2014 July Archives - Colorado Central Magazine

Pickin’ Sisters

September 30, 2015July 1, 2014 by Mike Rosso

Article and photos by Ericka Kastner

Early exposure to musical performance prompted two Salida teens, known on stage as The Powell Sisters, to enter the Colorado bluegrass music scene. Years later, they’re strumming their way into house parties and music festivals across the country.

Phoebe Powell, 16, says she was first inspired to learn the fiddle during a PBS broadcast performance of Celtic Woman. As she watched the band’s fiddler dance barefoot across the stage, then-9-year-old Phoebe told her parents she wanted to learn to play the fiddle. Six and a half years later, not only can Phoebe dance while she fiddles, she also sings harmonies beside her sister on stage and last year added plucking the banjo to her repertoire.

Kansas in the Mud

November 14, 2014July 1, 2014 by Mike Rosso

By Mark Kneeskern

A giant hand is pushing sideways against our truck, rocking her back and forth like a toy boat. We tack south on 385, then bear west on 96 through Chivington and Eads, Heath and Sugar City, gaining hard-fought ground, inch-by-inch.

Recently, I wrote an epic song in homage to the wind and its nebulous ways, attempting to salve some emotional wounds that had been inflicted upon the small desert community of Terlingua during a long, chilly, brutal winter in Far West Texas. Now, as my partner Shannon and I navigate our way toward Salida after visiting my family in Minnesota, the wind is making a genuine attempt to blast us off the road.

An Oasis in South Park: Buffalo Peaks Ranch Transforming Into Rocky Mountain Land Library

April 17, 2015July 1, 2014 by Mike Rosso

Article and photos by Laura Van Dusen

The Rocky Mountain Land Library at Buffalo Peaks Ranch is one of a kind. Located about nine miles southeast of Fairplay on Colorado Hwy. 9, it will soon be a nature research study center – a library with residential facilities where students, artists, writers, naturalists and scientists can study and stay for a few days, weeks or even months.

The project has been in the works for six years, since negotiations began in 2006 between co-directors Jeff Lee and his wife Ann Martin and ranch owner, the City of Aurora. On Sept. 25, 2013, a 95-year lease was signed, giving Jeff and Ann control of 60 acres at the heart of the ranch. It includes a 1906 home and several barns and outbuildings dating to the 1940s.

Colorado’s Original Adventure Sport

July 1, 2014July 1, 2014 by Mike Rosso

By Hal Walter

It’s July and the Colorado pack-burro racing season will soon be in full swing, with the sport’s Triple Crown taking place right here in Central Colorado in the towns of Fairplay, Leadville and Buena Vista.

I’m always surprised when people haven’t heard of our indigenous sport, recently designated Colorado’s Summer Heritage Sport by the state legislature. Sometimes when I’m out running with my burro and someone seems confused, or asks what I’m doing, I respond: “Oh, so you’re not from Colorado?” Often they actually are, and then I usually explain.

Update: Vision of a Salida-to-Leadville Trail Along the Old Stage Road and Midland Railroad

July 15, 2014July 1, 2014 by Mike Rosso

By Alan Robinson

Readers of this magazine may recall the September 2008 article on “The Stage Road from Canon City to Leadville.” There I summarized the history of that 1870s passenger, mail and freight route, and 1880 construction of the long-abandoned Colorado Midland Railroad (CMRR) through Chaffee and Lake Counties. I also asked rhetorically if in today’s environment, where preservation of our area’s cultural heritage is increasingly recognized as important for both social and economic reasons, there might be an opportunity to develop a long-distance public heritage trail along those routes. The initial vision was to connect Buena Vista and southern Lake County with a slow-speed pathway of about 30 miles – some sections for vehicle travel, some for hikers, cyclists and horseback riders – which would celebrate the stories of those two routes, stimulate preservation of their deteriorating physical features, interpret their history to strengthen the public’s appreciation of their value, and in some cases, make sections now inaccessible open to public use.

News from the San Luis Valley

December 2, 2014July 1, 2014 by Mike Rosso

More Solar for the Valley Xcel Energy has signed a power purchase agreement with SunPower Corp, of San Jose, California for the output of a 50-megawatt solar photovoltaic plant the company plans to build in the San Luis Valley. Permits, financing and interconnection rights are still needed by SunPower in order to begin the project,.They …

REGIONAL NEWS ROUNDUP (and other items of interest)

December 2, 2014July 1, 2014 by Mike Rosso

Mountain Tornadoes Rare but Not Unique In early June, a small but unusual tornado spun across Colorado’s South Park, damaging several homes, uprooting trees and knocking out power lines near the community of Lake George. A tornado of that magnitude would barely make the news in Oklahoma or Alabama, in what is called North America’s …

About the Cover Photographer – H. Mark Weidman

August 11, 2020July 1, 2014 by Mike Rosso

As a boy, Mark Weidman spent Friday nights (while his parents were out) digging a secret tunnel in his backyard. Not many seek adventure in suburban Philadelphia, but Mark was born to explore. A horseback trip in Yosemite when he was 14 introduced him to the panoramic beauty and wide-open spaces of the American West, …