Currently browsing… Colorado
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‘To thine ownself be true’
The Roan Plateau in northwest Colorado. Sharing creates advocates, while oversharing creates problems “To share or not to share…” If Hamlet were a fly fisher instead of just an angst-ridden 30-something pining for his dead father, this might have been what he uttered as he pondered the value of his own life. For, much like…
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Bumping fists with trout
So I finally shook off the COVID blues and decided to go fishing one day last week. Yampa River, northern Colorado, and admittedly it might have been a better day to ski, but I just couldn’t take it anymore. I needed to fish. So I trudged through the snowpack to a prime spot, and the sun…
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Up in the high country where the native trout swim
I learned to fish in the creeks and beaver ponds of Colorado’s high country, pulling nuggets of wisdom from willing grandfathers who believed time spent with their grandchildren should be time spent outdoors. These two men introduced me and my brothers to the wonders hidden high in Colorado’s mountains. Together, they wandered with us through…
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Hermosa is a backyard treasure
By Ty Churchwell Just eight miles from Durango's city limits is the 107,000-acre Hermosa Creek Special Management Area and Wilderness. Enacted in 2014, the Hermosa Creek Watershed Protection Act is the result of a community coming together for a favorite backyard playground for locals and a destination for America’s public land visitors who flock to the San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado each year. Prior to the passage of the…
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A boy becomes a man and it takes the outdoors to make it happen
Nature deprivation is a real thing, and I’m witnessing the impacts of both being exposed to the wild and willingly foregoing exposure in both of my kids. My daughter loves the outdoors. She’s working her third year in Grand Teton National Park, and not long ago, we exchanged photos and video via text of our…
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Praying for rain on the Western Slope of Colorado
The thin, cool air and the end of high mountain wildflower season were calling my name. It’s been hot, dry and windy across Colorado, as evidenced by the four wildfires burning vast landscapes across its Western Slope. Rivers are still flowing where I live, but just barely. Many are a trickle and almost all except those in the…
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How grayling are propagated across the Centennial State
Arctic grayling provide a unique angling opportunity in Colorado.
By Jason Clay Just upstream of Joe Wright Reservoir, Colorado Parks and Wildlife aquatic biologists, technicians, researchers and hatchery personnel conducted its annual spawning operation for a fish that most Coloradans might be surprised to find here in the Rocky Mountains. Arctic grayling were first stocked in Colorado in the late 1890s, but it wasn't…