Colorado, the Red State by Kalarad Bergen

Colorado, the Red State
by Kalarad Bergen

Colorado is surrounded by seven other states and is situated in the midwest. It is an extremely beautiful state of mountains, lakes and pine forests with a climate that is fairly extreme - it has very cold winters and lots of snow and very hot and arid summers. The winter months are great for those who like winter sports as there is great skiing and snow boarding to be had in Aspen. Whilst in the summer there is hiking, camping, rafting, caving and mountaineering. For mountaineers there are great climbing opportunities in the canyons with a great diversity of rock formations.

However those who live in Colorado have to deal day to day with the with the often cruel climate. It is a place of contrasts - a place of beauty and fantasy but often cruel reality. In the winter especially, the daily shovelling of snow from your driveway and treacherous conditions on the roads can be a real chore. Not surprisingly people often retire south to the milder climates found in Georgia or Florida.

Colorado might be a difficult place to live in but the people take pride in their state. They try their best to protect the beauty and purity of Colorado. They refused to hold the Olympics in 1976, as they feared that there might be harm to their state. They realized that there might be contamination, population boom and a financial load on the state.

Colorado means 'colored red' and indeed the land and many of the rock formations are a rich terra cotta color. It has a rich history and mixture of cultural influences - from the original native Americans to the Anglo-Europeans who settled in the north of the state to the Hispanic Europeans who settled in southern Colorado. Indeed many of the place names are Spanish - Pueblo, San Luis and the name of the state itself Colorado, which means to blush in Spanish.

Colorado was a real frontier state. In the early part of its history it attracted all sorts of prospectors for gold, especially in 1800s. There are lots of gold and silver mining towns that you can visit as well as ghost towns of settlers from this period. These have a real Wild West atmosphere and you can really imagine what it must have been like to live in these small towns - especially with the help from all the western films we've all seen and that help fill in the details!

But it is not all mountains cowboys and wild west. The Rocky mountains are located in the west of the state. In the North-west there is cattle country, and the east is more urban - Denver, the state capital is situated here.
Denver is a city of some 500,000 people (within city limits) but more than 2.1 million people in the metropolitan area.
It's a relatively young city being established as a result of the gold strike but is known for its great restaurants and museums. Denver is home to the longest street in America - Colfax Avenue and Denver also claims that one of its citizens, Louis Bellast, invented the cheeseburger in 1935.

A visit to Colorado gladdens everyone as it appeals to the sophisticated people as well as the adventurous ones who cannot resist the call of the Wild West. One cannot forget the haunting beauty of the big open skies and the wild craggy mountains.

Kalarad Bergen is the webmaster and operator of Colorado Mountain, Inc. which is a premier resource for colorado information. For questions or comments, go to: www.coloradomoutain.com