Items22The creator’s order
  1. 1Telluride, ColoradoTelluride, ColoradoTelluride is the rare ski town where the old mining main street still sets the tone, in a narrow valley hemmed in by peaks. A free gondola links the town with Mountain Village in a 12-minute ride, so the car can stay parked all weekend while you ski, hike or ride up for dinner. Summer trails start…0
  2. 2Ouray, ColoradoOuray, ColoradoOuray packs a lot into a few blocks at the bottom of a steep bowl of San Juan peaks. The city's sulfur-free hot springs pool is the obvious way to end a day, and the six-mile Perimeter Trail rings the town with about 1,600 feet of climbing, linking Cascade Falls, the Ice Park and Box Canyon…0
  3. 3Silverton, ColoradoSilverton, ColoradoSilverton is the San Juans with the polish left off: a short main street of brick and false-front buildings, and a town whose summer still turns on the narrow-gauge train from Durango, which has run between the two since 1882. Ride it up and stay the night, and you get the quiet evening after the…0
  4. 4Durango, ColoradoDurango, ColoradoDurango is one of the bigger towns on this list and the easiest to reach, a college and railroad town with its own airport, which makes it the practical way into the San Juans. The paved Animas River Trail stretches more than seven miles through town along the river, and the historic main street…0
  5. 5Crested Butte, ColoradoCrested Butte, ColoradoCrested Butte keeps the feel of a mining town that ended up with a ski mountain, rather than a ski mountain that grew a town. Its National Historic District runs along Elk Avenue, a main street of colorful old storefronts with good bars and restaurants, while the ski area sits just up the road at…0
  6. 6Salida, ColoradoSalida, ColoradoSalida is one of the more relaxed and better-value towns here, a river town whose downtown sits inside the state's largest historic district. The Arkansas River runs right past the brick blocks, and the whitewater park's man-made waves draw kayakers, river surfers and people who just sit on the…0
  7. 7Pagosa Springs, ColoradoPagosa Springs, ColoradoPagosa Springs is the pick when hot water is the main event. The Mother Spring at The Springs Resort is the world's deepest measured hot spring: a 1,002-foot plumb line went down without finding the bottom. The resort's soaking pools, more than two dozen of them, sit right in town beside the San…0
  8. 8Steamboat Springs, ColoradoSteamboat Springs, ColoradoSteamboat pairs a real downtown with a big ski mountain a short bus ride away, and the two still feel like separate places, which is the appeal: you can ski all day and eat somewhere that isn't a base lodge. The best soak is Strawberry Park Hot Springs in the hills north of town, rustic rock-lined…0
  9. 9Estes Park, ColoradoEstes Park, ColoradoEstes Park is the town at the eastern entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park, and the park is why you come: Trail Ridge Road, the highest continuous highway in the United States, climbs west from here to 12,183 feet. Back in town, a river walk runs between Elkhorn Avenue and the Big Thompson…0
  10. 10Taos, New MexicoTaos, New MexicoTaos earns its place on character alone: an adobe town of galleries and plazas set against the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, with Taos Pueblo next door, a living community whose adobe walls are still refinished with fresh plaster each year as part of a village ceremony. Taos Ski Valley, up a winding…0