The mesas and neighboring towns
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Then there are the mesas, where the big views, the sunsets and the silences reside. In-town locals never pass up an invitation to a barbeque or house-warming party on one of the mesas. A short drive from town, and you're in a different world, halfway to the peaks and at least part of the way back to what the old ranching West must have felt like. British journalist Allistar Cooke long ago described the place names of the West as "terse poems" and he could have been descirbing the alpine islands of the San Juan Mountains: Sunshine, Horsefly, Turkey Creek, Deep Creek, Iron Spings, Wilson, Psecie and Hastings mesas - rolling ranchland succinetly named for mountain or man. The mesas are where the sky spreads out and so do the homesteads. Scattered throughout wilderness areas and national forests, the eight mesas that lie within the 20 to 60 minute drive radius of Telluride each possess a distinct character formed by mountains, views, wildlife and the people who live there. So do the nearby mining and raching towns of Ophis, Rico, Norwood and Ridgway, where the community expands again as does the Western beauty and history that each holds its own.
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