Lyons, Colorado- We’re based in Lyons, Colorado. It’s a small town tucked in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. At 5,374 feet above sea level our elevation is modest by local standards, where some mountains break 14,000 feet and a few towns perch above 8,500. Nevertheless, Lyons is every inch a mountain town, with a little bit of Mayberry and some Northern Exposure thrown in.

We're located 12 miles north of Boulder. It's an exciting city with many distinctions: "#1 Best Place to Live on Earth" according to Newsweek magazine; "#1 Healthiest City in the USA" according to USA Today; "Best Sports Town," "Best Running City," and even "#1 Clean & Green City" by various publications.

Those plaudits are a bit over the top, but Boulder is undoubtably eco-sensitive, environmentally passionate and creature-friendly - so much so that there are "DEER CROSSING" signs on the main drag. Deer comfortably grazing in backyards may seem to be an attractive little quirk. Keep reading – and you'll find out how Bambi has become the lure to life-threatening danger in Boulder and environs, including Lyons.

Our locals are sturdy, laid-back hardworking people; ranching and rock quarrying have been family occupations for generations. Lyons is also home to artists, writers and musicians. We have a yuppie or two. Plus a few ex-hippies who made it this far during the California migration of the sixties, but couldn’t figure out how to get over the mountains.

Lyons is also home to Planet Bluegrass, sponsor of the Telluride Bluegrass Festival on Colorado’s Western Slope and thee annual events in Lyons: The Colorado Folks Festival, the RockyGrass Festival and the Festival of the Mabon (Moon). Check out http://www.planetbluegrass.com/.

For a few weeks each summer, our town is taken over by “festivarians” attracted by talent the caliber of Joan Baez, Greg Brown, Nora Jones and Emmylou Harris. Beyond these events the local music scene is burgeoning, enriched by festivarians who fall in love with Lyons and stay for a while – or permanently.

Main Street, our address, is a three block mix of antique shops, art galleries, and outrageous restaurants. A few doors away is South Creek Limited, home of Mike Clark, who makes arguably the best custom bamboo fly fishing rods in the world.

Through town runs the whitewater section of the North Saint Vrain river, a short but exciting kayak run. The town abuts two former ranches now in the Boulder County Open Space inventory – offering nearly 10,000 of locally-owned wilderness recreation area to townies and tourists. After that, moving westward, you come the Roosevelt National Forest and Rocky Mountain National Park.

Tourists and music fans aren’t the only visitors. Mule deer wander into town. Elk and bighorn sheep graze on the ridges above. Coyotes work the rabbit and prairie dog populations at the edges of town. Eagles circle overhead. Black bears occasionally visit a local dumpster or bird feeder. Footprints in the snow indicate another mountain lion passed through town during the night.

That last comment leads to an endorsement: read The Beast In The Garden by NPR reporter David Baron! David’s book, as exciting as Jaws was back in its day, is a thoughtful non-fiction exploration of a growing problem. We have a predator knocking at the door. We always knew mountain lions lived in the foothills and mountains. But they were “out there” someplace. Unseen, they had been long considered unthreatening. No more! Mountain lions follow the deer – in the high country for summer, in the foothills for winter – and now wandering through residential developments. Analyzing recent occurrences in the Boulder/Lyons area, Baron’s amazing book recounts how lions; following deer herds into Boulder County population centers, are losing their fear of humans.

Now our cats, our dogs, our kids and our careless neighbors can become the lion’s entrée. It’s your story too, because the lessons apply everywhere – all wild species adapt when their habitat is absorbed for shopping centers and suburbs. And they adapt for their own survival, not for human convenience – or safety. This book is fun, a bit unsettling – and important. Read ten paragraphs and decide for yourself: http://beastinthegarden.com/Excerpt.htm

Lyons is known by the self-applied distinction “Double Gateway to the Rockies.” That’s because to get to the high country you have to drive up one of the canyons that interrupt the wall of mountains every few miles. Lyons has two! A few feet from our offices two beautiful highways leave town, heading up and west. They travel through different canyons, each spectacular in its own right. They’re called, with typical Western reticence “the south” and “the north”, those being references to the North Saint Vrain and South Saint Vrain creeks which run snowmelt down to the plains. About twenty miles up the canyon via the north or thirty miles via the south is the town of Estes Park. The roads join together at the edge of town – and across the valley is the famed Stanley Hotel. That collection of white clapboard buildings is where Stephen King began to wonder what might happen if an unstable man got snowbound in a mountain hotel for a long, dark winter.http://www.stanleyhotel.com/

On the other side of Estes Park is the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park, an awesome national treasure with dozens of peaks that soar more than 14,000 feet. To get to the park, twenty five minutes earlier you would have driven right past our two buildings in Lyons. (Pretty close to a million cars do that each year.)

Four hundred fifteen square miles of rock-ribbed wildness, Rocky Mountain National Park truly is a land of superlatives, with more than 110 peaks that soar above 10,000 feet and at least 60 that exceed 12,000 feet. It’s our geologic cathedral, topped off at 14,255 feet by the football field-sized summit of Longs Peak.

We’re not bragging, just stating the facts. With all this natural beauty and more hours of sunshine than San Diego or Miami, Lyons is the perfect location for us to live, work and keep things in perspective. We’re Type A people - determined always to exceed client expectations. Pursuit of this standard is realistic in environs that help us stay content, mellow, productive – and grateful.

The old adage says: Location. Location. Location! If you want more about this blessed place, check here: http://www.lyons-colorado.com/ And here: http://www.townoflyons.com/

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