Steamboat Springs Travel Guide

Introduction

158 miles NW of Denver, 194 miles E. of Grand Junction, 335 miles E. of Salt Lake City, Utah

One of my favorite Colorado resort towns, in part because it's a real town in addition to being a resort, Steamboat Springs fuses two very different worlds -- a state-of-the-art ski village with a genuine Western ranching center. This historic town, with a population of just under 10,000, is a pleasant laid-back community where ranchers still go about their business in cowboy boots and Stetsons, seemingly unaware of the fashion statement they are making to city-slicker visitors.

At an elevation of 6,695 feet, Steamboat Springs's numerous mineral springs and abundant wild game made this a summer retreat for Utes centuries before the arrival of white settlers. The bubbling mineral springs also caused many a mid-19th-century trapper to swear he heard the chugging sound of "a steamboat comin' round the bend" -- hence the name. But prospectors never thrived here as they did elsewhere...