Frozen dead guy; 90 MPH mountain train; 'Glacier' disappears; Colorado's vampire; & More

[00:00:05] Welcome to another episode of the OutThere Colorado Podcast. Once again, I'm Spencer here with Seth. Hello. We got Tim over there on the sound and the video for today in the booth. And once again, a lot of fun Colorado things to talk about. Mm-hmm. But before we get into those Colorado things, how was your weekend? All good, except for my Chicago Bears. I mean, this is the life of a Bears fan. We go from 59 points to 3. Yep.

[00:00:32] How does that happen? I saw. It was a weather game, okay? It was very rainy, very slippery. I kind of just telling myself, it's gonna be ugly. Let's just get out of this game. We'll just... with a W and we didn't. And Caleb Williams went down. Mm-hmm. It's 10, about 10 a.m. here on Monday and I'm hearing that things are looking much better than they looked. Yeah. They're not even ruling them out for Monday is what the early report is here. Really? I saw it was a hamstring, right? Hamstring. Yeah, not knee. So that's big. I mean, it looked like it could have been Achilles.

[00:01:01] It was pretty dramatic. Yeah, man. Right before that happened too, I was talking with a buddy and I was like, it's shocking how much he runs. It looks like every play is just like chaos and he pulls it off. I'm like, he's just asking for an injury of some sort. Sure enough. This was a no contact injury too, right? He like slid and it looked way worse. He's getting carted off and he's writhing in pain and maybe it was just a bad day for Caleb. Yeah, for the sake of you and your fellow Bears fans,

[00:01:30] I hope it gets better. How about the Broncos though? How about the Broncos? I thought they were going to get absolutely destroyed by the Jags, but somehow they pulled it off. I don't know how they did, but two weeks in the NFL. No one knows what any team is right now. That's kind of the conclusion, isn't it? Yeah, man. I was expecting that game to go the other way. Yeah, either way. Either way. Glad those people are happy. What about the rest of your weekend?

[00:01:54] Did you get anything? Yeah, got outside for a bit. Ran around Ute Valley Park. Nice. Did a little yard work. Had a friend over, caught up with a friend and watched the Bears break my heart and here I am Monday morning. Cool stuff. Yeah, the girlfriend is running the Ascent this weekend. Yes. We were talking about that before the show. You guys had a big weekend. We were talking about Mike's Peak before the show. Doing the Ascent for the first time. It's the half marathon to the top of America's Mountain. Yeah.

[00:02:23] 13.3 miles up to 14,115 feet of elevation. She had a great time. Awesome. So she crushed it. Yeah. And Seth was talking before the show. I'm going to put him on the spot here, but he was talking about maybe getting into some trail running and doing it next year. It all begins with some accountability. It's on the record now that maybe this is the year I I ramp up my trail running. Yeah, didn't it didn't work for me this year? Unfortunately, I was I was a little bit too begged up and eventually just realized I was not going to be able to do the

[00:02:52] marathon. So yep did not but you went with you followed your your mind there, man. Yeah, you followed your body there. That's what you did. Yeah, I don't even know if I would be sitting here today. I'd probably still be on the couch and we would have had to do this bedside. Yes. Just bring the bring the mics. Yeah, into the house. Spencer's gonna be groaning the entire time out of pain. Spencer's on oxygen. I did see you so I did. I was out on the motorcycle yesterday.

[00:03:22] Got a nice little ride up to Woodland Park went up through North Cheyenne Canyon, but ultimately ended up kind of that overlooked by Garden of the Gods get out of the get off the motorcycle. I'm sitting there and also this little kid comes up and she's like, I like your motorcycle. And her parents are standing there. I'm like, I'm like you can sit on it if you want to and her dad picks her up and puts her on the motorcycle. She's like having a blast and then all of a sudden the the mother, I would assume the mother,

[00:03:52] is like, hey, I recognize your voice. You guys do that show. And they were saying they love your food recommendations. Oh, all right. Shout out to Seth. I don't always lead people astray. Yeah, I told him to go to Don Terry's and and Por Favor. I was like, you hear that one? I was like, you got to go to Don Terry's. Right down the road there. Yeah. So shout out to them. Nice. And uh, I thought you were gonna say she started driving the motorcycle away. Yeah, right. And all of a sudden. All of a sudden the three-year-old's taking my bike. Um, no, I made, I made sure it was off and the keys were removed.

[00:04:21] For good call. Yeah. Can't, can't be too careful around those three or four-year-olds stealing motorcycles. Yeah. Um, yeah. What else did I do this weekend? Uh, after, after the ascent, uh, we celebrated, we went to the keg down in uh, Mantua Springs. Good call. Uh, that's always, always good. Good food. Yeah. Yeah. Very good. Um, what did I even have? I had the, uh, I had a quesadilla. Yeah. I had a burger. So yeah. Yeah. Side quesadilla that accidentally was ordered, but either way, it was good. You'll take a slight, you'll take an accidental queso. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:04:51] There's no such thing as an accidental queso. Right. Yeah. There's only happy queso. Uh, only happy queso. I like the chicken sandwich over the cake. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. They, they do a good job. Pretty much anything you get on the menu is good. We had a big group with us and everyone was, everyone was enjoying it. Full bellies and happy hearts. What else did I do this weekend? Uh, we did pop by Cerberus. Um, so I sat outside, nice little, nice little spot there. Cool. Yeah. I was like, go patch last night, man. Listened to a little music and celebrated my

[00:05:19] dog's fourth birthday. Oh, there you go. She loves going to the brewery. My dog is turning, uh, eight here in about a week. So yeah, I have to, uh, we always miss each other, like barely miss each other everywhere we're at. We're both doing something. Yeah. We saw, we spotted each other at fossil not too long ago. Yes. Yeah. Shout out. Passing, we're passing ships in the night. That is true. Uh, so we're kind of getting into spooky season. Yeah. Uh, I want to kick us off with a little bit of a spooky story from Seth here. Yeah.

[00:05:48] A story that we've, we've chatted about in the past a little bit here and there, but never really in depth, but you wrote about the Lafayette vampire. I did finally. Yeah. The legend of the Lafayette vampire. Tell me about that. And all credit, uh, to my education going to Doug, uh, Canaro there and, uh, in, and Lafayette in that Lafayette Lewisville area of the Northern Colorado

[00:06:12] Front Range. He's an expert in all things, history and myths in that part of the state. Uh, he's a long lifelong, uh, resident there and a historian and a journalist interested in facts more than fiction. So of course he dug into the vampire story and I learned a lot from picking his brain. Yeah. Cause there's a gravestone there that you can go visit. I always have a way of bearing the lead.

[00:06:36] Yes. We are talking about a gravestone in Lafayette at the Lafayette cemetery, right? Buried in the, uh, popper section of the cemetery is a man whose name is spelled wrong along with his native land of Transylvania spelled wrong on his headstone. Uh, Teodor Glava is his name. Um, he died in 1918, apparently from the epidemic, uh, that was raging through the country at that time. It appears he

[00:07:04] died of the flu that is, uh, mistakenly often called the Spanish flu, right? Um, but he came as a minor as so many did to that part of, uh, Colorado for coal mining and, um, apparently not there long, less than 10 years, pretty clearly, uh, before he perished, uh, in his forties, I want to say. Um, and he was buried again with this gravestone, uh, placing him from Transylvania and everyone who's

[00:07:33] from Transylvania has to be a vampire. So that is literally how this legend began. Um, you know, again, I'm talking to the local historian. I mentioned there, uh, Doug Canero and, um, I think it's Doug Canero. I got to make sure I'm pronouncing his name, right? Doug, we shall call him, but he was telling me, you know, he interviewed, you know, people, uh, going back to the forties and fifties growing up as kids. And they just remember their, their parents telling them stay away from,

[00:08:01] uh, that, that gravestone after midnight. Otherwise the vampire will come out and get you, you know, reports of a strange gangly, uh, figure, uh, roaming about the cemetery in the wee hours of the night looking for, looking for, uh, prey, human prey, you know? Um, there's no photographic evidence of this. There's not much, uh, of any evidence of this other than just

[00:08:30] people throughout time there in Northern Colorado, uh, being told as kids that there's a vampire at the cemetery, uh, coming from this gravestone, uh, of a man from Transylvania. And, um, you know, I, I think, uh, again, in talking with Doug more about this, like it, uh, it inspires like, um, some more, uh, consideration of that time and place, you know, the mining history and people like, uh,

[00:08:58] this glava figure coming from different places of the world and, uh, how tough it was for immigrants at that time in the country, right? Um, how tough it was for people like glava who were apparently recruited to be on the other side of union, uh, battles going on at that time, right? Brought in to be a union breaker, right? To stand against these very intense union interests at that

[00:09:27] time, the labor battles going on at that time that led to, as we all know, um, the, um, what am I thinking of the massacre, the Ludlow, the Ludlow massacre, right? Um, way South in Colorado, but a lot of those battles were going on in the North too, you know, over fair wages and fair work. And immigrants were very often brought in to kind of stand separate of that. And they were not viewed favorable, favorably in those places. Right. And so, you know, we're kind of stretching maybe a little

[00:09:56] bit to think about how someone like lava was viewed. Um, but what we certainly know is that there was an anti-immigrant, uh, attitude at that time, you know, and isn't it interesting to think that, um, here lies an immigrant from a strange land, from a strange place. And he is remembered as a vampire, you know, he is demonized kind of like modern interpretations of, uh, Dracula,

[00:10:25] you know, and in recent years, there's kind of been a lot of consideration of the, the, the old tale of Dracula kind of being this anti-immigrant narrative, you know, of a strange man from a strange place wreaking havoc, you know, and isn't it interesting to think that this man, uh, Glava has a similar, a similar reputation from that, you know? And, um, it's interesting, like psychics have always gone to that gravestone and, and communed with him, of course.

[00:10:52] And they always say he, he, uh, I was told anyway, they often say like, he doesn't like being known as a vampire, you know? So I can imagine. I'm just being fair. I'm trying to give a good, good name, uh, to this, to this man. He's, he's not a vampire. Yeah. Interesting story. Yeah. That is interesting. Um, it kind of plays back even to, uh, uh, the Colorado cannibal. Uh, last year we were

[00:11:17] chatting about how that story is kind of been twisted in certain ways and, um, a lot of these details. Yeah. I think, uh, honestly, it sounds like, um, you know, I mean the headline sticks, so to speak. It's like, what, how does that story just linger on? It's like saying someone's a vampire is definitely going to make that linger on for so many years and all the actual details get lost to time. Totally. Yeah. The legend prevails. I mean, every Halloween, uh, I hear people like gather

[00:11:44] around that gravestone, go, go visit the gravestone just about any time when you're there, you're going to see like all sorts of stuff left on his grave, you know, trinkets and coins and whatnot. And yeah, uh, people are definitely, uh, aware of, of, of this legend in Northern Colorado. Very interesting. Yeah. Um, let's keep it spooky, but not so spooky. A little spooky sweet here. Uh, there's another spot in Colorado that is said to be haunted. Um, Stanley hotel and at the

[00:12:13] Stanley Hotel, there's a chocolate shop that set has, has some things to talk about. Yeah. New shout out to the new, the next, uh, the new family tradition in Estes park, a place full of family traditions. And I think the Stanley Chocolate Factory is kind of going to be the next big attraction. It's actually down from the hilltop. It's there on the main stretch of Estes park downtown along Elkhorn Avenue there. Uh, if people have driven by, uh, in the past four years or so,

[00:12:41] they've probably seen construction going on, on the old church shops as people have known them for generations there, this historic church going back to the early 1900s. I want to say is now the Stanley chocolate factory, um, from the same minds that, uh, revived the Stanley, uh, over the decades is this chocolate factory where you can get really fancy chocolate. You can book a chocolate

[00:13:06] bar making experience now. And more recently over labor day, a carousel opened at the chocolate factory. So yeah, it's kind of this whimsical nostalgic, uh, addition to, uh, downtown Estes park that I think is really going to catch on here. Um, there's the shop, there's a coffee shop, there's ice cream, there's the factory chocolate is getting made there and really beautiful looking. Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking at the website right now. I see this make your own chocolate. Yeah.

[00:13:36] Yeah. You can do like a chocolate and wine experience. I think there's like one of those like painting experiences, you know, but again, this carousel I think is going to be a big attraction. Um, there's not many carousels, uh, that you can go to in Colorado and this is the new one. Restaurants are going to be opening up their barbecue and pizza, um, at some point. And there's a beautiful rooftop now, um, where you can walk out close to the carousel and see the beauty

[00:14:04] of Rocky mountain national park there. And yeah, kind of a exciting addition there, uh, on Elkhorn Avenue. Very cool. Yeah. I'm looking at their website right now and they have the merchandise section and they have like, you know, it's, it's all the Stanley branding, right? Like they got like the standing or Stanley chocolate, uh, factory, um, like apron for cooking. They got like a little cute moose here. They've got a coffee cup and then they've got a hat that says red rum on it.

[00:14:30] Yeah, totally. Which is famously murder spelled backward from the shining. Yeah. Their hat is cool. It has a little spooky ghost. Um, they got a rise in shining mug and red rum mug. Quite the contrast between the cute moose and the red rum beanie. Yeah. So John Cullen, if people don't know the name, John Cullen, um, you know, he's the man behind the Stanley hotel. He bought it out of bankruptcy. Um, gosh, I want to say in the nineties, you might want to double check me on that Spencer.

[00:15:00] Um, but he's really the one, uh, that, that put the Stanley on the map as we know it now, you know, again, like I said, he bought it out of bankruptcy, which should give you an idea of what was going on with the Stanley before him. Um, but you know, he really leaned into the shining inspiration, um, brought in all these ghost tours. Um, and yeah, like when you walk into the chocolate factory,

[00:15:25] you see the same kind of architecture from the Stanley. He's really trying to honor that history in downtown Estes park now. That's so cool. Yeah. And you're right. Uh, mid nineties, back in the nineties. Yeah. Um, I mean, so I don't know if you saw this, but, uh, shout out to all the millennials slash fans of emo screamo music, but Hawthorne Heights is doing a show at the Stanley. Oh, is that right? I think two nights of shows, there's like a screening of, uh, the

[00:15:50] shining with the band. Very cool. Um, but yeah, at the Stanley. Yeah. So, and that's John Cullen too. You know, he brought in the concert scene there. He brought in the frozen dead guy. Yeah. It was really John Cullen who said we should get the frozen dead guy days here in Estes park when things were not working out there in Nederland. And yeah, he's the one who built this chocolate factory just kind of inspired by Willy Wonka. Of course, an interesting side note, if you notice the lion statues in the

[00:16:15] front and I think they're there at the Stanley as they are at most hotels that John Cullen owns, uh, worldwide is my understanding. And that's a ode to his pet lion. When he was growing up in Ohio as a kid, he had a pet lion. Oh, that's so this guy is a character. I've talked to John a few times now. And I always learn something new, crazy about his life. I talked to him. Oh, yeah. Hawthorne Heights known for Ohio is for lovers. I think, isn't that their big song? So I

[00:16:45] wonder if he's like, Hey, a little inspiration there. That's a, yeah, he's a really interesting guy. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Stanley hotel is one of those spots where you got to go. Like it's, it's one of those people talk about it all the time. It is worth checking out. Yeah. And just Estes park in general is worth checking out. But the Stanley hotel, you go in there and you're like, I get why this hotel is so talked about. Yeah. Well, especially this time of year, like those ghost tours, you know, um, when things are a little less crazy in Estes park during the

[00:17:14] summer, I think this is a great time to go to Estes park. Still crazy because the fall colors are going and everyone likes to go for the elk, but that makes it all the more of a, uh, a great place to go this time of year. Yeah. I want to say when I was there, it was like late September or so probably around now. Um, yeah, the colors weren't quite changing yet. So maybe more like mid September, but waking up in Estes park in the morning, cause you're at a little bit of a higher elevation there. And, um, it had like, there's this like cool, uh, chill to the air and like this fogginess. And

[00:17:43] it was just like, it was just like picturesque and like the sunrise hitting, hitting the surrounding terrain. It was beautiful. It's a beautiful spot. If you're a whiskey lover, don't sleep on the, uh, whiskey tour also at the Stanley hotel. They're proud of their whiskey there. They claim a collection pretty much unrivaled in Colorado. Yeah. How many bottles do they have? Some wild number, but, um, and they get like exclusive bottles like from distillers around the country

[00:18:10] slash world. Like they get like exclusive bottles at the Stanley that you can only get at the Stanley. So according to Google AI, uh, 12, over 1200 bottles available at the property. And they also, yeah, like you said, have some, uh, one of fewer than 200 bottles in existence. Yeah. So very rare whiskey. Very cool. Like a tour where you could sit and taste different whiskeys and learn history. It's cool. So how, uh, this just kind of came across my mind, but like, how did they get the frozen dead guy? Did they have to buy the frozen dead guy?

[00:18:38] I know this quite well from talking to John about it. So it goes into the story of grandpa burrito, right? Um, if people aren't familiar, uh, there was a man, is it Norway? I'm forgetting my, where is it Swedish? I think Swedish is right. Yeah. There was a, um, a fellow who brought his grandpa to the country and decided on Nederland being the place for this, uh, cryogenics facility

[00:19:07] that he had in mind. And for his grandpa, what is it? It is Norwegian. Norwegian. Yeah. You're correct. And for his grandpa to kind of be the subject of this, um, cryogenics effort, um, that, uh, grandson went on to be deported. Grandpa remained frozen in the shed there in Nederland. Hence how this craze of frozen dead guy days came about the town stepped up to care for the body, kept packing it with dry ice, staying in touch with the grandson back in Norway. Right.

[00:19:37] Um, hence frozen dead guy days, uh, flash forward, uh, festival is clearly outgrowing Nederland. Uh, aforementioned John Cullen in Estes Park says this would be the perfect place for it. And, uh, if we're going to have frozen dead guy days, I need to have the frozen dead guy. This is literally how he told the story. And so he gets in touch with the grandson, uh, and flies to Norway to meet the grandson to negotiate a deal for his grandpa's pot.

[00:20:06] Again, I told you this guy has crazy stories. That's how he, he told it to be. And he gets in touch with Alcor, which is the leading industry leader in, uh, cryogenics. And he tells the story of Alcor having a team of former Navy SEALs who oversee the transport of frozen dead guys like this. And they are the ones who, uh, ensured that his body remained safely frozen while it was transported to Estes Park.

[00:20:35] I like how they have a team. Like there's enough of these frozen dead guy transfers where they're like, we need a team for this. Well, I think it's the case like when someone dies, uh, they want, they want to be cryogenically preserved. That makes sense. This team is called in. Yeah. If I'm recalling that right. Yeah. It's a, you know, it's a, it's a, like the rest of the story of the frozen dead guys, like it straddles on a stranger than fiction for sure. I wonder what that final deal was. I wonder how much. I think it was undisclosed. I'm sure I asked John and he didn't tell me. Yeah. Fair enough.

[00:21:05] Yeah. I always, I always think about Han Solo being frozen in the rock. Like whenever I think of this, I haven't, I haven't been up to frozen dead guy days. Maybe this is the year. March. Usually. You can go see the, at the Stanley, they have the international cryogenics museum. I think they call it. And that's where grandpa's body is preserved in like an Alcor tank there. Dang. Can you see it? I've seen that. Yeah. You see the body or you see the tank? Can't see the body. Can't see the tank. And there's a history about, about that industry. Dang. Kind of a trip. That is wild.

[00:21:34] It is Alcor, right? Yeah, it's Alcor. I even talked to people at Alcor. Alcor Life Extension Foundation. There you go. Often referred to as Alcor. And there's some very interesting. It's a non-profit. Mysteries of who may or may not be preserved at Alcor. A lot of those names are kept secret. Named after the faint star of the Big Dipper. Okay. Alcor. I don't know if I knew that. That'd be wild if all of a sudden they like find out how to unfreeze people and give them life back.

[00:22:03] And it's just like, oh, here's someone from a hundred years ago. No, there's like, I think there's a lot of money that goes into this industry, man. I mean, there's people out there who are really intrigued by this science. And these are people in high places is my understanding. You know, who have, as it was described to me, like they just kind of have this idea like best case, I donate my body to, or worst case, I donate my body to science in advancing

[00:22:33] this research. Worst case or best case, I come back to life. Hmm. Right. Yeah. According to Wikipedia Hall of Fame baseball legend, Ted Williams. That's the famous one. Is one of those stored. Is one of those stored at Alcor. Stored corpses as they call it here. Yeah. And his son, John Henry Williams. Interesting stuff. Yeah. Who knew we were going to veer into cryogenics? So what can we talk about now? Here, I teased this one last week, so I'll talk about this. Yeah.

[00:23:03] Um, so, uh, there's been a lot of talk in Colorado lately about passenger trains, uh, specifically the, the Coco or the Colorado connector. They're supposed to travel up and down the front range. The most common complaint I think you hear about spending money on these passenger trains is the speed of the train. Uh, people are like, they look at the time it would take to get my Colorado Springs to Denver and they say, well, it's still going to be quicker to drive. Like, why don't we just drive? It's going to be cheaper, quicker.

[00:23:33] That's still a better option. Um, and I think that as far as I know, they are moving forward with the Colorado connector, uh, and they've named it, people voted, et cetera. Um, kind of related to this greater story about passenger trains though, because there's also the one that kind of, it's called the mountain rail system, but, um, it connects to like Winter Park. It's designed to connect out to Craig common complaint also that it's expensive. It's slow. And they did drop some ticket prices there and apparently it's a pretty fun experience, but

[00:24:03] there's this new proposal by Denver West express. Uh, it's a company, um, that is proposing a train that would essentially get you from DIA all the way to Avon in like an hour and 37 minutes. So faster than driving. Um, plus you don't need to rent a car if you're flying in, it travels up to 90 miles per hour or the average traveling time would be like 90 miles per hour travels up to 120 miles per

[00:24:32] hour, which is pretty wild. And that's kind of the, on the slower end of the different options they're looking at for these like high speed trains. Um, they're hoping that they can get this pushed through. It would probably be, I mean, a decade of development or so. Uh, yeah, I think, uh, 12 to 14 years is what they said. The cost would be up to $33 billion. So pretty costly long time that it would take to literally create this railway through the mountains.

[00:25:00] Um, but if they pull it off, I mean, it would mean that you have a high speed option that keeps you off of I-70, uh, and you'd be able to stop. I think one of the stops is in Summit County area. Uh, Avon, obviously like that's come to the Beaver Creek area. You'd stop and be able to access Vail. Um, so you'd be able to hit a lot of these ski resorts down I-70, uh, without really having to, uh, to drive. Us with I-70. Yeah.

[00:25:28] You know, my mind is going to some people, uh, perhaps with a little disposable income who like skiing in that part of the state who might be interested in- Yeah. Right. Well, I mean, so- Banding together on this proposal. Yeah. So, uh, basically what their, their pitch, right? They have, they have some information about like how much tickets would cost, um, and, uh, how much they expect to make, et cetera. Uh, so the average fare that they have listed in this executive summary of this proposal,

[00:25:58] is $65. Um, presumably one way I would think. Um, so yeah, I mean, it, I mean, it's not necessarily cheap, right? They not necessarily solving that issue where it's still cheaper to hop in a car with your friends and, and drive and split the gas or whatever. Uh, but as far as the timing goes, I mean, you got to think this would appeal to people that are coming from out of state. That would be, that would be who I'm, I'm thinking about here where it's like, let's say you

[00:26:27] have a week planned in Breckenridge, um, Summit County known for their public transportation system, right? You could get dropped off, you know, $65 from the airport, spend your week in Breckenridge, spend your week in Summit County, $65 back. Yeah. So, I mean, I think that's really who this would appeal to. Uh, they do seem hopeful that it would be, uh, have a much larger appeal. They're saying by year 10. So keep in mind, this would be, you know, 12 to 14 years if this proposal is approved

[00:26:55] that this would come out, um, and, and start running rides. Uh, but by year 10, so thinking 22 to 24 years from now, they would think that they would have 18.5 million riders a year is the projection, which started doing some of the math there. And you're like, is that too lofty? I mean, even just the popular population of Colorado, you know, and just based on how

[00:27:19] many, I think, um, Colorado sun reported that, uh, there were, uh, 13.9 million skier visits during the 24, 25 season, uh, to all of the ski resorts across the entire state. So that is still also, uh, below that. And obviously this would be going year round. So who knows? Um, I'm not the one doing the math here on that projection, but I mean, 18.5 million people on that would be, that'd be wild. Like if this, if this becomes a thing, you know, imagine just going through the mountains

[00:27:47] at 90 miles per hour, right? They would be building tunnels for this too. I think I'd be getting sick, man. Right. I mean, looking at the terrain, just. Yeah. Yeah. It'd be fast, but I mean, they do it elsewhere in the world. So you were taking the train from union station to Glenwood. Who always wanted to do that? I haven't. Yeah. I've heard, I've heard good things. Yeah. Yeah. Cause it goes, it continues all the way to Moab and then Salt Lake city. Yeah. Um, Amtrak. Yeah. I forget what the, uh, there's a company that does like a luxury ride. Yeah.

[00:28:17] And that's kind of come up the past five years or so. Right. Yeah. And it is interesting. Like, I feel like in America, tourism isn't so much, it's not so much like, uh, like traveling by train is not something that people are like, Oh, I want to go do this. Whereas like a lot of my international friends, that's like the thing to do. That's Europe. Yeah. Yeah. They'll, they'll go and be like, Oh, I'm in China. I'm going to do the train. Like there's always like a scenic train ride. Right. Whereas you don't really hear about that as much in America. Yeah. We're a young country. We're still, you know, we decided to build roads.

[00:28:46] That's where we were so focused. Yeah. Developed during the age of the interstate opposed to the age of rail, so to speak, or at least obviously had Western railways, but the interstate program in America was such a big aspect and such a big factor in terms of the country's success. But yeah, I kind of hear what you're hearing. And that seems like train and maybe we'll be catching on more and in this country's future. Yeah. And they're hoping, so this company that's behind this proposal for this, this high speed

[00:29:15] rail system in the mountains, Denver West express. They're hoping that it could be, and this is a quote from them, a building block for a future transcontinental high speed railroad line. So maybe seeing something bigger here opposed to just this one route. And I mean, it makes sense. I mean, I would love that like the 90 mile per hour aspect is a huge benefit when you can literally get there faster by train than driving. And I think that is something where, you know, all of a sudden you do see people that are able

[00:29:45] to afford that. They'll be sitting there thinking like, yeah, maybe we do just take the train instead of driving, you know? So, but we'll see. It is a lofty proposal and who knows where that will go, but something to follow along with for sure. Um, what else do we have here? Oh, did you see St. Mary's glacier? It has melted away. Yeah. Um, for the first time in recorded history and you can find photos of St.

[00:30:11] Mary's glacier, like all the way back to like, you know, like the eight late 1800s, like early, early 1900s. And, um, it is gone and pretty wild stuff. I know you've done some reporting on the glaciers around Colorado in the past. And, um, either way, pretty shocking. There's been a lot of viral videos and viral photos about that in recent, uh, recent weeks and there are, I guess this last week.

[00:30:38] And, um, I mean, it, you know, it's just another part of this story we've been tracking for so many weeks and so many months about the drought, about the low snowpack last season. Um, the South Platte River Basin, uh, which is home to where St. Mary's glacier is, uh, it peaked at just 8.5 inches of snow water equivalent as far as the snowpack went, um, this last season. And that peak happened on March 17th.

[00:31:04] Uh, to put that in perspective, typically the peak is about twice that at 16.1 inches. And that peak has reached April 25th. So that whole area has just been melting out essentially since March 17th, where it's been on that down downward trend. Um, and now obviously St. Mary's glacier that's been there for, for decades is gone. Yeah. It's gotta be said, not technically a glacier. Yes. We've always called it a glacier. It's been on the highway marked as a glacier, of course, but it's actually a

[00:31:34] perennial snowfield. Yes. Right. More or less. Semi-permanent. There you go. As, as it is described as well. Um, yeah, because glaciers move. Right. Where, as this does not move, it's just there, the remnants of, of glaciers, uh, as far as I understand. But yeah, you're, you're correct. It is always mistakenly called. There's some like phrase like they have to be massive enough to subtly move under their own weight. Yeah. It's something along those lines, you know? Yeah, exactly.

[00:31:59] And I've talked to researchers who suspect that a Rapaho glacier in Colorado could still meet the definition of a glacier along with maybe Andrews glacier. I've heard Andrews. Which is that Rocky Mountain National Park? Yes. Am I right in thinking of that? Yeah. Uh, some of the research I was doing into this, um, pretty much any, any glacier or potential glacier, it's always the front range where these are at. Um, there are some other, you know, semi-permanent snow fields.

[00:32:28] There's some permanent snow fields or ice bodies, but around the state, um, maybe over a hundred who knows after this year, uh, I would imagine, I I'd be really curious to see how many of these have melted away. Um, but yeah, you are, you are correct. I think with Andrews glacier being one of the more famous actual glaciers in Colorado. And, you know, worldwide, this is going on, you know, I was talking to researchers. There's, there's, um, been a big effort at Boulder to kind of track worldwide the state

[00:32:56] of glaciers, the loss of glaciers worldwide. It's called the Global Land Ice Measurements from Space Initiative. BLIMS is the acronym there. And they've, they've kind of been, um, over recent years, been compiling some data and reports to try to get serious about tracking this. But there was like, I just went back and pulled it up. There was a study between 2006 and 2016.

[00:33:23] They kind of quantified the global loss of glaciers at 335 gigatons, uh, of water a year or enough glacial melt to fill close to 130 million Olympic sized swimming pools. Dang. So that's a lot of glacier loss worldwide. That is wild. Seth has a piece about this. Uh, if you want to look it up on the Denver Gazette, uh, called the legacy and loss of Colorado's once mighty glaciers. It's a good read. Um, so I was, I was going back to that too.

[00:33:53] And then kind of like you said, so, uh, a couple other factors that contributed to this, um, this disappearance of St. Mary's glacier. Right. Um, June to August was the warmest on record in Colorado, uh, average of 69.4 degrees with, uh, 132 years of data that they were looking at to, to come up with that. Um, that's from CBS news report.

[00:34:19] Um, yeah, pretty, uh, I mean, it's, you know, people were wondering and, and obviously that whole area has been in drought, um, for weeks and months now. Uh, I think it hasn't been, uh, out of drought in, uh, Clear Creek County since like February of this year. Um, the entire county I think is, uh, is in stage two drought right now. Uh, yeah, people were wondering if it was going to melt away. And then that was a story that we've kind of been following here for weeks coming in and

[00:34:48] sure enough it is gone, but it is, it is expected to come back. Yep. Um, snow expected. Well, yeah, once, I think it's going to snow in Colorado. Yeah. That's about all I know. Fingers crossed. Um, but yeah, once the snow hits, it should come back. Uh, it could form again. The question is how well will it form again? Uh, will this be more of an ongoing trend where maybe it just is like a late season piece of dirt, like snowpack, you know, uh, but it still melts away in the future. Um, we don't know.

[00:35:19] So, uh, it'll just depend on how the, how the seasons go, you know, maybe it disappears every few years. Um, it's kind of a wait and see type of thing. And I think one of the things too, that's as it pertains to like outdoor recreation, right? A lot of people hike up to St. Mary's glacier during the summer to see it. Um, but a lot of people also ski. Yeah. Like that's a year round skiing tradition that has been there. There are people in Colorado, more than one of them who ski every month and have done so for years and, uh, decades in some cases. And St.

[00:35:49] Mary's glacier has been a staple on the front range where you can still get a couple turns in September, uh, and August, you know, at least you can say you put some skis down on snow. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, so hopefully, I mean, hopefully they planned an earlier September trip opposed to a later September trip. I would imagine that those people are probably, probably watching and they're like, Ooh, man, I might need to get there earlier than later with this thing going away. Um, but also I didn't realize, uh, I was reading a piece about, uh, from steamboat pilot

[00:36:18] and today about this. And, um, so essentially like news coverage as a potential tourist attraction started back in like 1902 for St. Mary's glacier. Uh, it was also the site of a ski resort from the 1930s to 1986, I think with a little bit of a break in there, but yeah, it was called a St. Mary's glacier resort. Okay. So I wonder, yeah, kind of, kind of interesting there in that regard. Um, probably popularize that name. That's like a misnomer, uh, with the glacier terminology.

[00:36:48] Um, so yeah, I thought that was interesting, but hasn't the highway sign more recently been saying St. Mary's? I think it just says St. Mary's on the highway sign nowadays, but they decided to abide by technicalities and get rid of the glacier. Yep. Yeah. Very true. But either way, sad stuff. Um, hopefully it comes back and we get to see St. Mary's again. Yeah. Going forward. What else do we got here today? Probably got time for like one more story here. Uh huh. Um, hmm.

[00:37:17] You want to talk about, uh, let's talk about this urban, urban night sky. Oh yeah. You can't get that news, didn't you? Uh, yeah. Uh, Piper covered it. So, uh, one of the out there Colorado writers, uh, Piper Russell, she has a piece about it online. Um, but an urban night sky park. I must say, I did not know that dark sky international. I was familiar with their designations of international dark sky parks and international dark sky communities. Right. Of which we have parks and communities like over 20 here in Colorado.

[00:37:47] And now we have our first urban night sky place. And it is Golden Gate Canyon Park. There we go park. And so, uh, I saw, uh, dark sky international listed, uh, 18 urban night sky places worldwide. And that organization describes these as places quote near or surrounded by large urban environs and whose planning and design actively promote an authentic nighttime experience in the midst of significant artificial light.

[00:38:17] So in short, where we have dark sky parks and dark sky places where those are truly prime, uh, stargazing locations. I kind of read this urban night sky place status as good stargazing. And we're proud of the way that they are mitigating light pollution with, uh, new light installations

[00:38:40] and advocating, uh, for preserving, uh, night skies, which is what golden gate Canyon has been credited for where this new status and bears mentioning. I think we're probably going to keep hearing more about these places. You know, Frisco is our latest, uh, uh, dark sky community. I think last month they got that designation. Yeah. And Brackenridge was a few months before that. Yep.

[00:39:04] And, uh, uh, uh, golden gate Canyon was one of a dozen state parks last year that announced kind of pursuing some dark sky recognition. So it tells me that list is going to keep growing. It's one of those things where I wonder if like a lot of these places are like, Hey, we know we can get into the headlines if we, uh, become the dark sky spot. But at the same time, it's a valuable thing. Like I appreciate it. Astro tourism is a thing, you know, getting on this list and getting, uh, recognized, uh,

[00:39:33] you know, the governor's really been pushing this. The Colorado tourism office has really been pushing this. They've been providing a lot of technical assistance to get these applications filled out, which there is an application process and there's expectations, uh, for mitigating light pollution and for educational programming. You know, you hear about these star parties that are at these parks and these places. So that's part of the designation process. Yeah. I mean, uh, also just the importance from like the natural standpoint where like birds

[00:40:03] traveling, you know, it's like the, the migration, like artificial lights throw off their ability to properly navigate. Yeah. I think the state's big push for the dark sky, uh, recognition has been both like environmental and economic. Like, you know, I think they see environmental and tourism benefits for it. Yeah. And just, uh, I mean, just everyone should look at the stars in my opinion. There's the Calvin and Hobbes quote. I just pulled it up, but I'm going to read that. But it says, uh, if people sat outside and looked at the stars each night, I bet they'd

[00:40:32] live a lot differently. And I love that. Yeah. Isn't something like some crazy, like 95% of the world can't see the Milky Way in terms of population. I would imagine crazier than that. I would, I would imagine in terms of population. Uh, it's probably, I mean, it's probably up there because you got a lot of people living in urban environments and I mean, I can't go outside and we're in the second, second most dense city probably or so in the, in the state. Um, if I had to guess and, uh, yeah, I mean, we can't see the Milky Way.

[00:41:02] Um, you can't live with the old camping. So, uh, but in terms of just day after day after day, they're night after night after night. Uh, yeah. Closest to us in Colorado Springs, the forest and fossil bits. That's a, that's a dark sky park. Yeah. It's a good place. And they do some good programs too. Yeah. I like that quote. That's a good way to kind of end the show. Yeah. Yeah. People sat outside and looked at the stars each night. I bet they'd live a lot differently. We can part with that message. Yeah.

[00:41:32] I like that. Shout out Calvin and Hobbes for one of the, uh, honestly, I mean, it's one of my favorite quotes of all time and I think it's true. Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes. Check it out. But yeah. Um, I think that's about all we got for the day. So, uh, bear down until next time. I'm Spencer. I'm Seth. And we will see you out there. Bye. Bye.