Editor’s note: Welcome to the seventh installment of our 15-week series Colorado 150, marking 150 years of statehood with our favorite Colorado things.
I had no idea how amazing Colorado was until after I’d skied it, hiked it, biked it and boated it for more than two decades. That’s because the whole point of coming here for me was to let its resorts, peaks, trails and rivers turn me into the most adventurous version of myself. It worked. I’ve skied the most technical lines at Crested Butte, summited Longs Peak, ridden trails from Steamboat to Durango and floated babies down the mighty Colorado.
Then I realized how all of that was just overlanding — flying by — missing the point when I stood beside a farmer on ground he had turned into food and walked the land of a rancher who raised cattle. The first was also an agronomist, agrologist, agrometeorologist, economist, hydrologist, heavy machine operator, financial planner and lover of ladybugs. The second was also a biologist, climatologist, epidemiologist, agroecologist, rangeland health manager, roper and massager of cow uteruses.
Colorado’s producers are a thousand times the badasses of any outdoor sports athlete — you just don’t know it because they’re far too busy to brag. They’re out in the flattest, driest corners of the state, and also in the remotest mountainous country. They’re up hours before you or me, pulling on boots and rotating a center pivot with the wingspan of forever or literally pulling new life from another being. More importantly they’re in direct relationship with the land and animals. They have an arrangement: Nothing is going to grow without their love and attention. And we aren’t going to eat without them.
So do yourself and them a solid. Put your adventure needs aside for a moment. And use that time to discover some of the biggest badasses in Colorado.
Tracy Ross | Reporter
Tour de Vineyards
Colorado has been making its way into the wine world for a couple of decades now, and out in the shadow of the Book Cliffs near Grand Junction are a number of wineries using the Western Slope climate to their advantage. Operating every September for more than 30 years, the tour is a great way to burn some calories before you take on the wine, cheese and other culinary treats there. You don’t have to be a hard-core cyclist to enjoy the routes that go through Colorado wine country, and there is support along the way when you’re ready to uncork a good time.
Palisade Peach Festival
The Western Slope town is known for its variety of farms, and the top of the orchard is the flavor fruit. This two-day event every August is the cream of the crop. The Palisade peach is the gift that keeps giving and can be enjoyed year-round in beer, canned jams and jellies, and a Palisade peach cobbler will send you into another hemisphere. The whole town gets into the vibe for the annual festival to celebrate the harvest with running races, art competitions, pancake breakfast, live music at the Peach Jam Stage, peach-eating contests (how many can you snarf down in 90 seconds?) and plenty more.
Big B’s Delicious Orchards
Tucked in the North Fork Valley in western Colorado is another great agricultural pocket, with orchards and a dozen vineyards. The area around Paonia and Hotchkiss is ripe for do-it-yourself produce pickers, and Big B’s is one of the anchors of the valley’s ag vibe. The orchard was planted in 1965 and has through the years moved into the juice and cider markets. The property gives folks the unique opportunity to camp amid the apple trees (they even have glamping tents available). The annual harvest festival September is a roaring good time that’s grown along with the 30-acre property. The venue hosts live music most weekends through the summer, so it’s always a fun adventure.
Knapp’s Farm Market
The late-summer Rocky Ford melons are a bright spot during the dog days of August. At Knapp’s Farm Market just outside of Rocky Ford, the options are bountiful. A cantaloupe with lime green flesh (one of many colors on offer) and a hybrid dove melon (somewhere between a honeydew and a cantaloupe). Knapp’s seedless watermelon is deep orange inside, and the classic cantaloupe is, well, classic. Nothing compares to a true roadside melon at the peak of the season, but nearly every grocery chain in the state sells Rocky Fords. The big difference at Knapp’s is that if you ask, you can probably meet one of the family.
Colorado Orange
The Colorado Orange apple is back. The fruits of more than 20 years of sleuthing, DNA testing and slogging through a long-forgotten archive of apple drawings and wax casts. It first arrived from Missouri around 1860, and apples were popular among miners, especially the Colorado Orange, which kept well and stayed firm. But it slowly disappeared as orchards became subdivisions. That is until about 20 years ago when the Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project, founded by Jude and Addie Schuenemeyer when they began their horticulture careers in 2001, took on the return of the Orange at their farm in Cortez. You won’t find the Orange apples on store shelves just yet, but you could stumble upon them at a roadside stand.
Olathe Sweet Corn
“Corn King” David Galinat, the corn geneticist who made Olathe sweet corn possible back in the early 1980s by developing corn strains with higher-than-normal sugar content, brought his crops to the masses and it was well-received and shipped across the country. Through the years the market has fluctuated but roughly 30 million ears are pulled from the fields around the Uncompahgre River Valley each year. The harvest is celebrated every August with the annual Olathe Sweet Corn Festival, which is down the road in Montrose. Corn-on-the-cob fans, start your engines for Colorado’s preeminent corn-eating contest. In 2025, more than 7,000 ears were consumed.
Pueblo Chile Festival
The Pueblo Green Chile has become a cultural symbol of the community and one of those “Colorado Proud” products touted by the state. The love affair with the Pueblo chile started in the 1990s, although the Mira Sol (looking at the sun) chile had been grown in the region for a century. The chile grows pointing upward to the sun rather than hanging down. The annual Pueblo Chile and Frijoles Festival started in 1994 with about 5,000 people over two days. Now, every September an estimated 150,000 people descend on downtown Pueblo, and they never seem to go home disappointed. The Pueblo chile even has its own Colorado specialty license plate.
Agricultural Heritage Center
If you’re a city slicker looking for a taste of the farm life or you appreciate the history behind Colorado’s farmers, the Agricultural Heritage Center in Longmont is a sprawling property that’s a great way to get submerged in farm life. The homestead dates back to 1868, but the center didn’t open until 1991, six years after the family sold the farm to Boulder County. A walk through the 1909 historic farmhouse is like stepping back a hundred years. The garden is beautiful when it’s blooming and on certain days you can even watch a blacksmith do their work. Of course, farm animals abound.
Eagle Rock Ranch
When Dave and Jean Gottenborg met as teenagers wrangling horses in Estes Park, they dreamed of one day running a ranch together. That dream fell by the wayside for decades until 2012, when the couple purchased Eagle Rock Ranch in the Tarryall Valley.
Talking about the Gottenborg’s ranch means deliberately avoiding words like “owners” and “ownership.” The couple “manage” their land — their preferred term — through the conservationist lens of thinkers like Wendell Berry and Aldo Leopold. Visitors are welcome on the land (see some basic guidelines here), and they sell their beef by the cut, box and share at their family-owned mercantile in Fairplay.
Ute Indian Museum Ethnobotany Garden
Long before the settlers made their way to the Colorado high country, the Ute Indians were criss-crossing the mountains and loved the land that provided for them. The museum in Montrose was built in 1956 near the ranch of Chief Ouray and his wife, Chipeta. But in 2017, a group of volunteers worked to create and fill a garden with native plants. The garden includes plants the Utes used for food and medicine and ceremonies. You can stroll among the chokecherries, scarlet gilia, primrose and more you’ve likely not heard of. Don’t forget to stop by the “peace pole” for even more serenity.