I have come to one important conclusion about Ft. Collins. People who live here are young and outdoorsy, and they really, really want to live in the mountains but are way too scared to actually live IN the mountains. So they have picked this nice, safe place on the plains, where you can see mountains in the distance, and now proceed to tell people all about their lives in the Rockies.

Everyone drives SUVs here, with the excuse that, Oh they get SO much snow that they just have to have an SUV (as a point of comparison, the only people in Gardiner, several hundred feet higher and actually IN the mountains, that have SUVs either live on a ranch or genuinely live up a mountain; everyone else gets around in the snow just fine in small, all-wheel-drive, excellent-gas-mileage vehicles). They all head out to Rocky Mountain National Park, about an hour away, decked out in the fanciest outdoor gear and those annoying walking/skiing poles (95% of the people who use them don’t need them, and which are also very anti-the whole Leave No Trace ideals, seeing as they disturb topsoil, encourage erosion and widen already needlessly augmented trails) to go hiking for a couple of hours. They all look right out of an REI catalogue; they are people who dress up to go outside. Their gear has no wear and tear, their boots are shiny, their SUVs have only a smattering of bug juice. Everything about Ft. Collinsers screams “country picnic,” not “Mountain Living.” They seem to like snow but hate the inconvenience of real winter. They love the mountains but only go to them on sunny, warm weekends. They want country life but are unwilling to leave behind their city-isms. They move out to the country for the peace and quiet and dark nights and starry skies and put up spotlights up all over their property to light the big scary night.

Have I become a Montana snob?