True West

Durango offers real life rugged charm—and the best little train in the West

Monday, July 3, 2006
by Marie Speed
http://www.bocamag.com

The full moon over the Hermosa cliffs in the foothills of the San Juan Mountains turned the field of snow outside my window a thin blue. It was the last big spring snow in Durango, Colo., and the pastures and trees and rooftops glowed in the early light. You could already hear some distant cars on the highway; a dog barked somewhere down the road, and morning was underway in this Western outpost.

I had been there a month before, during the town’s famous annual “Snowdown” festival, a midwinter week of parties, parades and silliness that was dreamed up more than 20 years ago as an antidote to long mountain winters and the cabin fever that goes with them. But on this visit, the town seemed quieter, anticipatory, as if it knew spring was just a few weeks away.

I learned on both visits that there is no bad time to visit Durango; it’s a small town dedicated to a free-spirited sense of fun and outdoors abandon. From skiing and snowboarding and cross-country skiing in the winter to rafting and hiking and mountain biking in the summer, Durango is full-out active and paralleled by a growing sophistication when it comes to amenities like dining and shopping. You can tell it’s on the cusp of a new era as wealthy retirees and second homeowners have already discovered it; real estate prices are on the move and the town has already staved off a few developers with suburbia in mind.