Mountain Majesties

They grace our license plates. They’re the focal point of photos on our phones and artwork in our homes. Even our baseball team is named for them. Yes, Colorado’s Rocky Mountains loom large in the lives of those of us who call the Centennial State home, and indeed, these behemoths—and one peak farther afield—play significant roles in three of our features this month. In a revealing personal essay (“Our Summer On The Colorado Trail“), 5280 contributing editor Amanda M. Faison recounts how a summer spent with her family on the Colorado Trail inspired her and her husband to leave Denver for the slower pace of Summit County. The mountains, however, aren’t always so magnanimous. Fifty years ago this month, an expedition to Alaska’s infamous Denali resulted in the deaths of seven men. Two survivors, both of whom grew up in Colorado, recounted their adventure to writer Kelley McMillan Manley for “Disaster on Denali,” a tale that’s a sobering reminder of the power of high-elevation landscapes. And finally, the imposing peaks of the Sawatch Range serve as a backdrop for senior staff writer Robert Sanchez’s narrative about the unsettling changes that have come to the town of Leadville (“Leadville Transforms Itself—Again“). President Donald Trump’s policies related to immigrants living in the United States illegally, along with soaring housing prices, have cast a pall over the Latino population of Lake County. Transformative experiences, tragedies, and societal changes happen everywhere, but set against the iconic contours of the mountains, these stories become more intimate, more familiar. They take on a true sense of place. We hope these features resonate with you, our readers, for that reason. Because in some small way, they all feel like home.