Beyond Gate D
by Various Authors

6 Backcountry Winter Adventures to Add to the Bucket List! Seemingly endless back- country surrounds Steamboat Springs. It includes at least 1,000 square miles of public land laced with mountains, meadows and bona fide wilderness in the immediate area.  Some of it’s gnarly. Some of it’s not. But it all begs for winter exploration. Die-hards can equate that with piling on backpacks and avalanche gear for a multi-day snow-camping expedition to ski Mount Zirkel. The rest of us can happily break trail under a full moon for a snowy bonfire on Rabbit Ears Pass. Either way, the winter backcountry experience is incomparable.  ... Full Article

Patterns on the Land
by Story by Jennie Lay, Photos by Sonja Hinrichsen

Patterns on the Land Sonja Hinrichsen is a force on nature. The environmental artist displayed her prowess during a visit to Hayden’s Carpenter Ranch last winter.  Echoing the stealth of a mountain lion, Hinrichsen left spiraling trails of snowshoe tracks in deep snow along the Yampa River. Her bird-footed patterns crisscrossed meadows and transformed the land- scape. Jets ascended and descended at the nearby airport while crystalline weavings emerged among the willows. And on the ground, her intricate and impermanent snow drawings melded into the landscape as if Mother Nature had always intend- ed them just so.  In late January, on ... Full Article

Yampa Valley College
by Amanda DeVos

   Last August more than 80 alumni, professors, staff and friends - some returning to Steamboat Springs for the first time in more than four decades – gathered for a weekend reunion honoring the 50th anniversary of Yampa Valley College. Those who toured the modern Colorado Mountain College campus were as bubbly as freshmen, tickled to find reminders of the good old days amid drastic renovations.  Inside Willet Hall, they stumbled upon the college’s original trapezoid classroom desks. Upstairs, Martha Lysle – a freshman at Yampa ... Full Article