The Colorado Mountain Companion: A Potpourri of Useful Miscellany from the Highest Parts of the Highest State

by John M. Fayhee

Overview

A treasure trove of useful (and just plain fun) information about Colorado’s mountain country. A handy-dandy, comprehensive, wide-ranging reference guide to settling (good-naturedly) any arguments about Colorado’s high country. We’re not just talking about population figures, elevation stats, or lists of Fourteeners and rivers, although these are included. You will learn far more including mountain lexicons (so that you’ll know what a gutter bunny, potato chip, and prune really mean), Colorado as a movie set, Colorado songs, skiing, fishing, avalanches, geology, historic districts, hiking and biking, snakes, Superfund sites, strange festivals, weather miserability index and much more.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780871089670
Publisher:	Turner Publishing Company
Publication date:	09/15/2012
Series:	The Pruett Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	350
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	12 Years

About the Author

M. John Fayhee is the editor of the Mountain Gazette. A one-time contributing editor at Backpacker magazine, Fayhee's work has also appeared in Forbes-Life Mountain-Time, High Country News, Aspen Sojourner Magazine, Outside, Sierra, Sports Illustrated, USA Today, Men's Fitness, New Mexico Magazine, America West Airlines Magazine, Horizon Air and many other local, regional and national magazines and newspapers. He is the author of many books, including Along the Colorado Trail, A Colorado Winter and Bottoms Up. Fayhee has also hiked the Colorado Trail and the Colorado section of the Continental Divide Trail.

Read an Excerpt

“Forever and ever, you could eyeball a Colorado automobile license plate and discern from whence that vehicle hailed. From 1959 to 1982, the Colorado Department of Revenue, which includes the Division of Motor Vehicles (which, in turn, supervises all matters related to license plates), issued what were known as the “2/4 plates.” These plates basically started with two county-specific letters, followed by a series of numbers that could be anywhere from one digit to four. There was some crossover in the latter years of the 2/4-plate program when plate numbering started running out. However, for the most part, that overlap was found in the more populated counties of the Front Range. In the early 1980s, the Department of Corrections, which oversees the actual manufacture of license plates in Colorado (yes, the prisoners-making-license-plates stereotype is accurate), came to the conclusion that, because of increases in the state’s population and the resultant increased number of registered vehicles, it would have to scrap the 2/4 system, a decision that caused a surprising amount of ire, especially in the more chauvinistic rural counties in Colorado. The change resulted in a non-county-specific system with license plates generally containing three letters, followed by three numbers. The new system sometimes seems like it is county specific. County clerks, who issue license plates on the local level, may order, say, 500 plates at a time. These plates will likely appear in sequence (e.g., WRF-000, WRF-001, etc.). But a county on the complete other side of the state might get the next 500 in the WRF sequence. The Division of Motor Vehicles did resurrect county-specific plates from 1989 to 1992, when it offered its “denim plates.” These plates were blue and actually had the name of the county in which the vehicle was registered written on the bottom. The plates proved far less popular than the green-on-white or white-on-green mountain background plates, and so the denim-plate program was scrapped. The state does allow for 2/4 plates issued before July 1, 2003, to remain legal. Thus, it is still possible to see license plates in the Colorado high country that read: ZB-14 or ZA-2. Whenever you see someone whose ride sports such plates, best not to get into an argument with that person about who has lived in the county the longest.” From page 51-52, The Colorado Mountain Companion

Table of Contents

Introduction—1, The “Icebox of the Nation” Designation Not So Simple—7, Why Are Gunnison and Alamosa So Cold?—13, Windchill and the Weather Miserability Index—13, How Are Sunny Days Measured? —17, Non-Possessive Place Names—18, A Sense of Scale—19, Just Exactly How Big Is Colorado? —20, Colorado Mountain Lexicon—24, How Colorado’s Mountain Towns Got Their Names—32, Highest Towns a Matter of Perspective—42, Establishing Colorado’s Lowest Point—47, States Whose Highest Points Are Lower Than Colorado’s Lowest Point—47, How Does Colorado Compare? —49, Mountain License Plates—51, Mountain Area Codes—53, Avalanches in Colorado—56, Impotenece Drugs Reach New Peaks—60, Colorado Lakes and Reservoirs—61, Lakes and Ice—66, Safe Ice Thickness and Cold-Water Hypothermia—67, Lightning: The Fearsome Flash from Above—70, Monsoon Season—73, Cloud Seeding—75, Just How Much Water Is That?—80, Global Relations—83, “America the Beautiful”: Colorado’s Most Famous Musical Summit—84, Bates Not the Only Famous Person to Summit Pikes Peak—87, Rocky Mountain High—88, “Where the Columbines Grow”—The State Song That No One Knows—90, Colorado Songs—91, Colorado as a Movie Set—97, The Great Demonymic Debate: Coloradans or Coloradoans?—105, Colorado Olympic Athletes—109, Colorado: King of the Ski Industry—123, Colorado’s Early Ski History: Highlights—126, Mountainspeak: Skiing Lexicon—137, The Naming of Colorado’s Ski Runs—145, Colorado’s “Lost” Ski Areas—148, The Colorado Ski Safety Act—153, Words for Snow—Eskimo and Colorado—155, “Texas” Ski Areas—159, Mountainspeak: Cross-Country Skiing Lexicon—160, Mountainspeak: Snowboarding Lexicon—163, Most Common Mountain Recreational Injuries—165, High Country Emergency Room Admission Statistics—166, Colorado Mountain Pathogens—167, Native Americans in Colorado—169, Colorado Geology: The Laramide Orogeny—175, Colorado Geology: The Rio Grande Rift Valley—176, Colorado Geology: The Aspen Anomaly—178, Colorado Geology: Colorado’s Highest-Ever Mountains—179, The Naming of Geographic Features—180, Gorges Versus Canyons—186, The Fourteeners—189, Colorado Fourteener Records—192, Peak Prominence and Isolation—195, The Most Dangerous Fourteeners—198, Mountainspeak: Climbing Lexicon—203, The 3,000-Foot “Rule”—207, Colorado’s Steepest Points—209, The Peaks of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” Speech—210, Headwaters Hill and Colorado’s Closed Basins—211, The Naming of Challenger Point—214, Some Noteworthy Colorado Uphills—216, Colorado’s Long Hiking Trails and the National Scenic Trails—216, Mountainspeak: Hiking and Backpacking Lexicon—219, Mountainspeak: Mountain Biking Lexicon—227, Public and/or Protected Land in Colorado—228, Colorado’s Wilderness—230, Colorado: Birthplace of Major Rivers—238, Mountainspeak: Fishing Lexicon—242, Colorado’s Endangered Rivers—244, Wild and Scenic Rivers—247, Colorado’s Highest Roads—252, Mountainspeak: Road Biking Lexicon—253, Colorado Wildfires—257, Other Large Wildfires in Western North America—261, All Firewood Is Not Created Equal—263, Endangered and Threatened Species in the Colorado Mountains—265, Colorado Mountain Birds—273, Fatal Bear and Mountain Lion Attacks in Colorado—277, High Country Snakes—278, The Colorado State Flower: What Exactly Is It?—280, The Colorado State Quarter—281, Superfund Sites—284, Strange Colorado Festivals—290, Aspen: The Brand-Name King—301, Smoking Bans: It All Started in Colorado’s Mountain Country—302, Colorado’s Mountain Historic Districts—303, Legalized Gambling in Colorado—310, Mountain Counties Most Often Vote Blue—312, Changing Your Name—318, Home Away from Home (Extradition)—322, Listing Colorado—325, Index—331, About the Author—341

What People are Saying About This

With his signature wit and inimitable style, Fayhee lays out a wealth of information about Colorado in this wonderfully readable pocket guide…an essential text for those who’d like to dig a little deeper into what it means to be a Coloradan—and what our state is all about.

                                      —Alex Miller, managing editor, Summit Daily News

Herein you’ll find everything you always wanted to know about Colorado, but were afraid to ask. …The Colorado Mountain Companion is an essential accompaniment to your own wayward and wonderful Colorado wanderings.

—Ken Wright, author, The Monkey Wrench Dad, Why I’m Against It All, and A Wilder Life