• off the power grid (no outages, no data loss);
• wired with new, high-capacity phone lines and almost entirely within line-of-sight of planned wireless repeaters;
• in the lee of the peaks providing Summit County skiing (YG has less snowfall than Nederland to the N, Bailey to the S, or Evergreen to the E);
• open and south-facing (relatively rapid snow melt, reliable ingress and egress);
• gorgeous (loss of billable hours not yet determined);
• incredibly windy (no redeeming features we have yet discovered).

They call the torrent that cut this canyon "Clear Creek"?!?

There more than 90 buildings in the 50 sq. mi. -- with the exception of the firehouse, all homes, home offices, or summer cabins. The head of Jefferson County's geological survey team lives there, as do a software engineer, a petroleum geologist, and a Linux techie. (An architect is in late building stages.) They are a sturdy, reliable lot. They make their own power; they draw their own water; they haul their own trash. They refuse county road maintenance partially because they can get to to town faster if they clear the roads themselves.

There are also some colorful characters up the Gulch, and they frequently create interesting stories. One tale, that is centered around La Querencia, involves "Dangerous Dan" Elliott, a Central City gambler, and the Clear Creek County authorities. It relates the Flamingo Wars, and is definitely not required reading.

Note:

This ribald tale and a Spanish translation (listed in the Bibliography), indicate S&C's owners are not just technical writers.

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Scribble & Count Office Park (Mule Deer Towers)

La Querencia (Autumn)
(View from between steps 7 & 8, below)

The name "La Querencia" is a Spanish regionalism from colonial New Mexico. It means, roughly, "the desired place" or "where the heart is". In rural New Mexico, when asked what the name means, you can still hear the following in reply:

"It's where a runaway horse goes each time. Maybe a ravine, maybe under a tree. Always the same place. It doesn't know why, but it feels right."

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Location Information

After you get off the Interstate, four roads are involved:

1. SH-275 (Fall River Rd.)
2. York Gulch (a dirt road maintained by the County as far as the Firehouse and by locals after that)
3. Red Tail Ridge (maintained by locals)
4. Mule Deer Trail (maintained by locals).

On the map below, I-25 is at the very bottom, and Idaho Springs is in the lower right corner.