Death on Manitou Incline; Woman killed 140 rattlesnakes; 'Otherworldly' Colorado spots; & More...

[00:00:08] Welcome to the OutThere Colorado Podcast. I'm Spencer. And I'm Seth. And once again, we've got some very interesting Colorado-themed topics to talk about today. Yeah, but you do anything fun over the weekend, Seth? We always kind of talk about that. Definitely hiked to some new parts of North Cheyenne Canyon here in Colorado Springs that I hadn't hiked to before. Oh yeah? Kind of up to that new-ish, what was that, last year when they extended the Ladders Trail? Oh yeah. Up along Gold Camp Road.

[00:00:38] It's nice up in that area. Yeah, that's a really cool kind of alternate climb, you know, getting away from the road. Yeah. Directing into Captain Jacks and stuff like that. Yeah, they've been building a lot in that area recently. Just, yeah, with, what is it, Daniel's Pass now? Yeah, that's really fun. A couple years ago, yeah, that's fun. And then yesterday I happened upon Pueblo, I was doing some work in Pueblo, and ate at the famous Mill Stop Cafe. Ooh, what do you think? Awesome. Yeah, what was your favorite part? I got tacos.

[00:01:08] Yeah. And they were super good, but my favorite part is definitely just like, I mean, it's just like stepping into another time, you know? Nice. It's a small, rinky-dink brick building where this family has been running it for, I think, close to 45 years now. Yeah. But it goes, it's a cafe that goes back before that, like, they inherited that name, Mill Stop Cafe. And it's like in the shadow of the steel mill, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:01:34] And it's definitely easy to imagine, like, steel workers walking over there decades before the interstate car, you know, and split it off there. Oh, yeah, for sure. Anyway, yeah, you walk, it's packed. It's always, I mean, this was like a Tuesday afternoon, dude, and it was like packed, lying out the door, you know? Yeah. Institution. I always hear good things about it. Yeah. You hear it pop up here every once in a while, but the locals seem to love it, and yeah, definitely seems worth a stop. Yeah. Reasonable prices?

[00:02:02] The must stop. Yeah, man. That's the other thing. Fifteen bucks, I got these three massive tacos. Mm-hmm. They start by giving you a basket of chips, and it ends with a basket of sopapillas. Oh, nice. Yeah. Got a little shout-out to Casa Bonita there. Man, I have reservations for Casa Bonita coming up. That's big news you didn't tell me about. Yeah, I'll be up there here in like, I think it's a week or two, but yeah. Ooh. Sounds like we'll be talking about that on the podcast before long. Three-ish podcasts from now.

[00:02:32] For Spencer's review. For my full review of Casa Bonita. Yeah, also the day before that going to Alma Fonda Fina, which apparently is like this. It's like the super high-rated restaurant in Denver. Okay. Like Michelin. I think they got a Michelin star. They're pretty new. That's why it rings a bell. Yeah, they were just like dubbed the best new restaurant. So yeah, one of our friends had some open spots on a reservation. Sweet. It's like it'll be a weekend of trying both of those places for the first time.

[00:03:01] I will be eating mini sopapillas. Good for you. I guarantee it. Yeah, man. I stuck around this week, and I had some friends in town. And man, Friday night. So we were on the hunt for a brewery. And space symposium's in town. So a lot of people in town. And also like last Friday was absolutely beautiful outside. So I was like, oh, let's go to Redleg. So packed. Yeah. So packed. Yeah. I love Redleg, but I mean, a lot of people seem to love Redleg.

[00:03:30] So yeah, very packed. Especially when the weather's nice. Yeah, when the weather's nice with all the outdoor area there. I ended up at Goat Patch, which I'm also a big fan of wearing a Goat Patch hat right now, actually. I like that hat. Yeah. Yeah. I like it too. I like the nice little patch they have there. But yeah, no, Goat Patch. It's a nice patio back there too. Two great spots. Shout out to a couple breweries that we haven't talked about in Colorado Springs before, I think. Yeah. Seems like we've covered them all almost. Yeah, right.

[00:03:58] Slowly working on it in my many years here. Yeah. But yeah, so first thing we're going to chat about today, though, is a pretty cool Wild West legend out of Colorado. Seth recently covered. He's been getting a ton of, his coverage of it has been getting a ton of attention online. It involves a story of a woman who is said to have killed more than 100 snakes in a relatively short amount of time whenever you think about how long would it take to kill a rattlesnake.

[00:04:26] I don't think I could have knocked it out as fast as she did. Even under extreme threat. So bizarre. But yeah, without much further ado, Seth, go ahead and tell us about Rattlesnake Kate. So the story is getting some traction online. I'm actually kind of ashamed to say I haven't been plugging into the traffic and whatnot. Yeah. Yeah, the story is getting some traction. Story of Rattlesnake Kate. Yeah. All right. That's good.

[00:04:50] People are tuning into maybe, certainly not an unknown by any stretch. This has been a story told, but maybe a lesser known one. Because, I mean, you know, like the West, the Wild West, it could be said, was built by women. But men dominated the headlines. No doubt. Men got all the stories, right? The stories we know today regard men. Except for Rattlesnake Kate.

[00:05:19] So about 100 years ago, Catherine McHale Slaughterback, the story goes, is riding her horse on her property out on the plains of Northeast Colorado. With her son, three-year-old son, they're riding horseback. They go to cross through a gate. She opens the gate. And one rattlesnake pops up. Two rattlesnakes pop up. And she shoots those. Quickly runs out of ammo. And finds herself surrounded by a bunch of rattlesnakes.

[00:05:48] And the story goes, she picked up a signpost and proceeded to bash and kill like 140 snakes. Dang. What she said was over the span of two hours. Dang. And it's a story that would be very hard to believe were it not for a couple things. One, the photos that came out from that time in the newspapers with her, you know, the skins strung up. And then the skins that would go on to, that she would use to create this dress, right? Which is still on display.

[00:06:18] Before her death, she donated the dress to the Greeley History Museum in Greeley. And you can go and see that dress along with some accessories like a necklace of rattles. Shoes with like rattles. Yeah. Very much of the time. The flapper dress of the time in the 20s. Yeah. The photos of her in the dress are pretty metal wherever those are floating around. I'm like. Dude. She is. Yeah. She's like the most metal of all metal Coloradans. Yeah. Dang. That's wild.

[00:06:44] Well, and I think one of the things, dude, people are like 100 rattlesnakes. Like, there's never a group of 100 rattlesnakes, but it's a megaden. Right. It's actually like this absolutely terrifying phenomenon that exists. In that part of the state that I did not know about. Yeah. I never heard the phrase megaden. Yeah. And that's apparently a thing.

[00:07:04] According to Google's AI overview of the topic here, it says that large populations can reach up to 2,000 rattlesnakes in some megadens that have been observed. Yeah. And so that's a very common migratory path up there in northeast Colorado. Yeah. There's actually, and there's the webcam that monitors the megaden in Colorado, right? I remember seeing that. Oh, and this also says, yeah, looking at this now. And it also says 2,000 rattlesnakes. Yeah.

[00:07:32] There's a, I think it's still live streamed potentially, but yeah, AP covered it last year. Sounds terrifying. Yeah. Sounds, sounds terrifying. Yeah. But rattlesnakes, one of the most deadly predators on the Colorado landscape. They are my most, I mean, that and moose. Those are the two I would not want to, among all wildlife in Colorado, I think those are the two I would least want to run into. You ever run into a rattlesnake? I have. Yeah. What? Two or three times? Two or three times.

[00:08:00] And the worst case was actually in northern Colorado. Yeah. Hiking around. I never thought about that. Hiking around, it's a state park there, up around Fort Collins. Lorry? Lorry State Park. Oh yeah, Lorry State Park. And there's like that really go-to hike up to Lorry, or is it Arthur's Rock? Mm-hmm. Yeah, that sounds right. That was the thing. Like, this is like not where I would have expected to see a rattlesnake. Like in the forest, right? Like kind of in a canyon, like a forested canyon, right?

[00:08:52] Mm-hmm. A couple times. One time down at Bandelier National Monument, down in the Santa Fe area. Yeah, definitely. It was like off the trail a little bit and started rattling. And my reaction was, oh, oh crap, there's a rattle going on there. Mm-hmm.

[00:09:21] We're just going to leave this and not wait to see what happens. But the other time, so Ute Valley in Colorado Springs, there's a lot of rattlesnakes there. That was the first one I've heard. Got asked by a friend to help manage the dogs while they did some like wedding photography stuff as a couple, but they want the dogs in there, so someone has to hold the dogs when they're not in there. Mm-hmm. So I'm there chilling with these dogs, and they're kind of like in the grass taking their photos.

[00:09:48] And just like, there are multiple times where I just hear rattles in different directions. One of them was like probably 15 feet away or so, and there was a trail in between where I was standing and where those dogs are, or where the rattlesnake was. But same thing, people, a bunch of people took photos of it as I went by. To each their own. Yeah, to each their own, I guess. Keep a safe distance. Yeah. Allow it to pass. Give it time to pass. Yeah, don't be Rattlesnake Kate. Yeah, what else we got about Rattlesnake Kate, though, too?

[00:10:15] Because she got a lot of fame from this single instance, but had a big story, too. And that was the thing. I guess I'd never heard about her, right? I knew about the rattlesnake showdown, but I didn't know all this other, you know, like the story of a single mom out on her homestead. Or I don't know if she homesteaded it, but this property where she lived, right? No running water, no electricity, very much frontier lifestyle, right?

[00:10:40] She took care of animals and took care of crops all on her own while raising this little kid. She was known to be divorced five or six times. Her last husband, I guess, was on the record for calling her a sweetheart but a bad wife. Something like that. But that was her. Like, she just, you know, she didn't need a man. She didn't need any help on the property. She never thought anyone could do the job like she could.

[00:11:08] She had this, she was known to have this, like, harvesting machine that was recalled for obvious reasons, like massive blades that were, like, taking limbs and meant to be operated by, I think, like, two men and a mule. She operated it on her own, like, into her 60s. With no mule? Yeah, just her. Oh, wow. Yeah, I don't know. That's the story anyway. And yeah, I mean, she was known to be a bootlegger at one point.

[00:11:35] Apparently worked as a nurse at some point. Clearly had an interest, definitely had an interest in taxidermy, explaining how she was able to work with the rattlesnake skin. She was known to, I mean, the fame kind of catapulted her to the interest of researchers in California who asked her to extract venom that they could research in California in his lab. Huh. And she apparently did that for a while. And there's, like, stories of, like, how she, I can't remember how she very carefully

[00:12:03] extracted this venom, as you can imagine, from a cage. She'd cage him and then somehow get the venom. I can't remember. Involving sticks or something. But anyway, she got tired of that and ended up, like, I guess she cut off a rattlesnake head and mailed that instead of the venom back to the scientist and said, you can do it yourself now. Sounds like quite a character. And it's interesting, like, because I guess, like, a lot of what we know, like, to the obvious question, well, how do we know this, right? What's her source?

[00:12:31] She wrote letters, like, for decades from the 30s through the 60s to this guy who called himself the poet of the planes. Huh. Known as Buckskin Bill. Well, if it sounds like a guy who very much was trying to be a Wild West character, it was, right? Yeah. And he saw her as seemingly a part of his story. And she would share memories and instances and stuff with him.

[00:12:57] And it seemed clear that, like, and she was also known to have read, you know, Wild West stories going back to her childhood in the 1870s or whenever that was. And it seems clear that, like, that was, like, you know, she wanted to be a legend, right? Yeah. And she managed to make herself that. Yeah. You know? When women were not part of these stories, right? So I think it's kind of a, I found that to be kind of the neat thing about the story anyway. Yeah, absolutely fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. I like this part here.

[00:13:26] I'm looking at your piece that you wrote up on her right now. And the part where it's like, she possibly worked as a nurse. She claimed she was working as one during World War II when she parachuted out of a plane. Right. And she would have been, let's see, well, okay, in the 40s, how old would she have been? In her 40s or something like that? Yeah. But anyway. Yeah. Interesting stuff. Right. Like any legend, there's fact and fiction.

[00:13:51] But the rattlesnake battle is pretty well accepted among historians, just based on how consistent the accounts were in newspapers and from her telling and other people's telling and also the photos. And the dress of 140 rattlesnake skins. The photos in the dress. I mean, yeah. There's some decent evidence to that story. Fair enough. Yeah. If you're interested in reading that story, it's called Nearly 100 Years Ago, The Legend of Rattlesnake Kate Was Born. You can find it online.

[00:14:19] So I wanted to touch on something for this next conversation. This is a sad story, a tragic situation that unfolded late in the day yesterday, or at least that's when news of it broke. So basically, someone was on the Manitou Incline on April 15th, and they died.

[00:14:43] The Manitou Incline, obviously known for its very grueling 2,768 steps. Nice. I never had that number down. It's very steep. Less than a mile. Yeah, less than a mile. So it's like, I think some of the grades you're going up like 40%. Hands, and yeah, you're like on your hands. Like 40 degrees there, yeah. Yeah, so I mean, it's steep. It's strenuous.

[00:15:12] That's no secret about it. I think they compare it to climbing the Empire State Building is like how many steps it is and the height it goes. It goes up 2,000 feet of elevation in that mile-long span. But yeah, apparently, it has been reported that a 64-year-old man had some sort of a medical issue while tempting this trail.

[00:15:40] The man was from Oregon, and he unfortunately succumbed to what sounds like some sort of a medical emergency. It sounds like he died about 100 to 200 feet into the incline, too. I saw a report, I believe it was from KRDO. Oh, yeah. KRDO, 150 to 200 steps up the incline. Yeah. So down kind of closer to the start of it is where this all unfolded.

[00:16:07] But yeah, I mean, it's a sad situation, scary situation. So was there a death in 2019, Spencer? Am I recalling that? Yeah, I feel like there's about, I would guess there's probably about a death a year on the incline. Yeah, is there? That's what I would- Because I heard that news, and I was trying to remember the last time I heard about a fatality, and I honestly couldn't remember. Yeah. I mean, maybe every two years or so. It definitely does happen. And every time I'm on the incline, you kind of look around, and you see some people that are struggling quite a bit.

[00:16:38] There's definitely a lot of emergency response up there. Yeah. I think in 2021, when things were super popular, I'd gotten data from the city once. I think there was, oh, maybe something, I'll double check it, but something like 50-something emergency responses a year. Yeah. At least just from one year data. It doesn't help paint the picture at all, but I mean, yeah. Again, I did live there, and I'd always see emergency response heading up there.

[00:17:06] Yeah, I think the story is just a really tough reminder that this thing is very much seen as a tourist attraction, and maybe that's not exactly how it should be seen. Yeah, and a lot of details are kind of like we don't know how long was this man, you know, probably from a lower elevation, right? Or I guess in Oregon, the lower elevation. How long was he in Colorado prior to this happening?

[00:17:35] Like elevation sickness can be a big thing with the incline just because, especially if someone lands in Colorado, you know, pretty quickly to when they do that, you don't have time to acclimate, like you're gaining 2,000 feet pretty quickly. And, you know, I mean, even fast hikers, it tends to take fast hikers about 45 minutes to scale this thing. I would say 45 minutes to an hour for like some of those fast in-shape hikers.

[00:18:03] So for a lot of people, it's two, three hours, you know. And then you also have to make it down bar trail too. And it's, you know, it's like anything in the outdoors. We all go outside at our own risks, you know, and take on these trails and take on these natural places at our own risk. But it has to be said, I mean, the incline is definitely a different beast, you know. There's a reason why it's such a popular training grounds, right?

[00:18:27] It makes sense that this, you know, it rose as kind of a cult fitness phenomenon back in the 90s, right? And, I mean, getting legally established in 2011. Built on an old train track, yeah. And then once the train was gone, people started climbing it. That's a good point. I mean, it began as a tourist attraction and it kind of lived lives as, you know, private, no trespassing.

[00:18:51] And then came this life of like a cult fitness phenomenon where people were trespassing knowing it was great fitness. And now it's kind of back to that life as a tourist attraction. I mean, I don't know if that's fair to say. I mean, if the incline is a tourist attraction. I would say yes. It definitely attracts tourists. I bet if you kind of get a general consensus of like what pops up when you Google hikes in Colorado Springs, you're probably going to see like Pike's Peak, which is also very strenuous, Garden of the Gods,

[00:19:21] which they have hiking trails there, but it's not quite in the mountains, and then Mantua Incline. Right, yeah. Which all three are great hiking spots, but... And again, I guess that's just, I don't know. The skill level gets left out. The skill level required to hike the Mantua Incline tends to get dropped by the message, I think. Yeah, and that's the thing. I mean, yeah, you know, I'm talking like this, and frankly, I'm not sure if this is the appropriate way to talk,

[00:19:48] but it serves as a tourist attraction, but it does serve as a tragic reminder, I think, that, hey, you know, this requires you to check in with your physical ability. Anything can happen to any of us, to be clear, like I said, when we go outside. But when we go to a vertical set of stairs on a mountainside, that maybe merits a little more thought than just, I can't wait to get a picture at the top of this thing, posted on social media, right?

[00:20:18] I mean, not saying at all what this guy's intents were or what his physical ability was. Yeah, and his cause of death was not released yet, so we don't know, like, who knows what type of a medical situation it could have been. Yeah. That's just pretty much that first report that came out was saying it was some sort of a medical emergency. Yeah, yeah. I think the other thing people forget about the incline is how hot it gets. For sure. Because you were, like, if we're getting to summer months and stuff, and it's, or, like, we're not even, you know,

[00:20:47] we're not really that close yet to summer. And even now, it's, like, if you go past, like, you know, 10 a.m. on a, whatever, 60-degree day, you're, like, you're feeling the effects of that heat just with how much movement your body's doing and how much of a workout it is. Yeah. Got to go in the mornings. Yeah. I can't imagine it doing it on, like, a 95-degree day. And you're just baking in the sun with how the sun rises, you know, east to west, right?

[00:21:14] So it's, like, popping over right at putting you just, like, dead center of the sun. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. Drink your water. Yeah. Take it slow. Take breaks. Mm-hmm. If you start feeling like it's, like you shouldn't feel, there are some bailout options. You can also always turn around and walk back down the incline. And there are awesome trails in Manitou, to be clear. Iron Mountain, great hike. Red Mountain, great hike. Both of them connected by a beautiful stretch of Intamin Trail. Mm-hmm.

[00:21:44] You could do them both. Yeah. A lot of other hikes that are not as extreme as Manitou incline. But definitely just as beautiful. Just as beautiful. Next topic we got here is something that is kind of interesting, because a lot of Colorado's tourism, you know, it involves going into the mountains, seeing those mountain views. Mm-hmm.

[00:22:07] Whereas this potentially upcoming tourist attraction deals more so with looking up into the stars. Mm-hmm. Which you can see anywhere, right? Almost anywhere around the globe.

[00:22:49] So, yeah. There you go. Good call. Yeah. Envisioned as this, like, stargazing, luxury stargazing retreat in the San Luis Valley, which has become famous for dark skies over the years, right? Like, sand dunes for sure has caught the dark sky tourism crowd in this valley where, yeah, where there's little light pollution to obscure the stars at night.

[00:23:18] And a young man with quite the business background between Miami and New York comes from a family of property management and real estate that oversees a lot of plush resorts on the other side of the country and around the world.

[00:23:40] And a young man with quite a lot of people, has this idea for the San Luis Valley, not too far from the sand dunes, to build these luxury villas with hot tubs, this stargazing planetarium, kind of this visitor center thing. Just out in the middle of the desert there. And, yeah, like you said, man, the renderings are super cool. Yeah, the renderings are stunning of this spot. Yeah.

[00:24:08] It's kind of like these, like, geometric-looking domes. Yeah, like domes, yeah. With a lot of, like, windows. Window-paneled. Yeah, so you can see everything. Yeah. Yeah, it looks cool. I mean, it looks like a little resort. It's funny to look at it, too, from other angles that aren't, like, just looking at it top-down, because it is just kind of, like, in the middle of the massive flatness of what most consider to be the world's largest alpine valley. Yeah. Idea is to build a spa and a restaurant.

[00:24:38] Again, kind of just achieving that all-inclusive resort. Yeah. Starting nightly rates are going to start at 700, and once it's fully built, he told me it's probably going to be more like 1,000 a night for that all-inclusive experience. Including this, what they call the immersive stargazing experience alongside a knowledgeable guide who can point the tele... Everyone gets, like, private telescopes, right? Very cool.

[00:25:05] But there's a guide on hand who's going to be able to show them how to use it and what to look for. So, quite a concept. Yeah, I heard there was a bit of, like, an educational aspect to it. So, that's pretty cool. I mean, to be able to go out and... And, I mean, San Luis Valley is undoubtedly one of the best places to stargaze in the state. For sure. Just so much open vastness. I mean, more UFO reports come out of there than pretty much anywhere else in Colorado slash most of the country. For a reason. Yeah, it's probably worth noting.

[00:25:34] I mean, it's also one of the poorest parts of Colorado, right? It struggles economically. And there's some talk around town that, you know, could this kind of serve as a little shot in the arm? And could this maybe attract wealthier people to this valley who look around and fall in love with it? And maybe there's a path there for more economic activity, right?

[00:25:59] I mean, you never know when a millionaire or a billionaire comes around and falls in love with a place and wants to develop. That was, anyway, how it was described to me by a commissioner, local commissioner and lifelong resident talked to me about it. But there's also just as much, you know, people around the valley saying, we don't want that here, right? I mean, there's that common outcry of, you know, what are we really about? And are we really about that luxury? I mean, just as much.

[00:26:27] There's people who say $700, $1,000 a night in the San Luis Valley? No way, right? Is that going to work? Time could tell, but it's getting booked out. Yeah. As the owner would tell you, I mean, he started This Is All Possible from a fundraising campaign that booked the first overnights and drew, what, about $2 million from like $1,600, I think. Yeah, I'm looking at the Indiegogo page right now for it.

[00:26:54] And it's backed by 1,651 people. And it has brought in $1.9 million off of a $20,000 goal. Yeah. So he exceeded the goal there. Yeah. And that's what he would point to, you know, to the doubters. That's what he's pointing to, you know, like, hey, there's already some numbers here showing that people want this. People will come for this. Yeah.

[00:27:18] Hey, while you're there, you can go check out the UFO Watchtower as well and learn a little bit more about what's happening in the night sky. Yeah. Yeah, it looks like on this Indiegogo, you might have said this, but it says it's going to be 16 villas and spanning 40 acres of land down there. I think one thing, though, that people often overlook about the San Luis Valley, when you're looking down there, you can find land for pretty cheap. Like, if you go on land watch, you can find acres for, you know, $1,000 or less.

[00:27:48] Also explaining how this came to be, for sure. This guy identified that, yeah. What people overlook, though, is how crappy the weather is a lot of the year and how windy it is a lot of the time and how snowy and frigid it is. Like, there's that whole effect where all the cold air gets, like, trapped in the valley and it'll be, like, negative degrees for days on end. It's its own climate, isn't it?

[00:28:11] Yeah, it's, like, literally, like, weather phenomenon is taking place to make this one of the coldest places in the country during a lot of the year. So I'd be curious to, did you have a chance to chat? I mean, it says everything comes with climate control when you're in these domes, but I'd be curious to see what that looks like. He's pretty intent on a year-round getaway. I guess the nights are longer during the winter. And it's interesting, too. Yeah, for sure.

[00:28:35] And, like, for, you know, for better or for worse, like, when businesses like this come about, you're like, well, what's the model, right? And in the San Luis Valley, there's certainly no model, right? There's no luxury, public luxury thing like this, right? So there's also no competition in that regard, right? But, yeah, it could be interesting to follow along. It sounds like softly launching here soon with the first overnights. Nice. And then 2027 is the thought to have it fully built out. Very cool. Yeah. Yeah. I hope it works out.

[00:29:05] It's a cool concept. I mean, and I love the stars. I will always love stargazing. Yeah, San Luis Valley, the place to be. Two and a half hours from Colorado Springs to this spot. Three and a half hours from Denver. So that's a reasonable drive, too. I mean, you're kind of marketing to, you know, the big, big portion of the state. Mm-hmm. Yeah, cool stuff. And then the photos look awesome. Like, the renderings look incredible.

[00:29:31] So, I mean, if it lives up to what that looks like, I think people will really like it a lot. The marketing has definitely been top notch. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. All right, what do we got next on the list? How about this Frisco Backyard Project? Oh. This is a piece I have not read of years that you were covering. Need a little crash course? I need a crash course, and I want to be surprised. So, yeah, let's hear about it. Kind of interesting, kind of niche. I'd be curious how much interest this is getting.

[00:29:59] But it definitely caught my interest and caught my eye. So the Frisco Backyard, this project that the Forest Service recently announced, it involves, like, I think, like 3,000 plus acres around Frisco. Really what a lot of Summit County locals would call their backyard, right? The backdrop that surrounds it, including Mount Royal, like, you know, the very recognizable craggy mountain that looms over Frisco. Rainbow Lake. A lot of people know Rainbow Lake.

[00:30:36] Mm-hmm. And frequent it. All the while, the Forest Service has known they've been wanting to do fire mitigation across this vast area. And the city of Frisco has known that it has wanted to revamp that trail network. A lot of it is social trails, undesignated trails that otherwise would be in the Forest Service, kind of scoped to close, right? Yeah. Yeah. Angering locals, for sure. Mm-hmm.

[00:31:01] While the city over the years has really kind of steadily increased its capacity to build trails and maintain trails and whole systems, right? We see that on the Peninsula Recreation Area, which I feel like you and I talked about not too long ago. Yeah. There's been a partnership between the town and the Forest Service, Forest Service land, where the town is able to build and maintain under the Forest Service purview, right? Mm-hmm.

[00:31:30] Pretty interesting model, in my mind. And then the backyard kind of proposes to take that to a whole new level, that model, right? So federal ownership, local management. Yeah. That's very interesting. That doesn't happen much. Right. And it is interesting in the context of, you know, if you talk to local land managers around the state, if you talk to advocacy groups around the state, they will tell you how tough it is.

[00:31:55] These great visions, like the backyard trail system, come together everywhere around the state, but it's tough for the Forest Service to act on that. Mm-hmm. Due to resources, manpower, money, you know, these systems require lengthy, expensive environmental reviews, for one thing. And then for another thing, they require the building, the construction, and then the maintenance. And increasingly over the years, again, local land managers and advocates would tell you,

[00:32:26] it's just not possible for the Forest Service to take care of this stuff and to achieve these kind of visions, right? So I talked to people definitely around the front range who saw this as like, man, that's really an interesting model, you know, could, you know, we heard about it here in the Pikes Peak region with Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Mm-hmm. This vision backed by Polis very much refers to the same situation, right?

[00:32:53] Um, there's potential that the Forest Service just cannot achieve. Could Colorado Parks and Wildlife come in and help achieve some of this potential, right? Mm-hmm. So anyway, yeah, I realize maybe it's a little niche, but I thought it was an, it's interesting for the moment in Colorado when recreation is booming. And it's not just about, this isn't about recreation necessarily. This is about land management, right? Mm-hmm. Taking care of these places. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

[00:33:19] And can these federal land managers, are they given the resources to do that? Mm-hmm. And do we need to look elsewhere to entities who can? And, um, so yeah, I, I, I'll, I'll kind of be interested to see where the project goes. You might've, you may have said this already and I might just missed it, but so with this split of federal ownership, local management, who's covering the costs of like that management? Is that, does that local would step up for that? Yeah. Okay. So even like in the case of the backyard, you know, requiring this environmental review,

[00:33:48] um, Frisco stepped up to pay for that. Okay. Yeah. And that has increasingly happened, you know? I mean, the forest, the forest service has said all around the state, like if you want that to happen, um, you might have to be paying for the environmental review. And now increasingly it's been the case like, yeah, we got this plan. We got this very expensive plan in place. And the forest service has been like, ah, we can't implement anything. Right. So this is taking it to another level where Frisco is saying, we're going to, we're going to step up to implement it too. Right.

[00:34:18] Dang. So, but your, your question is a great question. And, you know, it still goes to the question of our local land managers, you know, are they strapped to do this stuff? Right. Yeah. I mean, I could also see on one hand though, like you look at Colorado Springs, uh, there's a lot of federal land in the area. There's a lot of locally owned land in the area. Yeah. And I'd be curious to see like if local funds, like if whoever's making those decisions on

[00:34:45] what they fund, if they have the option to maybe improve some, you know, more spectacular federal land, would they opt to do that instead of being like, let's build another park that's relatively flat out here on the Eastern Plains or something, you know, like something that's maybe a little bit less spectacular. Um, uh, I would, I would say, uh, so that could be interesting too, just to see how that opens up that funding to be used maybe in better ways where the more people would actually,

[00:35:14] you know, use and go to. Sure. And I have, I'm saying this, I have no clue what Colorado Springs is working on specifically right now. So this is by no means me saying they're doing anything right or wrong. Yeah. Um, but just that's where we live as an example. We're surrounded by parks. It'd be interesting to see, would they pull some of that funding from some of these, these smaller areas to work on maybe grander ideas? Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. There, there's definitely a lot of interesting conversation are out there, um, on that topic. Yeah.

[00:35:44] Yeah. Interesting stuff. Well, Hey, uh, we got one more thing for your ape or earth day is next week, right? Is it Tuesday? Yeah. Tuesday. Yeah. So we wanted to chat about some other worldly Colorado destinations. Is other earthly a word? Other earthly. Other earthly for earth day. I just started using slope sports the other, like years ago. And I've just stuck with it. No, no one else has joined me in using that, but needed a term to describe skiers and snowboarders together.

[00:36:13] So slope sports, slope sport enthusiasts often gets used by me and waiting for it to be in the dictionary. Not yet. You gotta get a patent on that man. I know. All right. But yeah. April 22nd, earth day. Very special day. Yeah. For the outdoor recreation community. Yeah, definitely. A day to appreciate the natural world around us and the places in the natural world and the places that seemingly take us away from the world. Yeah. Maybe go to one of these other, other worldly, other earthly spots. I got one. Yeah.

[00:36:42] What's your top spot? That might be a little off the wall. All right. Let's hear it. I wouldn't call it my top spot, but definitely off the wall. You know about the Mount Goliath natural area? Ooh, I don't. Along the blue sky, Mount Blue Sky scenic byway? Hmm. So it's above, it's this, it's a pull off there. Mm-hmm. I think around like 11,500 feet that is home to a bunch of these ancient bristlecone pine trees. Oh, that's cool. Is this all ringing a bell? Yeah.

[00:37:11] Well, not ringing a bell, but that's cool. I know about the ancient bristlecone. Man, I'm surprised you never heard of this. Yeah. I know. That's awesome. So yeah, commonly called, is it Krumholz? That German term for crooked wood, right? That's what these trees definitely look like. Like bizarre, otherworldly in that sense, bizarre looking, just twisted, contorted, twisting and turning and stripped of like all the bark. Why?

[00:37:34] Because of the wind and cold in the Alpine that these trees have survived and withstood and adapted to for literally thousands of years. Dang. I mean, there's trees up there thought to be over 2,000 years old, like, you know, long decades predating the fall of the Roman Empire. Wow. Put that in there. Yeah. The photos look beautiful, too. It looks like it's super. It's a cool place, man. And these trees, they're elsewhere in the West.

[00:38:02] There's one called Methuselah, I think, around California that has been dated at like 4,800 years old, which I think puts it around the Great Pyramids. Yeah. Depending on what you think. I knew you were going to. I teed you up here, man. Yeah. Here we go. Methuselah, 4,856 years old. California? In the White Mountains in New County, California. So they're elsewhere, but this is kind of rare in the sense like here you can, there's trails walking around bunches of these things.

[00:38:31] And it's extremely accessible, right? Off the highway. Yeah. Some on Pikes Peak, too, right? Mm-hmm. But they're a little bit more secretive about where the older ones are at. Yeah. So that's wild that they just let people walk around these trees. Yeah. And there's an arrangement with the Forest Service and the Denver Botanic Gardens. The Denver Botanic Gardens has had a presence there over the years. There's a little visitor center there. So there's a management in place there, but it's a super cool area. It's definitely worth checking out. You can feel very small in that place.

[00:39:01] Very cool. Yeah. Yeah, man. Okay. For mine, I'm going to say my top one, I've been writing about random destinations around Colorado for a decade now. Yeah. But one that whenever I saw it, I was like, whoa, that's cool. Wheeler Geologic area. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And you've been up there, right? Yeah. And I've never been there, but never made the trek. It's pretty remote. Little tricky to get to depending on your vehicle.

[00:39:30] But yeah, dude, every time I see photos of that, I'm just kind of in awe. And it's like all these sandstone spires with kind of like these little like almost like mushroom caps on them or something like that. I always thought it looked like a big box of Crayola crayons. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of. Yeah. It doesn't look like something that you see around Colorado much. But I mean, would you recommend people go check that out? So that's an interesting question, a loaded question in some ways, because you got to want it. You got to know what you're doing.

[00:39:59] That road going in is super rough, pretty long. And then the hike is just as long. You're going to need a map. So with that, if those boxes are checked, then yeah, absolutely. It's stunning. It's incredible. I came by a... Oh, I'm going to pull it up. Yeah. That was quick. There was a forest supervisor in 1907 who remarked on it.

[00:40:26] He wrote, before us, enhanced by the rays of the setting sun, lay the vista of what seemed to us an enchanted city. Spires and domes, castles and cathedrals, mosques and temples, with their fluted columns and wonderfully carved breezes, were arrayed in a confusing panorama of form and color. Wow. That's beautiful. That tells it better than what we could have told it. Oh, for sure. Sure. Yeah. Also, so also the site of what some people say might have been the largest volcanic eruption to ever take place.

[00:40:56] And that's, is that how some of this was created? Exactly. I'd imagine, yeah. Yeah. The San Juan Mountains, like that general area of Southwest Colorado is like known in, you know, throughout world history as like one of, if not the most like violent volcanic activity that like the world has ever seen. Yeah. And yeah, to be clear, like what you hear experts say is the largest known volcanic eruption on planet earth to date. Like that's pretty wild. Like, like that's, yeah, to date.

[00:41:26] That's, that's a little bit scary. Yeah. But yeah. The Lagarita Caldera. Right. Yeah. Yes. Exactly. And this is in the Lagarita wilderness, right? Or in the Lagarita mountains. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Lagarita mountains. Yeah. Cause you can drive to a certain extent back there. Up until the, you have to hike into the, I camped like outside the geologic area and then I hiked like a mile into it. That's how I remember it. But yeah, it's, it's super cool. That's a great pick. Very otherworldly. Yeah.

[00:41:55] Very, very otherworldly. I'm, I'm trying to find. Got to do sand dunes and you got to do paint mines, right? Yeah. I mean, yeah. Sand dunes, paint mines, both of which are totally worth visiting. But yeah, we, I think we chatted about those last year, maybe two people know. So with sand dunes, um, Madonna Creek, both of us actually covered this this week. I think Madonna Creek's about to pop. If you're going to visit sand dunes, I would hold your visit for like another month. Yes. Yeah.

[00:42:24] So then you can go at busiest time of the year with the sand, with the creek in full flow. Um, it's a seasonal Creek to bring snow melt down from the mountains. We've talked about that plenty. Uh, but yeah, that's, that's a very otherworldly one. And the paint mines too. And you've covered the paint mines quite a bit, but got a few facts there that show why it's so special. I mean, yeah, you're on the planes there, uh, near Calhan. And then all of a sudden they part way for this expanse of colorful clay, right?

[00:42:54] These hoodoos and walls that kind of look like they're like waving, you know? Yeah. Kind of similar to Wheeler geological in a way where it's like kind of like the smaller scale. Yeah. Smaller scale. More colorful maybe though. Yeah. For sure. It's like layers of clay. I always thought the history around the sand dunes is really, or sorry, around, uh, paint mines is really cool too. How it used to be used to like trap a buffalo by like, like with hunters and gatherers back thousands of years ago, a thousand years ago.

[00:43:21] Um, it's also super biodiverse, right? Yeah. Like it's one of the most biodiverse places I think in the state. Don't, don't quote me on that. I remember seeing that. I know there was a, there was a master plan that came out last year that definitely covers a lot of that. It's kind of a fun read that if you're really nerdy, pull up that master plan, you can get into a lot of geologic history and a lot of, uh, ecological history, more on the biodiversity for sure. Have you been up there recently? A long time, man. Yeah.

[00:43:50] I went up there before I was even working without the Colorado. Was that your last time? Yeah. Wow. Probably. I think, uh, pretty sure at least. Yeah. It's definitely a drive out there, but it's worth it. It's like 45 minutes, right? Yeah. Springs. Yeah. Springs, something like that. But yeah, it was like, you know, as you know, once a hidden gem, but now very popular. Yeah. Yeah. For in reach of the Springs and Denver for sure. So if I was able to find it nine years ago, you know, that's, yeah, that tells you something.

[00:44:16] But, uh, as someone recently, as someone who had just moved to Colorado is one of the, uh, things that popped up as a place to go. But yeah, very important if you do visit that spot and that's a good, I like that spot for Earth Day for sure. That's a good, that's a good Earth Day spot. Um, because you can kind of see the effects of what happens when people don't take care of an area too. It's like, uh, if you do visit, make sure you're not climbing on all the rocks. They're all super fragile. Mm-hmm.

[00:44:43] Um, and have they built the boardwalk yet with like additional fencing and stuff to protect this? I have not heard, man. But that is the plan for sure. Yeah. It used to just kind of be a free for all where you could just walk and they were like, there's like a sign that's like, don't go up here, but people still go up there. And yeah. And a lot of it is like, they just, it's kind of seamless. Like a lot of people just are walking and all of a sudden climbing. Right. Yeah. But yeah, what you're referring to this, this master plan that published last year, this

[00:45:11] kind of long awaited plan to really wrap hands around this place, boardwalks that very clearly show people where to go, places are going to be fenced off. So yeah, definitely those plans in the works to preserve this otherworldly place for a while. Yeah. What else do we got for otherworldly? We got anything else? I think that covers all the ones I had in mind. Yeah, I'd say that's really the big four, I would say. Yeah. If I had to. Because it is interesting.

[00:45:40] I didn't know about the, I didn't know about Goliath before, but. Oh yeah. Yeah. The big three plus a new one. There's purely beautiful places. Like it's an interesting category, right? Like Maroon Bells, Garden of the Gods. Yeah. Stunning. Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Bridal Veil Falls. I mean, there are stunning places, obviously. A long, long list. But where is the line between stunning and otherworldly? I mean, hey, Sand Dunes makes you feel like you're literally in the Dune movie at times.

[00:46:06] You got to think places that are truly hard to find anywhere else. Yeah. Yeah. No, I like it. All right. Well, yeah. I think that's about it from us today. One last time. I'm Spencer. I'm Seth. And we will. See you out there. Happy Earth Day to you. Bye.