Good Colorado Sunday, friends!
Up here on the edge of northern Colorado, where open spaces have been filled in fast by new houses and more new houses, it’s increasingly difficult to remember that agriculture is the industry that brought us here.
We might see the occasional small flock of seagulls following a tractor plowing a field in spring, or happen to look up at a passing train to notice cars filled with carrots. Repurposed grain elevators pay tribute with contemporary purpose. And county fairs and farmers markets help anchor us to the land. But few places remain where we can get a broad picture of what it was like on the farm back in the day.
That’s why Kevin Simpson’s cover story this week is particularly poignant. The beautiful Bee Family Centennial Farm Museum at the edge of Fort Collins is at risk of being lost. It’s one of those places that is at once obvious and nuanced, very evidently a farm but when you look closely, a marvelous archive of Colorado agricultural history.
Senior Editor
The Cover Story
One family’s rare slice of northern Colorado agricultural history faces an existential crisis
Farm fields stretch to the horizon both east and west as you drive Interstate 25 in northern Colorado. But while the vistas offer an expansive reminder of our state’s long-standing relationship with agriculture, you have to look harder to find the threads that connect the early challenges of cultivating the arid landscape to the state-of-the-art operations visible through your windshield at places like Colorado State University’s ag research and development site. That’s where the Bee Family Centennial Farm Museum comes in — or at least it has, until now.
Spread over an unassuming 10 acres that sits within shouting distance of the interstate, the grounds are literally surrounded by the university’s R&D efforts. Experts, including one of Colorado’s former state historians, laud the collection of buildings and agricultural artifacts for its exceptionally comprehensive timeline dating back to the 19th-century homesteaders — and just as important, documents that lend depth to their narrative. Alas, the nonprofit, mostly family-run facility that’s been operating on a shoestring budget has closed as its aging overseer steps back. Can the museum’s supporters find the structure and means to transition to a more professional operation?
Kevin Simpson | Writer
The Colorado Lens
As we move through an El Niño winter, the persistent snowfall forces Coloradans to make their plans around road conditions, outdoor recreation opportunities or simply stay indoors. Sun photographers make our schedule around the sources for the right moments to capture. Here are our recents in the Centennial State.
Hugh Carey | Photographer
Flavor of the Week
When a park is silent
With the summer crowds gone, America’s fourth-busiest national park quiets. Under a fresh blanket of snow, there’s relative solitude in the open meadows framed by thick stands of conifer trees below the rugged peaks of Rocky Mountain National Park.
If you ask Jim Young, a volunteer cross-country ski guide for the park, winter is the perfect time to take advantage of Rocky’s pristine terrain and spot wildlife that roam more freely.
And with fresh powder, there’s more opportunity to explore.
“The snow surface frees you from having to follow designated trails, you can go anywhere,” Young said. “You can explore the park more deeply, you can get into places that in the summertime might be wetlands or just too rugged to walk.”
Every Friday this month, Rocky Mountain National Park is offering free ranger-led ski tours through the west side of the park. Young will guide participants from near the Grand Lake Entrance Station across relatively flat terrain through an open valley bottom with stunning vistas and along forested areas on nongroomed, off-trail routes. Routes for each program may change depending on snow conditions.
Each tour starts at 1 p.m. and runs no longer than two hours. And remember, Front Rangers, Trail Ridge Road is closed for the season, so you won’t be able to reach the tour’s start from the eastern entrances near Estes Park.
Visiting the park in the winter is a great way to check out its trails without worrying about the timed reservations that are required during peak visitor season.
You may spot river otters sledding on their bellies down snow-covered hills along the Colorado River drainage or fresh tracks from moose that often make use of snowshoe trails to get around the park.
“And if you’re really, really, really lucky, maybe you’ll stumble across a bear den that you don’t want to disturb,” Young said.
The tours aren’t designed to be a ski lesson and some cross-country ski experience is required, Young said. (Though he does have experience in that category — Young led the U.S. Biathlon Team for about 12 years and took his first backcountry skiing and winter camping trip in Rocky Mountain National Park in April 1977).
Participants must bring their own gear, including Nordic skis, poles, boots and warm winter clothing.
“As I describe to our visitors, we’ve got three versions of cross-country skiing in Rocky Mountain National Park,” he said. “We have easy, moderate and ‘oh my God, what did I get into?’”
While Young said these tours fall into the “easy” category, participants should be able to ski about 1 mile over hilly terrain at high elevations — the tour will take place at about 9,000 feet — and must be age 16 or older.
Ranger-led ski tours: Reservations are required and each group is limited to a maximum of 12 people. To make a reservation, call 970-586-1513. Reservations can be made beginning on the Wednesday before a scheduled tour. A park entrance fee or valid entrance pass is required to enter the park.
Olivia Prentzel | Reporter
SunLit: Sneak Peek
Series of calamitous events connects characters in “Playing with (Wild)fire”
EXCERPT: She could look out the window of her house and see the monstrous 2020 Cameron Peak fire creating a maelstrom of activity in the foothills near Fort Collins. Author Laura Pritchett turned to writing what eventually became “Playing with (Wild)fire” in part to deal with her real-life trauma, but also to use fiction as a tool to get to the heart an inspiring phenomenon — people who, despite widening differences in the time of COVID, still found ways to work together in the face of crisis.
THE SUNLIT INTERVIEW: Pritchett grew up on a ranch in northern Colorado and her very place-based narratives often reflect how suffering informs the lives of those who live in the West. Contemporary Colorado has, particularly of late, been shaped by the wildfires that have increased in frequency and intensity. And not surprisingly, her novel reflects that. But she focuses on the good that comes with true community. Here’s a sample from her Q&A:
SunLit: What’s the most important thing — a theme, lesson, emotion or realization — that readers should take from this book?
Pritchett: Believing in — and being part of — our local community. In these times of bifurcated politics and really different ideologies, which might get worse as we head into election season, we can remember that we are all human, that we can all help each other during crisis, that we can be a cohesive, helpful, supportive group. In my book, people tease each other about their belief systems — right, left, religious, not, woo-woo, everything — because, well, people do do this. But then they get past it all. We can, too. We need to.
READ THE INTERVIEW WITH LAURA PRITCHETT
Section by Kevin Simpson | Writer
Sunday Reading List
A curated list of what you may have missed from The Colorado Sun this week.
🌞 This week’s political discourse was dominated by talk about the U.S. Supreme Court’s consideration of Colorado’s decision to exclude former President Donald Trump from the GOP presidential primary. Jesse Paul listened to the oral arguments Thursday. And columnist Diane Carman reintroduced us to the lead respondent in the case — Norma Anderson, a 91-year-old Republic former lawmaker.
🌞Closer to home, the Colorado Statehouse is mulling bills to deal with the so-called construction defects laws blamed for a surfeit of condominium construction, a bill of rights for foster kids, and a law that could limit the amount of time teens spend on screens.
🌞 Arapahoe Basin, the Colorado ski area held up as the ideal for how indie hills should be run, has sold to behemoth Alterra Mountain Co., and people are worried about how The Legend will fare under new owners. Jason Blevins has the details of the deal.
🌞 Colorado is doing such a poor job of getting food benefits to people in need that the feds have stepped in. Jennifer Brown reports that some counties are working literal overtime to catch up.
🌞 A Western Slope clinic system serving about 1,400 people, most of them covered by Medicaid, abruptly shut down. Tatiana Flowers looked deep into the circumstances surrounding the closure and learned the state Behavioral Health Administration is investigating a “multitude” of allegations against the clinic, including claims it falsified treatment records and that its founder had an inappropriate romantic relationship with a client and gave center staff drugs and alcohol on the job.
🌞Colorado and San Luis Valley irrigation districts have spent a lot of money and given up a lot of farmland to make sure obligations laid out in the Rio Grande Compact are met. It’s not enough. So now farmers in the valley are facing a huge increase in what they pay to pump water from the troubled aquifer below their fields, Jerd Smith reports.
🌞Sexy Pizza has done what many chefs have said they would not do and given up its gas-fired ovens. Michael Booth checked out the now climate-friendly pizzeria in Denver’s Uptown neighborhood to find out how the pies are turning out.
🌞 U.S. 550 over Red Mountain Pass is widely regarded as the most sketchy stretch of highway in Colorado. If you aren’t among the believers, you may be after reading Jason Blevins’ story about artist and snowboarder Pat Milbery, who launched his truck off the highway on a snowy night in January and lived to talk about it. The story’s great, but the accompanying Daily Sun-Up podcast that goes with it is filled with lots of extras, like the solid advice to never wear flip-flops when driving in winter.
🌞True fact: Homemade hockey rinks are popping up in backyards all over Colorado. Who are we? Canada? Not quite, Eugene Buchanan reports. But kids in high country towns are growing up skating whenever they like.
Section by Dana Coffield | Senior Editor
Thanks for hanging out with us this morning — hopefully we didn’t cut too deeply into your Super Bowl buffet prep. We’ll see you back here next week. If you’d like to bring a friend, here’s how they can sign up for their own copy of Colorado Sunday: coloradosun.com/join
— Dana & the whole staff of The Sun
Corrections & Clarifications
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