The YAK is a beloved Leadville and Lake County tradition, revived through the One Community Project to celebrate the stories, voices, and creative spirit that shape our community. The storytelling contest and community event, hosted April 25th, 2025, invited community members to share personal stories, poems, photography, art, and reflections that paint a rich and authentic portrait of who we are. Together, these stories help ground the future vision for Leadville and Lake County in the real hopes, challenges, and connections that define our community today.
I began my acquaintance with Leadville and its surrounds in 2019, when my people invested in a small house with lots of cottontail rabbits hopping about the yard. For several summers we reveled in high mountain life, not at all pining away for home in the searing high desert. I didn’t miss those hikes, which, no matter how early we started, the powerful sunbeams, even at sunrise, were readily absorbed onto my mostly black fur. Yes, indeed, walks among the pines and spruce, with wafts of red fox and coyote, sightings of Douglas squirrels and their kin, and ample birdsong, was energizing and inspiring.
I warmed right up to most of the human beings my people mingled with, and even befriended a fellow border collie. The community, the land, the rarefied air, all took hold, and my family decided to move full time to Leadville. They brought with them an occupation dealing with gear, that I always see when we overnight in nature. They even supply me with my own cozy sleep system!
Now the winter months DO stack up, and spill into the shoulder seasons. However, my folks don a snuggly down coat upon my sleek frame, and off we go into the woods. Oh how enamored I’ve become with snow play! My folks at times believe me to be obsessed, possessed, by the magic of the snow. I suppose this is a reflection of how they feel when thick flakes fall and the snow scape dazzles. I’m also provided with “doggles”, eh, yeah …. I’ve gotten accustomed to them, (almost!).
The perks are plentiful, sometimes in the form of yummy snacks. During Farmer’s Market season, one of my peeps volunteers and YAY, brings home radishes, carrots and turnips for me to crunch on.
A place where most of the population, especially dogs and wildlife, adamantly oppose questionable toxic mining enterprises, overuse of motorized recreation, and who support efforts to safeguard the environment of my territory, is right up my alley. By the way, I’m fond of alley walks, too, and Leadville boasts some high end historical alleys, where the cottontails dart out from behind cool shacks, another reason to keep me here for a long time to come.