Our Home

For those of us who live in Carbondale, Redstone and large portions of unincorporated Pitkin, Garfield, Mesa, Delta and Gunnison counties, the Thompson Divide area is our backyard. We ranch, run cattle, hike, bike, hunt, fish, ski, snowmobile, ride and rock climb there. Even if we don’t actively work or recreate in it, we feel a personal stake in the wildness of its gully-washing slopes and vast forests.

This is our home, and we like it just the way it is.

The Thompson Divide is also home to important populations of elk, bear, mountain lion, bighorn sheep, lynx, wild turkeys, boreal owls and cutthroat trout. This is a biologically rich, mostly mid-elevation landscape that has been left largely in its natural state, and wildlife thrive in it. Seemingly endless stands of aspen and old-growth spruce forests, numerous streams, willow carrs and meadows provide ideal breeding habitat and summer range for big game.

This is a great place to live, thanks largely to the recreational opportunities, open space and clean air and water we all enjoy, courtesy of this wonderful, largely undeveloped backcountry.

Gas development in the Thompson Divide would seriously jeopardize our quality of life. We need look no further than the I-70 corridor to see the devastating impacts that have accompanied the gas boom there.