Talk:Colorado

First person anecdote

I'm not sure whether this was intended to be a kind of joke or whether it was meant serious, but here's a first person anecdote I removed from the main article in case it's useful for mining -- (WT-en) Hypatia 21:42, 29 Nov 2004 (EST)

Colorado is a state in the US, and I once lived there when I was in elementary school. Colorado is famous for the Rocky Mountains. The scenery is really beautiful, especially in the winter since the moutains are covered with a lot of snow. The weather is very dry, and really cold in the winter that it is not rare to snow in September or October. There is a national park called Rocky Moutain National Park. I have been there many times, and what I saw there were many kinds of wild animals such as rams, elks, chipmunks,beavers, and so on. You are able to get near to the wild animals because they are basically calm and peaceful. It was fun to get very close to them and take pictures. We can rarely experience something like this in Japan since we don't live in the countryside.

Article needing attention

There was a note about Colorado on Project:Articles needing attention reading:

Colorado -- needs some massaging for the region article template, and the East Slope/West Slope should probably be their own regions.

I've done this and hence removed the article from the list. Which isn't to say it's complete. -- (WT-en) Hypatia 21:53, 29 Nov 2004 (EST)

Ski Resorts?

Do the Ski Resorts really need their own articles? My opinion is that if it is near a town, then it should be part of that article. It may deserve it's own article if it is similar to a town, ie has multiple places to sleep.

-- (WT-en) Ilkirk 13:00, 11 Oct 2005 (EDT)

Most of the major ski areas do indeed have "multiple places to sleep." When doing similar articles for New Mexico, I've adopted the basic rule: if the nearby town or other attraction overshadows the ski area, then describe the ski area with the town; if not, give the area its own link. The former is usually the case in New Mexico (with one exception that's coming later), but the latter is often the case in Colorado. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 10:06, 13 Oct 2005 (EDT)

Bill's explanation makes good sense to me. Actually this comes up in Switzerland. There's a ski area above Montreux which really is just an attraction, but most of them are ski resorts which are destinations in their own right, and almost always coterminous with the name of a nearby village (like say Verbier. There's also a sort of extreme example, the Eiger/Jungefrau ski region, where you can stay at Kline Schidegg or a number of villages (like Grindelwald) or a small city, Interlaken. -- (WT-en) Mark 10:19, 13 Oct 2005 (EDT)

Just a note, I've added an Alpine Skiing article in an attempt to consolidate a lot of the skiing information on this site. The general definition for listing a "major ski resort" was if a person would be willing to travel there just to ski as it seems to be a good enough one... if anyone would like to discuss the topic further we can take it up on that article's Talk page. (WT-en) Andromeda321 00:22, 26 Oct 2005 (EDT)

Fourteeners

I updated the Fourteener count in a couple of places (the "official" USGS pronouncement that Ellingwood Peak qualifies as a separate Fourteener means that there are now 54 of them), and now am wondering what the best way of expanding the info on them is. They're popular attractions in Colorado and probably should be mentioned somewhere, somehow, in a systematized way, but there are better sources for climbing information. Thoughts? -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 22:27, 15 Oct 2005 (EDT)

Regions

The current region list for Colorado is just Eastern Slope (Colorado) and Western Slope (Colorado), which I think means east of the continental divide and west of the continental divide. Two regions is a bit slim, so what about adopting the list used by the Colorado Department of Tourism? Then we would have:

• Northwest
• Southwest
• South Central
• Front Range
• Denver Area
• Northeast
• Southeast

Denver could perhaps be lumped into the Front Range, as Wikivoyage doesn't normally make exceptions for single cities. Thoughts? -- (WT-en) Ryan 11:56, 15 Dec 2005 (EST)

First, we often do have "metro areas" as regions. Second, here are a couple more data points.

The Open Directory has the following Colorado Regions:

• Central Mountains
• Front Range
• Northeast Colorado
• San Luis Valley
• Southeast Colorado
• Western Slope

This site has:

• Northwest
• Southwest
• Front Range
• South Central
• Eastern Plains

I really like "real" names; names that people use for regions, so here'd be my recommended regions:

• Eastern Plains
  • Northeast Colorado
  • Southeast Colorado
• Metro Denver
• Front Range
• San Luis Valley (6-county area)
• Western Slope
  • Northwest Colorado
  • Southwest Colorado

I'm not 100% sure that the South Central and San Luis Valley areas are coterminous, though. --(WT-en) Evan 15:26, 1 Jan 2006 (EST)

I would favor leaving Denver Area as a region. There is precedent for this, e.g. in Arizona with Greater Phoenix, a region of the state that would be hard to describe any other way (as I'm finding as I try to write some stuff for that state).

A problem with this scheme will be that there's a lot of stuff that spills over from one mountainous area to another, while the Front Range region only captures a minor part of that stuff. There's much more to the Colorado mountains than the Front Range. "Rocky Mountains (Colorado)" instead of Front Range, maybe? That opens the door for some sub-sub-regions that will be more descriptive, and probably also makes South Central unnecessary as a top-level region. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 15:19, 1 Jan 2006 (EST)

Hmmm -- things are getting messy with two people writing at once, but a good proposal is emerging. Suggest replacing Evan's "Front Range" with "Rocky Mountains (Colorado)" and "San Luis Valley" with "South Central Colorado". It occurred to me after my earlier post that something really needs to be in there to reflect the myriad attractions of the San Juan Mountains, which aren't Rocky Mountains, aren't rigorously Southwest Colorado, and (being mountains) certainly aren't San Luis Valley. This tweak allows the San Juan Mountains and San Luis Valley (which is really a pretty empty place apart from Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve) to be bundled together. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 15:49, 1 Jan 2006 (EST)

Colorado is beginning to get populated with articles, so it's past time to resolve this. The current regions aren't satisfactory; there are only three of them, which isn't enough to cover the diversity of a fairly large state, and they don't map very well to the attractions. Acknowledging that there is no fully satisfactory way of breaking them up, I recommend we go with Ryan's original list, which is at least unambiguous and comprehensible. I'll do this shortly, unless a contrary movement emerges. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 16:59, 28 May 2006 (EDT)

I don't know enough about Colorado in particular to comment on this whole set of regions, but I do want to support the notion of "(major city) Area", "Greater (major city)", or something of that sort as a valid region in a state. Minnesota has the Twin Cities area (a region defined by the state tourism authority); Illinois has Chicagoland; Massachusetts has Greater Boston; etc. Given the nature of urban sprawl, suburbs are often functionally part of the cities they encircle, which has more bearing on their identity than what quadrant of the state they happen to be in. - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 18:39, 28 May 2006 (EDT)

Other Destinations

I think the Other destinations section in Colorado needs reorganzing along the lines of Utah's Other destinations. I understand that this section is normally limited to nine listings, but I see a natural three-part split: The ski resorts, the national parks and monuments, and the state parks/most popular national forests (i.e. Maroon Bells). I think the ski resorts have been handled in the Skiing in Colorado travel topic, so Aspen, Breckenridge and Vail are taking up valuable real estate, or should be handled in other sections like "See" or "Do" if they merit such attention. But at the moment, many of state's most popular parks and forests are receiving short shrift. I need some input from the community before I plunge ahead. (WT-en) WineCountryInn 13:44, 15 January 2009 (EST)

Splitting the ski resorts out makes sense to me, but why separate national parks from state parks? They're the same type of activity, so I'd think they'd be better served by a single list. - (WT-en) Dguillaime 14:08, 15 January 2009 (EST)

My only rationale is that this is how they are split on the Utah page. It seems the reasoning on that page is divided between primary, high traffic national parks and secondary state park listings. Perhaps Utah needs some rearranging, as well? Or some moves of info down to the "See" and "Do" sections? (WT-en) WineCountryInn 14:18, 15 January 2009 (EST)

Or moving some of them to region articles. Utah and Colorado have the same "problem" - more fantastically gorgeous parks than they know what to do with, which does make picking just a few for the top-level page difficult. Since the state's so big, maybe list one or two of the best/most popular parks from each region?

Another way to go about it might be to list only the ones on the state map on this page. That gets you six, counting Four Corners, which might make it easier to write a few descriptive words about each one. (Sadly, I haven't been to any of those parks - an oversight I need to correct! - so I can't offer much assistance.) - (WT-en) Dguillaime 18:49, 15 January 2009 (EST)

Begun building out "See" section

Rather than overpopulate the Other destinations section in Colorado like they have in Utah's Other destinations (see conversation above), I have taken a stab at organizing some of the state parks, national monuments, etc. in the "See" section. Basic info now, just as a placer and to work quickly, with proper listing and formatting to follow later. (The tedious part). I have also worked hard on filling out the "Eat", "Stay Safe" and "Get Out" Sections. I'd like to properly format the "Get Out" section, as well. (WT-en) WineCountryInn 19:51, 16 January 2009 (EST)

Feedback

Wow, this article has improved dramatically in the past two weeks. Two pieces of feedback from me:

1. The legend and columns of the airport table seem a bit much. I don't think we need sortable columns or links to the Colorado aeronatics web site. Similarly, the enplanements and and "role" columns could be combined to simply provide some sense of how major an airport is. If we get this right for Colorado it would be great to roll it out for other large region articles on the site.
2. The "Get Out" section seems a bit overly-detailed. The sub-headings seem to in effect be duplicating info from the linked articles, so I think just including a standard list of the neighboring states with 1-2 sentence descriptions (and then moving any lost info to those state's articles) would make more sense - users needing detail can simply click on the linked article.

The other sections of the article seem (to me) to be coming along really nicely, with a good bit more relevant information than we have for most states. I'd be interested in others' thoughts on the airport listings since with some minor tweaks I suspect that the example in the Colorado article could become a standardized template for use across the site. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 16:56, 17 January 2009 (EST)

I have no idea who added the airport info. But I agree--it does seem like overkill. I'll pare back the "Get Out" info to the bordering state and a top one or two things to do, for simplicity's sake. (WT-en) WineCountryInn 17:07, 17 January 2009 (EST)

Building a History section for "Understand". A concise 450-700 word history of the state will enhance the article. It's been done for Hawaii and a couple of other states. (WT-en) WineCountryInn 20:22, 18 January 2009 (EST)

The airport list was copied from Wikipedia: Wikipedia:List of airports in Colorado. Anything other than the raw data (which is not copyrightable) cannot stay. (WT-en) LtPowers 20:41, 18 January 2009 (EST)

Initial history section built, although I'd like to add in something about the birth of the ski resorts. Also took a whack at those non-compliant Wikipedia airport charts. Have I cut them back enough to their bare data, or do they need further altering? Can someone with more skill at tables than I, maybe add websites and phone numbers to chart? Thanks! (WT-en) WineCountryInn 00:51, 19 January 2009 (EST)

Can you think of any other famous Colorado mountains?

I added a couple of national forests to the "See" section, to get the Maroon Bells, Pikes Peak and Mount Holy Cross included. What other famous/iconic Colorado mountains am I missing at this point? Can you think of any that need inclusion? (WT-en) WineCountryInn 14:52, 25 January 2009 (EST)

The Spanish Peaks [1]. The trail up the West peak from Cordova Pass is doable for a family too, to above the treeline at least , where there is a lovely view of the Sangre de Cristos and everything. My family climbed it when I was about 9 and my sister was 7. (WT-en) Texugo 20:56, 25 January 2009 (EST)

Major Flaws in Colorado Regions

This may be a consequence of the reorganization of the regions in Colorado (see above), but I notice that the regional sub-pages of South Central Colorado and Northwestern Colorado do not jibe with the Colorado map. Several of the city listings need revamping. Aspen, Glenwood Springs, Redstone and Snowmass Village need to move to Northwestern Colorado. This involves some relatively simple housecleaning, but we need to reach some consensus on the city lists for both regions before I move forward. Any thoughts? (WT-en) WineCountryInn 20:16, 26 January 2009 (EST)

I might suggest that in some places it is the map that needs to be changed. For example, I think parts of South Central Colorado need to be extended east to match where the plains actually begin-- mountains actually extend all the way past I-25 at the border, and currently if I were to write up in a region article a blurb for the Spanish Peaks just southwest of Walsenburg, I would be forced by the current map to locate them in the Eastern Plains, which they clearly aren't. (WT-en) Texugo 22:16, 26 January 2009 (EST)

Unfortunately, any regional division of Colorado will have somewhat arbitrary boundaries around the borders, no matter what the configuration. The Forest Service actually lumps the Comanche National Grasslands in with the San Isabel National Forest, which extends from the mountains almost to Kansas. So the NFS and Wikivoyage honor roughly the same boundaries. I did, by the way, work in a mention of the Spanish Peaks in the main article under National Forests.  :) (WT-en) WineCountryInn 22:28, 26 January 2009 (EST)

Other Destinations

The "Other Destinations" section in this article has swollen to 10 listings. Several are cities rather than national parks, but all the parks are fairly thoroughly handled in the See section. So do we keep Aspen, Vail and Breckenridge, or do we let the Skiing in Colorado article handle them? At the very least, I vote we dump Leadville, as there is no developed article. Any thoughts? (WT-en) WineCountryInn 13:04, 30 January 2009 (EST)

I got rid of Leadville, since it is clearly not an "other" destination (other meaning other than a city/town). I think it's fair to count ski resorts as other destinations, rather than city/town destinations, although I can see the reverse argument. Perhaps we could use something like [[Skiing in Colorado|Colorado ski resorts]] as one bullet point in the list, so we could include another 2 other destinations? I don't know if that's worthwhile, but it's a thought. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 16:53, 3 February 2009 (EST)

I recommend we jettison Four Corners from the list, since it is already in the "Get Out" section. The ski resorts could also be consolidated. But what do we use to replace them? (WT-en) WineCountryInn 17:11, 3 February 2009 (EST)

One needn't necessarily replace them with anything; 9 is a maximum, not a minimum. =) (WT-en) LtPowers 18:35, 3 February 2009 (EST)

The "Other Destinations" section has the same old stuff.. ski area towns are already reflected on this page... Do you think we could add a couple other towns? there isn't any town listed that is outside of a 200 mile radius of Denver. C'mon... the state is bigger, don't you think? I would like to add something that gets you to our region... Ouray, Telluride, Silverton, or Lake City... Thoughts? A common area is the Alpine Triangle. Of course, I am new here but I would like to expand this section a little bit and/or replace the ski towns.(WT-en) BoxCanyonLodge 21:56, 15 May 2011 (EDT)

I don't know much about Colorado, but as a general principle we have often tried to get a geographic spread of Other destinations (and Cities) listed in an article. Please bear in mind that nine is the maximum that can be listed in either of those sections. ON that basis, I suggest you propose a couple of switches and wait for responses from those who know the state. --(WT-en) Burmesedays 22:03, 15 May 2011 (EDT)

Of the four suggestions you made, Telluride is the most prominent, right? If that was added, what should be removed in order to keep the limit within Wikivoyage's 5-9 item limit? Aspen? Breckinridge? National parks are generally pretty standard for the "Other destinations" section so those should probably be left alone. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 23:27, 15 May 2011 (EDT)

...actually, looking at this closer, the choices you've listed should go under the "Cities" list since they are all cities (note: while Vail, Aspen and Breckenridge are cities, the are under "Other destinations" due to the ski resorts). That list has somehow grown to ten, so we would need to remove two before adding any new one. Suggestions? -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 23:54, 15 May 2011 (EDT)

Well, I see what you are saying except that the towns that I am talking about are tiny.... hardly "cities" but with such a large state with such a large concentration of people within 2 hours of Denver (these towns are 5-7 hours away from Denver) it makes sense to highlight them a bit more. I would pull out Breckenridge and Vail for sure since both of those are ski resorts and towns that share the same name. Aspen is a little tricker since there are actually 4 ski areas there... (WT-en) BoxCanyonLodge 00:58, 16 May 2011 (EDT)

OK, I also have another proposal... what about National Historic Districts as a larger topic like National Historic Trails? Silverton, Ouray, and Telluride are Natl. Historic Districts. Lake City might be too, I have to go check. Would you accept that?(WT-en) BoxCanyonLodge 00:58, 16 May 2011 (EDT)

Telluride could probably go in either section; the film festival is fairly major but other than that it's just a ski resort. Canon City was the tenth city added to the Cities list; it should be the first out because the change was not discussed. Loveland looks pretty weak, too, if we need to remove another. (WT-en) LtPowers 14:51, 16 May 2011 (EDT)

See

In this section, i would like to add "National Recreation Trails" and "National Historic Districts". Objections?(WT-en) BoxCanyonLodge 01:02, 16 May 2011 (EDT)

Drinking, a lot

You should update your section on drinking....Portland is the city with the most breweries and the information you provided is old. Oregon is the winner in craft beer making —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) 188.131.17.211 (talk • contribs)

I disagree. You should update your section on drinking, as this is a wiki, where everyone is invited to plunge forward and improve articles themselves! --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 14:44, 1 October 2011 (EDT)

okay, updated. Lumpytrout (talk) 12:28, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Climate

I added information on climate, though my knowledge is limited mostly to the Denver area and the mountains, and my writing likely requires some editing. —The preceding comment was added by 67.190.105.185 (talk • contribs)

marijuana

Hello Colorado, Washington State here...we both need to work on marijuana usage in our articles and we are having a lively discussion on a national level that I thought Colorado might be interested in. --Lumpytrout (talk) 12:08, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Clear Creek County

I see we/I split Clear Creek County (by I-70) between South Central Colorado and Northwestern Colorado. That's a little weird in and of itself, but my bigger concern is that Ski Loveland is separated from all the other ski resorts in Summit County. Could we maybe split it a different way? --Peter ^Talk 19:02, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Columbine Arapahoe Pass Trail Boulder County Colorado.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 18:37, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Need a warning?

I'm seeing stories like this Hundreds of homes lost amid fast-spreading Colorado fires with reports 30,000 people have been evacuated and "Gov. Jared Polis has declared a state of emergency."

I suspect we need a warning, but I don't know the region & have little time right now, so I won't do it. Any volunteers? Pashley (talk) 12:02, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Destination of the Month?

We get more state-level regions as Wikivoyage:Destination of the Month, and this is the only US state on guide level. What does this article need to feature? Among other situations, the article needs some words about the crime and public safety situation. /Yvwv (talk) 12:52, 30 July 2022 (UTC)