April 2021
What changes have you
noticed in Crestone?
Chase Nichols
The biggest changes I've noticed have been tourism increasing the past couple years, and now with covid, another million people have moved into the state, which means a percentage of those find their way to the small towns like Crestone. I'm fine with that, but my concern lies with where these people come from, and if they learn to go with the flow, assimilate local values, or if they expect things to be like where they're from. I do think one of the biggest values of this community is its diversity, especially in spiritual beliefs and backgrounds.
It seems like there's four houses being built on every street, especially in the Baca. The pros are a lot of people might find a niche to actually make a living here. The cons are the people who don't value or respect the way of life in this area. Overall, I'm adjusting to all the people coming in and for the most part, I'm welcoming and want them to have a good experience, but I also want them to respect nature and the locals.
Protecting our water is the biggest concern for me, and the valley community has traditionally been good at coming together and not allowing that to happen in the guise of the "renewable water project," which is all about pumping water from our aquifer to 60,000 residences on the Front Range. But it seems like the local community is still not buying that story, and I'm grateful for that, first and foremost.
D’Lane Kilgore
Well, a couple things: traffic for one, lots more traffic. People drive too fast. There are just a lot of people. We get a lot of tourists still coming in, which I'm pleased about. The other thing I've noticed is with the covid-19, we're not getting so much air traffic flying through, so our air is cleaner. People drive kind of fast. I've noticed that. (Her grandson Rian interjected here: “Me, too.”) And a lot of old friends have left. New people are coming in, but the old friends have gone, so that shifts a lot of coziness about the place. Otherwise, I like it here. I've been here 20 years and started this thrift shop when the other one closed, and I've done fine with it. Everybody in town is very generous with what they bring in, so it works out really nice. Those are the main things that come to me, so those will have to work!
Steve Kemp
When I first got here, Crestone didn't change much for many years, until marijuana legalization, which I personally was not for, but it's not a bad thing, either. It brought an influx of people like you've never seen. And now everybody and their mother want to move to Saguache County and grow weed, which has had a big impact on Crestone. In some ways, it’s good. We needed the economy to grow. It was really a struggle to live here back in the day, and it’s created more opportunity in the building and growing industries.
I look at our growth kind of like a Clint Eastwood movie: the good, the bad and the ugly. Unfortunately, the influx of people has attracted a lot more drivers in a rush! I moved here to get away from the rat race – definitely not to hurry. People have moved here with their city ways and drive accordingly: tailgate, speed and just lots of rude, disrespectful drivers. Old school Crestone/Baca/valley people don’t drive that way. We wave at one another and treat one another with respect. So get with the country folk old school ways or leave already, if the shoe fits!
I've found my niche of friends that I care for and love here. I came here over 35 years ago and told my mom when I was a young kid that I love it here, want to move here, make a life for myself here and spend the rest of my life here. My mom passed away years back and I brought her here. I built a coffin and pilgrimaged over the Continental Divide and bought a block in the Crestone cemetery and she's now down here with me. I did that because I don't plan on going anywhere. I'm here for the long haul.
Isadora Storey
I've been here for almost 31 years, and Crestone has gone from being a really tiny place to being a small place. It's still not that big, and I love that I see people I know whenever I go into town. My daughter and granddaughter live here, and my grandson visits. This is my home. It felt like home the first time I came here, probably because I lived in the valley as a child.
Regarding changes, I’ll start with covid last year: no more music, no more live performances, and that's a huge part of my life. I've been doing music with Barry Monroe for 20 years. We're currently trying to work out a socially distanced practicing place. It's been really difficult because we used to always be playing somewhere. I love music and singing with Tim and Barry and then Dennis playing bass or whoever else joined us.
I notice less wildlife, which I don't like. I really liked it when there were more deer and sometimes a fox or bobcat in my yard. With more people they've been pushed out, and the bears have been pushed out. Now, some people might not like having all the wild animals around, but I liked it! I can remember driving and seeing a mountain lion go right across in front of my car. With more people, more traffic, I just haven’t had the same wildlife experience, so I miss that.
I initially learned about the Crestone community at Findhorn in Scotland when I was there on sabbatical in '77. I asked about spiritual communities in Colorado, and this place was described as, "really small at that time, but it was going to be a big, big deal," and that really did turn out to be true for me. And I enjoy having the mix of different people from all over.
Maori Wolf Baca, Creative/Craftsman
I moved here at 2 years old and grew up in a tipi in the Grants while my family built our house. I’ve noticed the breakdown and rebuilding of community, which is both a tragic and beautiful process. People who came here then banded together and helped each other build houses like the old true form of community, stopping by Shambhala and other places in town, talking to homeless and those who needed help. There was a natural system that caught people who might normally fall through the cracks in society.
The beautiful thing about Crestone is we have both a vortex and a net that kind of pulls people who need to be here, catches them and gives them a landing ground where they can exist outside of normal society, a place where sustainability is accepted and embraced, where it’s fine to be homeless because it’s just a life circumstance. And different cultures are accepted.
A major thing I've noticed in local governments (the POA and the town) is hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawsuits with governments suing people now instead of simply talking to them like before. I remember when our sheriff walked around with a shirt and no gun and went and actually talked to people to solve issues.
When the original people who formed the spirit of Crestone (which is what people love about Crestone) started leaving, a lot was forgotten. It’s still here but it's like a sprout returning to life and needing to be regrown. This needs to be a place where we don't act like normal society, where people are completely disregarded and treated inhumanely. Crestone needs to return to that place where we are a safety net for people that need someplace outside of society.
I've noticed they dressed up the appearance of Crestone without ever dealing with the root issues, which are affordable housing and mental health assistance. We have more mental illness than in the surrounding five counties, and I don't need statistics to tell me that! And they haven't dealt with providing our youth with things to do. Kids are bored here, which leads to many of them doing drugs if they don’t have something better to do. Even some kind of community work program would help, giving them a chance to assist community members while earning a little cash and gaining a sense of direction, like we had a few years ago with the CCC. We've lost that, but we've also gained a lot of new community members. I see that Crestone is pretty rapidly changing and a lot of people are moving here because they feel that spirit, even if it's not very strong, and they want to be a part of that, but unless that's grown and nurtured, they're just going to bring the city here and this place will turn into the city and we will lose the thing that everybody's wanting to come here for.