Sitting in evening rush hour traffic on I-25, watching a night game at Coors Field or taking in an ArtWalk on Colorado Blvd., you look up and there’s just not much to see. So great is the light pollution.
But drive a couple hours south into the mountains, and there’s a place where the stars explode above you, filling the night sky so brightly the Milky Way can even cast a shadow.
WESTCLIFFE
“If you’re in Denver, you might look up and you might see the North Star, and you might be able to make out two or three stars of the Big Dipper, but that’s about it,” says Chuck Jagow, president of Dark Skies of the Wet Mountain Valley.
That valley, hemmed in by two mountain ranges southwest of Canon City, has become world-renowned for its night skies. The Smokey Jack Observatory gives summer visitors a chance to appreciate the night sky in all its glory, in a place where street and building lights are designed to minimize light pollution and the glow of the Front Range does not intrude.
In a world where progress means more development, more homes and more lights, this part of Colorado embraces the darkness.
It goes back to Suzanne Jack, known locally as “Smokey Jack,” who 20 years ago began lobbying the towns and institutions of Westcliffe and Silvercliff to install lights that don’t point up to the sky.
It was a long, patient process. Coloradoans, especially rural residents and ranchers, don’t particularly like being told what to do.
“I’ve had numerous little talks, that we’re not a bunch of tree-huggers and we don’t want to take anything away from you,” says Jagow. “We really don’t need a lot of that light going up. The biggest problem we have is people believing we’re trying to tell them what to do.”
Persistence paid off, and in 2016 Westcliffe became the first town in Colorado to be designated a “Dark Sky Community” by the International Dark-Sky Association.
That designation is reserved for “a community that has shown exceptional dedication to the preservation of the night sky through the implementation and enforcement of a quality outdoor lighting ordinance, dark sky education and citizen support of dark skies.” There are now three others in Colorado.
“Smokey Jack” passed away before the observatory opened in 2015. The observatory is a 12-by-12-foot building with a retractable roof and a 14-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope equipped with computer-guided pointing and tracking.
It’s only open from mid-May to the end of September. Weeknights are for private “star parties,” with a limit of 8 people due to the small size. Just how popular is it? The entire upcoming summer season was booked in just one week this winter.
You can also drop in on Saturday nights, and Jagow says as many as 200 people usually do.
“We get people from all over the United States. There are people who have already reserved and are coming from as far away as Maine—and they get dark skies there too,” says Jagow. Many come for hiking, biking, camping and fishing in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and a visit to the observatory is icing on the cake.
“The mountains to the west and east kind of make a natural shield from a lot of the sky glow from the bigger towns on the I-25 corridor,” he says.
And, of course, there is not nearly as much local light pollution as there once was in Westcliffe and Silvercliff, the only actual towns in this valley.
“Used to be, you could clearly see a very large sky glow of the towns and all their lights. Now it’s not as noticeable—probably a third as much light.”
For more information visit darkskiescolorado.org.
And remember, if you want a private party next summer, make your reservations early.
GREAT SAND DUNES
Westcliffe isn’t the only place in southern Colorado known for its stargazing.
Across the Sangre de Cristos, in the San Luis Valley, Great Sand Dunes National Park is also a certified dark-sky spot for the efforts of the National Park Service to reduce light pollution. To walk on the dunes and gaze up on a moonless night is to feel like you can almost touch a million stars. In summer months, park rangers conduct star programs in the campground’s amphitheater.
Reservations for camping are highly recommended, as it usually fills up every night in summer. They can be made at recreation.gov.
There’s also the private Oasis Campground just outside the park entrance, with tent sites and RV hookups.
Eleven miles down the road is the Zapata Falls Campground. This offers primitive campsites, grand views of the sand dunes and easy access to the namesake waterfall. Trekking down the middle of a cave, it’s one of Colorado’s coolest waterfalls and, fortunately, an easy hike.
Want to tie in a visit to a hot spring to your visit? Sand Dunes Recreation, a short drive from the dunes, has a large swimming pool and an adults-only area with a restaurant and bar. There are RV and tent campsites and cabins.
Visit sanddunespool.com for more information.
ORIENT LAND TRUST
Another place on your stargazing tour is worth mentioning.
The Orient Land Trust is a nonprofit mainly known for managing Valley View Hot Springs, a very popular clothing-optional collection of natural and man-made pools. It is also known for its efforts to preserve the dark skies in the San Luis Valley, preserving more than 2,000 acres from development.
On summer nights you can get a star tour from a local expert with their 8-inch telescope. You can also take a short hike to an abandoned mine, where the largest colony of Mexican Free-tailed Bats takes up summer residence. Watching them fly out at dusk is a surreal experience.
Be aware that when they say clothing optional, they mean it. You might even see someone hiking to see the bats in the buff. Reservations are mandatory.
Visit olt.org for more information.
CRESTONE
Drive an hour west and north from the park and you’ll reach another of Colorado’s four dark sky communities, the eclectic hamlet of Crestone.
This town is known for attracting spiritual travelers and modern-day hippies, as a large landowner once offered free land to any religious group that asked. There are great hiking trails just outside of town and the very pretty North Crestone Creek Campground (no reservations accepted).
Time your visit around August 13-14 and you’ll be in Crestone for the Dark Sky Community Celebration, which bills itself as “a star party like no other,” and features music, poetry and presentations from expert astronomers.
Visit darkskycrestone.com for details.
