Monday, January 08, 2007

fuck Winter Park!

The front page of today's CS Gazette had an article on Alma, at 10,578 feet above sea level the highest town in the country. But recently, the yuppie ski resort town of Winter Park (many hashers were at the Invihash there a few years ago) annexed a mountain so they could now claim to be the highest.

I'm a huge fan of Alma, population of less than 200. Nice little mountain town that I've visited several times due to it's proximity to several 14ers. Only two pubs in the town, the South Park Saloon and Alma's Only Bar (possible pub crawl site for CoTex), both of which get you treated like a local if you visit. Nothing like the yuppie ski bars where you gotta wait 20 minutes for the priviledge of paying $4 for a can of budweiser.

Alma also won cool points with me for taking up a lease for the DeCaLiBro land. When Nicole and I hiked those 14ers last August, we were tresspassing. The mining company, due to liability issues, didn't want folks on their land. Enter Alma, who now leases the land and any liability issues that go along with it. And the hike is now legal. Which gives me a good excuse to go back and climb 'em all again!

Anyways, the town of Winter Park, which sits at just over 9,000 feet, now claims 12,060 feet, because one of it's mountains (probably Mary Jane) hits that height. And of course WP now claims to be America's highest town. And you know that all those yuppie posers who need a ride to the top of a mountain are already buying the "Get High in Winter Park" shirts.

Just venting here. In my short time in Colorado (coming up on the year anniversary, FYI) my favorite places have been the small mining towns like Alma, Fairplay, Leadville, Salida, Lake City...I could go on and on. I find the few major ski towns I've been to way too fake, and it irks me to see the big ski places trying to take something away from the smaller towns.

Read the article here.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Total wankers. Not NEARLY as wanker material as this loser here in College Station that drives around to Starbucks and class in his jacked-up dually w/ the slogan "Living the High Life" on his bed. Now there's a Darwin award in the works. Get me OUTTA here!

Anonymous said...

A mountaintop in the city limits? If they're providing water, fire, sewer, roads, etc. at 12,060', then Winter Park's earned their title.

brownie said...

Nope. Just a ski lift to the top, and that's probably not city owned.

Alma should just annex the DeCaLiBro land and end this argument!

Anonymous said...

I like the small places too. Salida is my favorite. I plan to retire there one day!! I also liked Lake City, Creed and Pagosa Springs.

Lulu said...

I hope you have been to Creede! It is the best city in CO. And my two aunts own B&Bs there and I'm related to the sheriff. So if you go, please let me know ahead of time so I can warn them to shut down town.