Colorado & the Rockies For Dummies

Eighteen years ago, Alex Wells became transfixed by a Coors Light commercial and decided to drive west to Colorado to be a ski bum "for a year." He spent his first night shivering under a cotton blanket in the backseat of his Pontiac J-2000 at 8,000 feet in elevation, somewhere in Summit County. This experience taught him that the Rockies get frosty at night, even during the summer. A few years later, having already forgotten his first lesson, he rode his bicycle through Colorado during one of the wettest Mays in state history. On that trip, he discovered -- on four separate occasions -- that spring can be an atrocious time to pedal across the continental divide. A few years later, while checking into a famous luxury hotel in Denver on his first real business trip, he learned that his tattered old hockey-equipment bag was not suitable luggage for every Colorado accommodation.
For better or worse, Wells is still learning about Colorado every chance he gets. When not at his home in southern Utah, he regularly crosses the Colorado border to pedal the trails, soak in the hot springs, and ski the mountains. He still makes mistakes now and then, but the friendship, beauty, and joy that Colorado affords him more than compensate for his occasional misery.
A graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism, Wells is also the author of Frommer's Grand Canyon National Park and has written for publications such as Men's Journal, Skiing, Condé Nast Traveler, and Backcountry.