By Martha Quillen Lots of things in the United States have run awry in recent years, including climate patterns, wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, shootings, partisan politics and fake news. But perhaps the element that’s run most amok is us, we the people – America’s citizens, candidates and leaders. Today, some places are bustling like never …
By George Sibley The Most Important Election of Our Lifetime is finally behind us, and I can’t tell you how glad I am that I was overly pessimistic last month. A respectable blue wave on the national level restored a measure of democratic process to what was becoming one-party plutocratic rule under a would-be autocrat. …
By John Mattingly Ballot Measure 1A passed handily in the November 6 election, meaning there will be a small sales tax increase to raise an estimated one million dollars to fund activities that will protect forests, waters and open spaces. On November 5, Commissioner Felt offered a guest opinion in the Mountain Mail advocating for …
By Mike Rosso What’s a mountain dweller to do when they need to get some sand between their toes? When the nearest ocean is 1,000 miles away? One solution lies close to home in the San Luis Valley. Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve sits at the base of the majestic Sangre De Cristo …
By Jennifer Welch I awoke suddenly at 2 a.m. this morning, and spent the next hour trying to fall back to sleep. Once I remembered the coming Super Moon, I gave up my futile attempts to resume slumber. My brain was awash with thoughts and ideas about cows, horses, the farm and my family. I …
By Peter Anderson Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), Japan’s most famous poet, was and still is known as a master of the haiku, a short poetic form consisting of three lines, often but not always arranged in a sequence of five-then seven-then five syllables. Dear Basho, You were born three and half centuries ago on the other …
By Ann Marie Swan In January 2018, my first steps inside A Church, with its steeple pointing toward the heavens, were tentative. The former First Baptist Church, built in 1885 on 4th and D streets in Salida, was purchased by Sheree and Kurt Beddingfield in July 2016 to create a place for community members to …
Matt Kroschel is the mountain news reporter with KCNC-TV (CBS4) in Denver. He grew up in Poncha Springs and is a graduate of Salida High School, class of 2007. CC: At what point in your upbringing did you decide you wanted to go into television journalism? MK: I can’t remember exactly when, but I know …
By Dan Smith In some parts of Colorado, and the nation, whether there was a Democratic “blue wave” this mid-term election or not depended on what stretch of political beach you were standing on. At the state government level, however, there wasn’t much debate; the numbers reflect that a true blue tsunami swept the governor’s …
By Mike Rosso Deep in a ravine below a Forest Service road on Marshall Pass is a decaying wooden sign dedicated to the first National Christmas Tree harvested from Colorado. The large wooden sign reads: “The White House Christmas Tree for Peace. John F. Kennedy President 1962. The first White House Christmas Tree from Colorado.” …
By Jan MacKell Collins During the 1870s and beyond, people in the eastern half of America were eagerly reading about pioneer adventures in the West. Only handfuls of them actually knew somebody who dared to sell what they could, pack what remained into a wagon, and set out to begin a new life in a …
By Mike Rosso Having had enough “screen time” for one morning, I took a break from magazine production and treated myself to a different type of screen, a movie in an actual theater. Never mind it was an hour’s drive each way to get that experience. (Salida’s only movie theater hasn’t been open for a …
By Daniel Smith In some parts of Colorado, and the nation, whether there was a Democratic “blue wave” this mid-term election or not depended on what stretch of political beach you were standing on. At the state government level, however, there wasn’t much debate; the numbers reflect that a true blue tsunami swept the governor’s …
By Sam Liebl The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation burned what it could not move and flooded what it could not burn. By the spring of 1968, the residents of Iola, a town 12 miles west of Gunnison, had been forced out. The Blue Mesa Dam was complete, and the impounded waters of the Gunnison River …
By Steve Chapman Baxter Stingley was one of the first people to arrive in Salida, in 1880. He was part of the exodus from nearby Cleora, when that boom town went bust overnight, following the relocation of the railroad. Stingley and his brother Jessie arrived in the Arkansas Valley from Iowa. Not much is written …
By Hal Walter I was never much of an athlete in high school. It wasn’t for lack of trying. At my mega high school in Northern Virginia, just outside of the Capital Beltway, I went out for football and baseball for the Lake Braddock Bruins, as did dozens of other boys with testosterone-fueled hopes and dreams …
