Colorado Skyline – Colorado

Colorado Skyline – Front Range, Colorado

Wedged between brooding clouds and a receding river of ice, Colorado’s mountainous skyline glows in a haze of evening light. Stair steps the high country, the foothills of the Front Range define the eastern border of the southern Rocky Mountains. Stretching from the Rio Grande River in New Mexico to the Liard River in northern British Columbia, the Rockies span more than 3,000 miles, making them the second longest mountain range in the world. Current research suggests that the roughly 80 million year old range saw its first human habitation about 5,500 years ago. Indigenous people are believed to have lived a nomadic life, hunting and foraging in the mountains during the warmer months and migrating to the plains in the fall and winter. While prey animals may have attracted early humans to the Rockies, today it is scenery and lifestyle that draw people to the region. Of Colorado’s 5 million residents, more than 80% live along the urban corridor that is nestled at the foot of the Rockies.