Where the Plains Hit the Rockies

Look west from almost anywhere on the eastern Colorado plains and you see it: a wall. The Rocky Mountains do not taper down gradually from the high country. They simply stop, and the Great Plains begin, sometimes within a matter of miles.

That abrupt edge is the Front Range, and strung along it, one after another heading north to south, are nearly every major city in the state. Fort Collins, Loveland, Boulder, Denver, Aurora, Colorado Springs, Pueblo. The Front Range Urban Corridor stretches roughly two hundred miles and holds about eighty-five percent of Colorado's entire population.

Most of the state's land area is empty, but most of its people live packed into this narrow strip. The reason is partly historical, since the gold rush of eighteen fifty-eight planted cities here, and partly practical, since the terrain drops onto flat, buildable land with access to mountain water. The mountains also create a rain shadow.

Moisture moving east from the Pacific dumps most of its precipitation on the western slopes. By the time air descends onto the Front Range, it is dry and often warm. Denver averages only about fourteen and a half inches of precipitation per year.

The tradeoff is that most days are clear, the views west are dramatic, and the high country is always close.