a record? I think. Yeah, maybe. That sounds familiar.

[00:28:32] Yeah. And then I know CDOT, right? Colorado Department of Transportation reported vehicles hitting and killing 59 moose in 2022. 59 moose in one year. A decade prior, they counted four. That's crazy. So again, some reporting procedurals may be there, but also illustrating like how much the population boomed. Well, and a moose is just like so huge too.

[00:28:57] I can't imagine what that would do to a car if you're flying down a highway and there's a moose that steps out in front of you. People don't realize how big moose are. Huge. Like that's one of those things where it's like, they're like, oh, a little bit bigger than an elk. It's like, no, they're like four elk. Or whatever. They're way up to a thousand pounds. Yeah. Yeah. They're huge. And fast. And they're tall too. Yeah. And mean. Yeah. They're very territorial. Especially if you've got an animal, yeah. A pet. Yeah, with dogs. We'll cover at least two stories a year where a dog will get trampled and killed. Yeah.

[00:29:28] Tragically by a moose. Oftentimes the owner will have it off leash. The dog runs up ahead and then all of a sudden it's, you know, it's dead. Yeah. Very sad stuff. Yeah. And so obviously, you know, going back to, you know, how do we live with moose? How could we live with moose? How could their population be checked? Right. A lot of people naturally ask, hey, wolves are back in Colorado. Right. Isn't this their role? Right. Could this be their role? Well, the national park is very interested in that question.

[00:29:58] I've also talked to biologists who say, you know, the park is probably, is too small to contain even one pack of wolf. Like wolves, as you know, move. Yeah. Move it. Travel everywhere. So how, how long would wolves really even spend on that landscape is a question. Yeah. And then another, you know, seemingly well-known fact would be like, they probably prefer elk. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:30:26] Oh, if I'm a wolf, I'm not going to try to risk it taking down a giant moose when there's so many elk, so many deer. And we have a lot of elk. Yeah. Literally the list goes on. We have a lot of elk in the world's that, you know, said to be the world's biggest population of elk. Yeah. So I had at least one biologist tell me anyone who thinks that wolves are a panacea for moose is incorrect. So. Seems believable. Yeah.

[00:30:53] I mean, to be seen, you know, but yeah, there's a lot of, yeah. Moose are amazing to look at, no doubt about it. But like, as I was reporting this kind of, there's a complicated question about moose, you know? Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Here's an interesting thing too. So kind of related to non-native species. People don't know mountain goats, also non-native. Yeah. Right. Introduced in 1947.

[00:31:19] Also introduced with the intention of being game animals. So yeah. And there's been recent controversy elsewhere about how land managers have addressed mountain goats. Mm-hmm. In the Olympic Mountains. Mm-hmm. In Yellowstone. Yeah. Right? There was, there was shoot, there was killing of mountain goats in those landscapes. Mm-hmm. Well, the big thing with mountain goats is they compete with the Rocky Mountain Bighorn sheep too. Mm-hmm. So that becomes a whole thing. Mm-hmm.

[00:31:48] They're both up in that, that alpine zone. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So interesting stuff. Yeah. Yeah. You asked for a tangent on moose, I guess. Ha ha. Also, as I'm looking at this list here, written by Hannah Stoll, various trout, also non-native, the rainbow brown lake and brook trout. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So that's interesting because they get a lot of protection, right? Like there's a whole, whole situation around making sure those trout are in Colorado, right?

[00:32:17] I'm recalling like a quote I heard from some biologist that was like, yeah, it was like, he was quoting someone, but all animals are equal, but some are more equal, you know? And that's the case, right? That's funny. Yeah. Well, and it's the greenback cutthroat that's native. Mm-hmm. Am I right? Mm-hmm. I might not be right there. And it seems like they're always finding new strains of fish. You know, like every, you know.

[00:32:47] Yeah. Cool stuff. Cool stuff. Well, hey, since we got to fish, another water-themed topic coming up next. Apparently, there is a new water destination. Yeah. Set to be developed and opened up in northern Colorado. Yeah. Yeah. People might have seen the word about a recreation plan coming in for what will be Chimney Hollow Reservoir.

[00:33:14] So right next to Carter Lake, kind of near Leveland there. Really like a smaller, I think it's a little smaller. Yeah. A little smaller than Carter Lake. But it'll be different in that, and different from Horsetooth Reservoir too, as a lot of people are familiar with up in that region. Because it's going to be non-motorized boats. Nice. I thought that was kind of unique. You don't hear about a lot of like big, you know, substantially sized bodies of water

[00:33:42] that are only for kayaks and paddle boards. And there's going to be swimming, you know? Oh, that's rare in Colorado. Yeah. It's hard to find places to swim. Because there's, you know, they think that'll be easier to manage swimming with no motorized boating. Yeah. That's cool. How broad and far-reaching swimming might be is still to be determined. But there will be swimming. Well, hey, even just paddle boarding though. Paddle boarding is one of those sports that every year... It'll be quiet. Yeah. Yeah. And every year it seems like more and more people are getting into paddle boarding. Yeah.

[00:34:12] Which I'm a big fan of paddle boarding. Yeah. And yeah, just going out on a massive lake is pretty fun. And I know there's been... I'm sure a lot of this thinking was because of just how popular that has been on Carter and Horsetooth. Yeah. And they probably thought, man, it'd be cool if maybe we could entice people to hang out here, you know? Yeah. Avoid conflicts. And yeah. And I mean, whenever you're talking about mixing paddle boarding, kayaking with large motorized boats, and I don't know how big the boats are on Carter Lake, you know?

[00:34:41] But that's kind of... I mean, it's a dangerous recipe here. Yeah. Hard to see sometimes when you're driving a large boat. It definitely limits the extent of swimming. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Especially that. So... Yeah. Yeah. Hey, that sounds pretty cool. So it's all at the center of like a 1,800-acre open space that's been in the works for like over two decades now. Dang. So there'll be cool trails around there. And yeah, this all goes back to... So of course, how is this possible?

[00:35:08] People have probably heard about the Chimney Hollow Dam that's been steadily rising over the past three, four years, something like that. It's going to be a 350-foot dam. Dang. There's some... The building material that they're using, asphalt and maybe some other type of construction, it's considered like the largest of its kind in the country. Oh, really? Yeah. That's interesting. You have to double check me on whatever that stipulation is. Yeah.

[00:35:34] But yeah, it's been quite a sight to behold up there toward the foothills outside Loveland. And yeah, this is all finally coming together after there was a lawsuit that was settled in 2021. It's diverting... This water is diverting water essentially through a very complicated system, but essentially pulls Colorado River water from the Western Slope.

[00:35:58] So we have another kind of example of that resource getting diverted for the sake of drinking water and water rights that are getting firmed up for a dozen communities and holders across the booming front range, northern front range, right? Yeah. That makes sense. Dang. Yeah. I bet there's quite a bit of controversy behind it. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:36:23] It's kind of like, you know, people see this as a great new recreation destination. It sure looks like it will be, but there's certainly advocates who say, you know, don't forget this also represents a problem of how we divert water, you know, and what those impacts are on communities we don't see every day, right, on the other side of the state.

[00:36:49] But yeah, nonetheless, Chimney Hollow, people will probably become pretty familiarized with this place over the next few years. I think they... The dam is going to be finished, I think, this summer, and they say they're going to start filling it, northern water. And they've in the past said it could take like maybe a couple of years to fill it. Really? Yeah. Yeah. So... So it might still be a couple years out until this opens up as a full spot.

[00:37:19] Something for the radar there. Yeah, definitely. Something else for the radar here. This news broke last week. We took a week off from the podcast here, so covering some slightly older news at the moment, but do you see that the fungus behind white nose syndrome in bats has been found in Rocky Mountain National Park? Oh, yeah. I think I did hear, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So basically, this fungus, which I'm not even going to... Eh, we'll try to pronounce it.

[00:37:51] Pseudo-gymno-ascus destructans. Fitting name, apparently. Give it a go, buddy. Yeah. Invasive fungus behind the white nose syndrome, which is a fatal disease that impacts bats. Many bat species. I don't know if it's all bat species, but a lot of them. And essentially what happens is once this fungus gets into a bat population, it can be absolutely devastating. I think it causes...

[00:38:16] I think it lowers their temperature, raises their temperature in hibernation, one or the other. Yeah. Causes them to wake up during hibernation, sucking on their energy stores, and then they die. Yeah. So pretty scary stuff. And it was first found in Colorado, or the first bat to test positive for it in Colorado was in March of 2023. And they keep finding it in new places, or at least finding the fungus that causes this in new places.

[00:38:43] So yeah, one of those things to keep an eye on. If you're ever around bats, it's crucial to clean your gear off, like actually boil your gear, like scalding hot water to get rid of this fungus. Particularly that applies to cavers, right? And everyone in the caving community, I would venture to say, is pretty aware of this. Yeah, I was going to say. And it was pretty responsible, too. A lot of outreach on that, yeah. But yeah, I mean, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife, it's estimated bats contribute

[00:39:13] a value of $3 billion to the country's agriculture industry just from getting rid of pets. Or pests. Sorry, not pets. Getting rid of pests and insects and stuff. So they also kind of reduce the need for potentially harmful pesticides. Yeah, a bat can eat up to 4,000 insects at night, which is insane. I mean, 1,000 in an hour. Wow. So these little guys are a big reason why we're not super buggy in Colorado.

[00:39:41] So there could be some kind of long tail effects there. Cascading effects, yeah. Yeah. Doesn't sound like there's much the average person can do about this one, aside from keeping your gear cleaned. So yeah. But something that's definitely worth mentioning because those impacts. The natural world we live in, yeah. Yeah, impacts could be big. Yeah, I think that's about all we got today. Anything else? Yeah, I think that's it, man. Cool. Well, hey, we will see you again next week. And yeah, until then.

[00:40:11] I'm Seth. And I'm Spencer. And we'll see you out there. There we go. I was loaning you up. See you out there. Bye. Bye. Bye.