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WildSnow HQ Featured in National Geographic Mag

Bookmark and Share            By Lou
Heart and Soul of a Ski Bum

We are now so hip our nearby peak Mount Sopris is on the cover of the latest National Geographic Adventure, and our city of Carbondale is featured as “Where to Live & Play NOW” in their list of the “50 Next Great Towns.”

Yipee? Well, we do like where we live, but these published lists of “best” towns are somewhat of a yawner. After all, you can find plenty of other nice towns if you do much travel. More, consider the “National Geographic Syndrome,” wherein they publish a terrific place that’ll now be overrun and commercialized — not to mention becoming super expensive (if it isn’t already).

We have no lifetime investments other than the house we toiled like dogs to buy and renovate ourselves. Thus, I’m not minding our property values going up (though I had to laugh when a Carbondale miner’s shack that’s rotting into the ground with no foundation recently sold for nearly three quarters of a million dollars). But my joyful greed is tempered by knowing younger friends who can’t buy into the free market here without giving up nearly everything in life — and bribing a loan officer. So I’m not dancing in the streets when we’re listed as “great” by some magazine (though I’m glad we beat out Boulder and Jackson, and agree that Lander should be on the list.) Website here.

Back to the National Geo cover photo. They did sneak in a bicycle, but the featured gear is a Jeep. I guess they’ve been reading WildSnow.com? Chuckle, the least they could have done was picture a Prius like I saw the other day, sagging under the load of double roof boxes and a rear bicycle rack. That would have been much more appropriate to National Geo’s image, as well as Carbondale’s (who both shout green like they’ve got Al Gore stickers pasted on their foreheads). But then, reality strikes. Jeeps and other SUVs are as much a part of the “adventure town lifestyle” as are full suspension mountain bikes and yoga pants, right?

Remember to check in tomorrow for another “Name that Historical Mug” contest. Free pack.

Posted by Lou on August 28, 2008 | Filed Under Mountain Culture 

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Comments

9 Responses to “WildSnow HQ Featured in National Geographic Mag”

  1. carl August 28th, 2008 9:54 am

    Those ratings are so funny and a bit silly. It all depends on what you are looking for. In my hopping around from place to place I have yet to find one spot that has it all. In the words of a famous sit com t.v. show “you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both, and there you have…….”

    Well Lou, now that Carbondale has now been “discovered” do you think you need to brace yourself for the masses soon to come? Maybe you should talk to the Marble Mining Company and ask them to put in a new parking pullout at the Marble Peak TH.

  2. Scott August 28th, 2008 10:32 am

    Congratulations to Carbondale! For making the list with Mobile, Alabama and San Antonio, Texas…true adventure towns in their own right! After all, adventure should be measured based on the fine dinning options available for when you’re done “shredding the gnar”

  3. hardcore August 28th, 2008 11:14 am

    How come they didn’t pick Ophir, Colorado? Take my word for it, everyone, go there as soon as possible.

  4. Njord August 28th, 2008 3:08 pm

    I don’t think Carbondale is a surprise to anybody…. and Lou is right about property prices! I had to buy a “golf community” house down the road from Carbondale to get something I could afford, since a cool half million won’t even buy you a garden shed there anymore!

    @Scott: Cdale does have some great post-Gnar Shreding eateries, but nothing like the Riverwalk in San Antonio! It’s pretty hard to find packs of drunken soroiety girls roaming the streets looking to find a source of jell-o shots at 3 am in town. How I miss San Antonio …not!

    Njord

  5. Scott B August 28th, 2008 3:17 pm

    LOL! And yet, that is the number one complaint I’ve heard from single, male friends who live in ski towns.

  6. Jim Jones August 29th, 2008 7:11 am

    Carbondale is screwed now, these lists always ruin the places they
    promote.

  7. dave August 29th, 2008 9:26 am

    Carbondale had an equally “promoting” article in NGA a couple years back anyway. This isn’t what’s screwing the town … but it’s easier to blame a magazine than runaway free market economy. right, lou? :D

  8. Scott # 3 August 31st, 2008 1:40 pm

    Lou-

    Was Jackson even on the list?

    Everyone knows that place sucks.

    Tell all your friends again though, just to get the word out.

    Carl- How long did it take to hop from Carbondale to Jackson? Did you claim a first hop?

  9. Carl August 31st, 2008 6:35 pm

    Scott – it took me three years, but I was on tele skis. If I was on an AT set up I bet I would have been faster, however I couldn’t have claimed it as a first tele traverse.

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Welcome to Louis (Lou) Dawson's backcountry skiing information and opinion website. Lou's passion for the past forty years has been alpinism, climbing, mountaineering and skiing -- along with all manner of outdoor recreation. He has authored numerous books and articles about backcountry skiing and is well known as the first person to ski down all 54 of Colorado's 14,000-foot peaks, otherwise known as the Fourteeners! Books and free back country information here, and tons of Randonnee rando telemark info.

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