SEXY SECRETS

Colorado Towns Make Magazine Hot Lists

By David Frey, 3-22-06

Feeling sexy, Salida? Feeling fit, Fruita? Feeling daring, Durango? Ah, come on, admit it. You didn’t need Men’s Journal to tell you you’re some of the “healthiest, sexist, most adventurous towns” in the country, did you? But if you did, there it is, on the cover of this month’s edition, splayed out on a banner across Laird Hamilton’s crotch.

The magazine lists its annual 50 Best Places to Live, and little, overlooked mountain burgs in Colorado fared well on the list, each in its own category. There’s Carbondale (most active), Crestone (hideouts), Durango (telecommunities), Fruita (single’s scene) and Salida (comebacks). And of course, there’s perennial favorite, Boulder (“best of the best”).

If you’re keeping score, Colorado’s six entries edged out California for the lead.

Carbondale’s listing made sense to Scott Harris and Adam Williams, as they tuned up road bikes at Ajax Bike and Sports shop in this town 30 miles downhill from Aspen, and often in its shadow.

“There’s tons of stuff close to here,” Harris told the Aspen Daily News. "It’s off the beaten path as far as being in this tourist valley."

“But it has a great sense of community,” Williams said. “There’s tons of stuff out the back door.”

Chamber of Commerce types love this kind of listing, but it can be the bane of locals who like to keep their secret little towns, well, secret.

The March 20 issue of High Country News struggles with this issue. Writer M. John Fayhee wrestles with his own demons as he sets out (is that a Volkswagen Vanagon?) in search of the perfect town so he can help destroy it, along with all the other newcomers. Oh yeah, and make a bundle when he sells his own mountain town shack.

“Is it possible to move to a new place in the West without contributing to the killing of that place?” Fayhee asks. “And can you cash out of the old place without leaving behind a nasty karmic wake?”

It’s a question that hits close to home, or maybe close to second home, for HCN. It’s home base, Delta County, Colo., was just named by Forbes magazine as “the best-kept secret in Colorado’s second-home market.”

So what to do when the magazine writer calls and asks about the town’s virtues?

HCN editor Greg Hanscom says he rattles off the noisy coal trains, mosquito spraying and boom in crystal meth.

“By the end of the conversation,” he writes, “the writer usually wonders if we have any other towns to suggest.”

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