SAN LUIS VALLEY

Crestone: Southern Colorado’s Little Boulder?

By Tonya Poole, 2-05-06

Maybe, but don’t let the locals hear you say it. It’s true, and you know it as soon as you arrive, that there are a great many things about Crestone, Colorado – a tiny town with an abundance of raw spirit - that fly in the face of even Boulder. The comparisons begin and end, perhaps, with Crestone’s astounding concentration of spiritual seekers, Buddhists, alternative healers, silver-haired hippies and barefoot, dread-locked mothers with baby backpacks. The small, progressive community of less than 100 people rests against the slopes of the Sangre de Cristos in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, with dramatic and much-photographed Crestone Peak presiding, and unofficially consists of the town of Crestone and the adjacent rural Baca Grande land grant development. Outside its boundaries, ranch land, jagged mountains and one-horse Colorado towns insulate it from the urbanization, and what many have considered bastardization, that has changed Boulder dramatically over the years.

It’s greatest charm may, in truth, be its daring authenticity. For better or worse, a drive into Crestone reveals no collection of quaint, old-but-miraculously-well-kept shops lining a charming main street, no puzzling array of dining options and not a single chain store, brand name hotel or any other familiar amenity ready to accommodate pocket-padded tourists. Instead, visitors find a retail void that’s as alarming as it is refreshing. No matter, the views of Crestone Peak and the surrounding Sangres are a distraction from the moment one turns east from Highway 17 onto County Road T, the only way into and out of Crestone unless on foot.

And yet Crestone’s notoriety well beyond the Rocky Mountains would have it a bustling, burgeoning community of arts and culture and the same getaway spirit that drives people in droves to places like Aspen, Santa Fe and Tucson. Its reputation as a spiritual vortex has likened the community to other archaic and metaphysical hot spots like Sedona and Mount Shasta, and while it’s true that the vibes in Crestone have drawn many a truth-and-beauty seeker into its fold, the town has remained largely uncompromised by its own charm. Three or four times a year residents from across the valley gather in Crestone’s downtown, parks or open spaces to take part in one of its many festivals, including a summer SolarFest for alternatives energy, a widely-known multi-cultural music festival, and the popular WinterFest held each November to celebrate local artisans and craftspeople. But when the tents are torn down and the party-goers head for home, the town quickly returns to an almost ghost town-esque ambiance, with a lamp or two flickering on to light the way down its small handful of streets, the single gas station in town closed up – for the day, or perhaps for the winter.

The development of Baca Grande has opened up the area, to some degree, to outsiders seeking the idyllic mountain life it affords – and with that has come a fairly modest increase in people and services over the years. But even here the streets are quiet, dotted here and there with hikers, deer, bikers, rabbits, cars and coyotes sharing space in relative equanimity. The rate of growth in the Baca has been slow and steady, and in being so will likely give the growth of Crestone as a town the chance to keep good pace with itself and to retain its gritty, quirky, bohemian feel without having to manufacture remnants of that environment to attract tourists long after it’s lost – a fate suffered by many a city dependent largely on tourism. But some believe that the biggest threat to Crestone’s way of life today lies just to its south, in the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.

In September of 2004, the dunes became the nation’s 58th National Park, thereby setting it asail to double, perhaps triple its number of annual visitors – and if the Park Service moves on a growing interest in building a road from the Baca Grande into the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve– unofficially designating Crestone as a gateway, and forever changing its self-sustained solitude. Not a popular ideal among peace-and-quiet-loving Crestonians, though some admit they’d welcome a small increase in tourism dollars: enough to infuse the community with a few more of the amenities many of the residents have sacrificed in exchange for their lifestyles here.

For now it seems Crestone and the Baca Grande sit firmly on the cusp of a future that rests somewhere between best-kept-secret and national sensation. The area’s extraordinary natural surroundings and the earth rhythms that many say come together at optimum levels here remain its biggest and best attraction, and if nothing else, Crestone can rest easy in the knowledge that it has no Denver, no state university and – as of this writing, at least – no trendy oxygen bars to taint its authenticities. The town continues to hang on, even if precariously, by its impressive and naked ideal that cities like Boulder, Santa Fe and others were fleetingly prized for and, in their own upbringing and desire for progress, inevitably lost.

All images © Tonya Poole
[End of article]

Ok the Secret Out...Where is the lost treasure of the Baca de San Luiz Merced? Did Don Vicente Silva and his Forty Thieves take and plant it here?...there must be a wall somewhere up there? Maybe that is Baca Grande? They loved that area.. and Walsenberg Colorado has much history even before the rich Coal mines were discovered...
Anybody seen the Giant Ghost El Hufero De Leon? Wait that another hidden secret of the Old West...

Your right Baca/Crestonians hate articles like this. F**k you and your ilk. You left out a few things tho. The bugs, are bad in the spring. Really bad. We are continuing our drought.We are the driest basin in the state of Colorado and heading into an extremely dry year. Combined with a major pine beetle infestation the Crestone area is ripe for catastrophic fire. When the big crash comes... this place will not be an easy place to survive in. Sustainiblilty is still only a dream here. You also left out that there is no shortage of people struggling to survive here. As well that this area does seem to attract people with shall we say... problems. This is not a place for people who want "services." It is not a place for people who do not do well with isolation. This is its saving grace. To characterize this area as a "little Boulder" is to entirely miss the point sounds something like an aspiring real estate agent would say. Tonya, do us a favor and shut up.

With all due respect I think it's you who has missed the point here. Leading with a comparison to Boulder was a means to refute it, not support it, based on my impressions living here in Crestone. Of course I've left a number of things out about Crestone - who could really write up a piece all inclusive of everything there is to say about the area in the small space we have here? The articles purpose was to highlight Crestone as a special, self-sustained community whose way of life is threatened by the encroachment of tourism and the proposal of a gateway into the Dunes. Nothing here suggested otherwise, nor do I think it was deserving of your comment.

Healing..I know as being an Author it is tough to write about the area that you accually live in. I did consider moving into the solitude of the the San Luiz Valley area. All areas have their own way of promoting their area and all have their own skeletons in the closets.Tonya Let me encourage you to write about the Spanish Peaks near Walsenburg It has much history and would delight the reader. :)

This is the second article of yours that I have read about promoting Crestone. Just leave it alone. Promoting and calling attention to Crestone is what will destroy the reason we came here. Please just let it be....

I hate to correct you again, but this is the first and only feature I've written about Crestone here - and there's nothing in it that 'promotes' the town - rather it reports on an a critical issue that's close to and important to its residents. I understand your concern, I live in Crestone too and don't want to see its fragility and its secluded lifestyle compromised. But I promise you that if tourism and a growing population ruin it, it won't be because I've briefly talked about it here.

Thanks for your comments.

You've shown your true colors... I never said that you wrote another feature article HERE. But you did write a feature article in NEXUS. Why the obfuscation? Your fluffy citizen journalism is not in the best interest of Crestone. You are pointing out the allure of Baca/Crestone which is contributing to its demise. You are part of the problem. But then you'd probably like to see your real estate value go up. Get a grip.

I've never written for Nexus period, let alone about Crestone. New West was the first and only piece I've done about the area, beyond my own personal journaling. Please get your facts straight before you choose to attack me. And to correct you for the fourth and very last time: I rent.

Tonya, you have managed to draw the ire of the locals! Of course, by doing so, it reinforces a lot of your article. I am a real estate developer, and I am looking forward to swooping in after the beetle infestation and ensuing wildfire. 200+ luxury homes, and I will call it 'little Phoenix'

Hi Folks!
I'm planning on doing a 6-wk. solo retreat at a little cabin on Mt. Creston at 9000 ft. in Aug-Sept. Are there stories/myths about this mountain, be they Ute or other N.A., alien, cowboy, or any other source? When I'm up there alone for 6 wks., and the mountain does happen to speak to me, I want to be able to understand what the hell it's talking about, so any pointers you can give me would help. This is all part of my dissertation for a Ph.D. in Mythological Studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute in California; a bit like Carlos Castenada. I'll give you credit in my book too--or keep it between us. Feel free to send me an email. I'll take you to lunch when I come up in August. Appreciate it, Folks.
Thanks,
Joe

Remember my name and email address.

Yes, this is indeed one of my fav areas, and I long for my (permanent) return home.. It is my family's home, this valley. My grandfather was born in a log cabin at the foot of the W. Spanish Peak, near La Veta, in 1904. They were hunters, trappers, and silver miners, in the Sangre De Cristo's, Baldy and Blanca Massive. In those days of my early life there, my memories are of buying arrowheads, and bows and arrows from the indians near Trinidad. Riding my old Paint horse bareback through the woods and plains. And of fishing & swimming in ponds and cold streams. This was a long time ago.. Some one asked about the 'old stories and myths, and my lord, there are so many..!! I could tell you things & stories about that valley that would curl your hair! .. but my time, as well as bandwidth, is too limited here.. Let me just say, go there and talk to the local indians for yourselves.. I suppose now most all the indians are busy working their numerous casinos.. well good, or bad, for them, at least they are making a living.
Heh, as for Boulder, I was there, years before the 'hippies, as well as during those days.' I suppose now there's even an 'ungodly' wallmart up in Nederland.. I hope there is something still left of the colo I used to know.
Funny how life can take you on 'a real 'trip.' Let me tell you 'big city' life in calif sucks. I am not meant for this crap.. too many yrs gone by have done something to me.. and I need to change my life, once again.
What am I going to see, when I return to my valley, after almost 45 years of absesnce? Please, I hope there are some 'rements left of the 'older times and ways, when I soon return there to finish my life.