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Hi friends! I hope you all are managing the heat and the haze of distant wildfires and finding ways to enjoy this Colorado Sunday.

I might have mentioned it a million times before, but I live in a place where the long view over farm fields to the east is being rapidly filled with homes platted in the growth zone of a very aspirational neighboring city. I know it wouldn’t be happening if there wasn’t demand, but I still feel the encroachment on my sense of place.

What’s happening at the edge of my little town is probably why this week’s cover story by freelance journalist Kari Dequine Harden really resonates with me. She reported from rural South Routt County on plans to remake a middle-class community built on the foundations of a failed ski area into a lavish, members-only compound for the uber-wealthy in the model of the Yellowstone Club in Big Sky, Montana. The project is probably 30 years from completion — assuming it is approved. Some neighbors who live there now wonder if the place they call home can survive what the developers have in mind.

A graphic showing how much the ingredients in a burger have increased
A bird looks for a twilight meal at Stagecoach Stage Park. Critics of the proposed Stagecoach Mountain Ranch community are concerned about impacts to the environment. (Matt Stensland, Special to The Colorado Sun)

The narrative is so pervasive it is becoming tired: Ultrawealthy people buying up houses and open space in and around resort towns across the Mountain West at a rapidly accelerating rate. Middle and lower class people getting pushed out. An affordable housing crisis that doesn’t appear to be going away any time soon.

But when I heard about this particular development proposal, for a posh ski and golf resort at the edge of Stagecoach Reservoir, it felt different.

It felt like this plan to sandwich working class people between a golf course they can never golf on and a ski area they can never ski on in order to sell houses to wealthy people at an obscene cost — precisely to avoid the discomfort of being around working class people — epitomized the tale of the haves versus the have-nots in a way that is uniquely Rocky Mountain.

This is not just the story of Stagecoach. It’s the story of demographics that are changing in a very fundamental way in so many resort towns in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah or Wyoming.

The story also is incredibly complex. Rural South Routt County, now targeted for this new sanctuary for the elite, can use additional property tax revenue for schools. For roads. For other infrastructure. Jobs? I don’t know — as a former restaurant manager in this area I have first-hand experience at how impossible it was to find employees, at least for “regular people” jobs.

And is there an element of preservation in handing wild land over to the ultrawealthy? There are intriguing arguments on both sides.

Over the next year or more there is no doubt that the Stagecoach Mountain Ranch development proposal is going to divide the community. Is going to test the resolve of the community. Is going to test the teeth of Colorado’s environmental protections. So buckle up! This is just the beginning.

READ THIS WEEK’S COLORADO SUNDAY FEATURE

July in Colorado is for outdoor music, wildflowers, afternoon thunderstorms and, unfortunately, grassland fires. Here are our recents images from the mountain corridor.

A graphic showing how much the ingredients in a burger have increased
Fog Holler band’s banjo player Casey James Holmberg and guitar player Tommy Schulz perform at the Ridgway Concert Series on July 18. Ridgway holds a concert at Hartwell Park every Thursday evening in July. (Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun)
A graphic showing how much the ingredients in a burger have increased
A helicopter releases water to douse the flames of a grassland fire near Empire on July 19. The fire started near the Western Inn Trailer Court area along Interstate 70 and was immediately contained with help from both air support and the afternoon rain. (Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun)
A graphic showing how much the ingredients in a burger have increased
Colorado’s state flower, the columbine, blooms in the San Juan Mountains near Silverton on July 16. (Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun)
A graphic showing how much the ingredients in a burger have increased
A free sunscreen station is provided to visitors at several state parks, including Ridgway, as an effort to raise awareness about — and help prevent — skin cancer. (Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun)

There’s nothing like a few runs of weather that makes us feel like we’re living in an air fryer to put sunscreen top of mind.

The necessity of protecting your skin when outdoors cannot be overstated. Colorado’s average altitude of 6,800 feet above sea level (thanks 14ers!) puts just about every resident in the state a mile closer to the sun than most other places in the country — and that much more at risk for damage that can lead to skin cancer.

While we’ve apparently been doing a decent job of covering up and putting on the SPF — Colorado’s melanoma rate is about 18.6 cases per 100,000 people compared with Utah at 40.7 — the state would like us to do a better job.

That’s why Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the state health department and UCHealth have set up stations serving free sunscreen at seven state parks. If you must recreate during the riskiest part of the day, between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., at Chatfield, Roxborough, Golden Gate Canyon, Eleven Mile and Spinney, Ridgway, State Forest or Castlewood Canyon state parks, there will be an IMPACT Melanoma-branded dispenser standing in plain view. Help yourself to a splash of SPF 30 and enjoy your adventure.

EXCERPT: In “The Waterman,” Gary Schanbacher’s collection of interconnected short stories, the restless, impetuous elements of youth wash over protagonist Clayton Royster — the prologue to a narrative arc that spans 80-some years of his life. Schanbacher’s book, scheduled for release in October, expands on the character he created in a previous novella.

READ THE SUNLIT EXCERPT

THE SUNLIT INTERVIEW: As Schanbacher experimented with various drafts of Royster’s story, he wasn’t sure what form it should take. Eventually, he landed upon the linked short story collection, which fit his purposes but also presented its own challenges. Here’s a slice of his Q&A:

SunLit: What were the biggest challenges you faced in writing this book?

Schanbacher: Other than the usual false starts, dead-ends, and countless drafts, the challenge wasn’t so much in the writing as in finding a publisher. The format of the book is not ideal for one of the large publishing houses. It is brief (but not small, I hope) and a hybrid of sorts — Is it a novel? A story collection? … I was not interested in self-publishing, so I began the search for an independent, traditional outlet.

READ THE INTERVIEW WITH GARY SCHANBACHER

LISTEN TO A PODCAST WITH THE AUTHOR

A curated list of what you may have missed from The Colorado Sun this week.

Kalyn Rose Heffernan, UMS accessibility team lead, poses for a portrait on South Broadway on Wednesday in Denver. Heffernan also is a vocalist for the band Wheelchair Sports Camp. The group performed for the first time at Underground Music Showcase in 2012. (Rebecca Slezak, Special to The Colorado Sun)

🌞 There’s still time today to catch a few shows at Underground Music Showcase, Denver’s largest music festival. Parker Yamasaki reports the good news that the festival finally has a team paying attention to accessibility in the venues along South Broadway.

🌞 This is the first year Colorado people have been able to take paid family and medical leave under a new state-managed program. Tamara Chuang looked at the first six months of statistics and found out far fewer people applied for leave than projected and an unexpectedly small number of them took leave to care for a new baby.

🌞 Two lawsuits over Summit County vacation rental regulations are over, but as Jason Blevins reports, the fight absolutely isn’t finished.

🌞 Fatalities on Colorado roads were down during the first half of this year, and way down when we’re talking about pedestrians and cyclists, Olivia Prentzel reports.

🌞 After logging 30 cases of avian influenza in 30 days, the state now is requiring all commercial dairies in Colorado to test for the disease. John Ingold reports that the idea is to improve Colorado’s worst-in-the-nation infection rates.

🌞 The relationship between the Colorado Child Protection Ombudsman and the Colorado Department of Human Services is fraught by design. But Jennifer Brown reports that a fight over caseworkers found to have falsified records has led to a standoff requiring the ombudsman to file — and pay for — open records requests for access to crucial data.

🌞 The Olympics are underway in Paris. If you missed it, we did a primer on the Colorado athletes to watch. We’ve got an eye on cycling — especially the three athletes Ryan Simonovich introduced us to. They’re all from Durango, which has sent competitors to every Summer Games since 1996.

🌞 Who’s a good dog? Ash the fire-detecting dog is a good dog, with a very particular set of skills.

Thanks for hanging out with us today! We’ll see you back here next Colorado Sunday. Want to bring a new friend? The more, the merrier! Please share this link with them: coloradosun.com/join.

— Dana & the whole staff of The Sun

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Type of Story: News

Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.

This byline is used for articles and guides written collaboratively by The Colorado Sun reporters, editors and producers.