How do you say hello to a place you’ve always known?
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’ve lived on the West Coast and the East Coast, and some places in between. I’ve worn a lot of different shoes, and been a few different people.
Leadville is not like anywhere else.
This place has a heartbeat of its own. And as the sign in Before and After I’ve joked I’m going to steal says, “There are few like us, and few like us”
My life’s work is dedicated to helping people.
My heart is committed to protecting the land.
My mental map of Lake is forever growing. For the 61st largest county in Colorado, there are many nooks and crannies.
I didn’t know about Question Mark Bowl until I heard the tones for an avalanche with possible buried snowmobilers.
I didn’t know about the gold mine until I asked where Box Creek was. “It’s by the gold mine,” they said. “Where’s the gold mine?” I said. “Off of County Road 10”. “ Well where is County Road 10?”
Those conversations are quite frequent.
I didn’t know where Little Porcupine Gulch was until I asked where Porcupine Gulch was.
If you’re wondering…..it’s next to Porcupine Gulch.
My mental map is still developing. I don’t think it will ever be complete, I don’t necessarily want it to be.
I had never been to the Interlaken Hotel.
But I watched firefighters protect it.
Moons later, I stood outside of it staring up at Elbert and the changing leaves when my love came up from behind and wrapped his arms around me. We stood in silence, and I thought how lucky I was to be here in this exact moment to share it with him and all this all existed exactly as it was.
For that same fire, I listened to a team of volunteers tell me about a nest of ospreys they were keeping an eye on.
They marked the tree, in the hopes firefighters wouldn’t have to cut it down.
The tree wasn’t cut, but the osprey’s left.
Even so, SAR pointed out the tree to the incoming Westminster boat team and asked them to keep an eye on it.
I saw those ospreys the first time I hiked the trail a few weeks after the fire was out. They came back to where their hearts have always known home.
This place has held every part of me. Secrets, joy, tears, fears, guilt, hope, and doubt.
I have roared my happiness on these trails. Cried next to rivers. Whispered hopes and dreams to lakes. Asked questions to talus slopes.
I may have even found some answers in the shadow of Elbert itself. Like it was listening all this time.
My favorite game is to race the sunset to treeline on Elbert. And with all the name brand outdoor gear I own, my favorite race was in jean shorts, a white cotton v-neck, a Melly tied around my waist, and a lightly packed running vest with a 16oz bottle of Kirkland sparkling water.
This place is where I learned how to laugh again. Where I found my freedom, my heart, and my joy. It’s where I’ve laid my back against a rock on the top of Independence Pass and watched the Milky Way swirl around with more shooting stars than I could ever count. They held the same beauty as a singular happenstance shooting star that went over the Silver Dollar one night.
It’s where I let the middle schoolers sit on my deck and talk after school. Not that I’ve ever given them permission, they just showed up and sat. But hey, they’re just kids and youth is short. Or, at least that’s what I thought until I watched the ring camera footage and almost went out and offered them a bar of soap.
It’s where I walk into Before and After and am greeted with “An old fashion for you babe?”
My life has been a series of lucky coincidences and tugging on certain threads.I joined a fire department on a dare while driving a rental Mustang because my car had been totaled after a freak hailstorm in Denver. I was supposed to onboard with the new Lake County Emergency Manager the same day I started as an Admin Assistant when he declined the job last minute. I drove through Leadville on my way to Aspen one time and thought “who would ever live here?”
There are few like us after all.
How do you say hello to a place you’ve always known? How do you say goodbye to a place that can never leave you?