Eldorado natural Spring Water

Inspiration

Rock-climbing paradise Eldorado Canyon State Park’s two most popular cragging walls: the Bastille (on the left of the logo) and Redgarden (on the right).

5280 December 2014
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Rocky Mountain Craft Coffee Alliance

Inspiration

One of the Rockies’ more unusual and striking peaks: Storm King Mountain near Glenwood Springs.

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Visit Colorado Springs

Inspiration

Denver’s southern neighbor incorporates the Colorado flag “C” and an ode to the Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak.

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14ers.com

Inspiration

Crestone Needle (14,197 feet)—one of the state’s famous fourteeners—in the Sangre de Cristo range near the Great Sand Dunes.

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Breckenridge Distillery

Inspiration

Breckenridge Mountain’s Peak 8 ofthe Tenmile Range (though the logo doesn’t appear on the actual bottles).

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Visit Ouray

Inspiration

A local point of interest: the 12,801-foot Mt. Abrams.

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Hummingbird Mountain Gear

Inspiration

Boulder’s Flatirons (First through Third)—and the thousands of hummingbirds that flap their wings in the Eldorado Canyon area on summer days.

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Jagged Mountain craft Brewery

Inspiration

Jagged Mountain, a rugged peak in the San Juan Mountains outside Durango—albeit rendered with a hefty amount of artistic freedom.

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Crested Butte Mountain Resort

Inspiration

The peak of Crested Butte Mountain, which is host to the ski area’s 121 trails.

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Pikes Peak Brewing Co.

Inspiration

Surprise: It’s Pikes Peak.

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Rocky Mountain National Park

Inspiration

For its 100th anniversary, RMNP is celebrating with a design that depicts the top of the park’s most recognizable summit—Longs Peak—and the iconic bighorn sheep.

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5280.com Exclusive: Even more stories behind Colorado logos.

Colorado Lottery: Frisco is the place to buy your next Powerball ticket. After all, the Colorado Lottery’s symbol features Peak One, which overlooks Lake Dillon.

Colorado quarter: The back of the Colorado state quarter features some portions of the Rocky Mountains—though the U.S. Mint office couldn’t tell us exactly which parts.

Oskar Blues: The Oskar Blues team has made a habit of spending summer weekends mountain biking the popular Hall Ranch open space park in Lyons. And since the trails at Hall Ranch afford particularly nice views of Mt. Meeker and Longs Peak, those two mountains have the honor of gracing the brewery’s emblem.

Downtown Denver Partnership: That is, indeed, the D&F Tower in downtown, or simply the Clocktower.

Haystack Mountain Goat Dairy: Fittingly, this beloved cheesemaker’s logo is inspired by Haystack Mountain outside of Boulder (or, as some people refer to it, “the pimple on the prairie”).

Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory: I created the “old” logo with the more detailed rendering of the mountains in 1981 after being inspired years earlier by the movie Jeremiah Johnson. In this film, Robert Redford portrays a burnt-out soldier searching for inner peace who decides to leave the civilized world behind and attempts to become a mountain man, supporting himself as a fur trader and living off the land. I could relate. I had become disillusioned with city life in Los Angeles, and after a broken relationship and job loss, I decided to leave it all behind for the allure and romance of the Rocky Mountains. After outfitting myself for cold weather and packing my .30-caliber Hawken, I entered the San Juan range in southwestern Colorado out of Ouray. It was late September, a bad time for a city boy to learn outdoor survival skills. After about three weeks of cold and damp, dizzy with hunger, I stumbled, sliding down a ravine and wedging my right foot between two boulders. Unable to free myself, after several freezing nights I became very ill. One night while in my stupor, I heard an eerie sound that sent chills down my nearly frozen spine: Could it be wolves calling back and forth across the ravine? I thought they were extinct! Or was it my imagination running wild in my delirium? After the fall, my trusty Hawken was nowhere to be found. In my pocket, I found my lighter, nearly out of fuel, and in the flickering flame, dread came over me. Not far away, on the rocks above me, was the reflection of animal eyes—sizing up their dinner, no doubt! Just as the flame extinguished, the large alpha male attacked, grabbing my leg in his mouth. Fiercely, he began pulling my leg—just as I am pulling yours! —Jay Haws, vice president creative services, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory