I'm definitely already planning another trip out there. It's such a cool contrast to the Front Range, and especially between its own mountain valleys surrounding Telluride/Montrose/Ridgway/Gunnison. In this area around Rico I trawled the landscape for hours looking for any botanical sign that I was still in a desert state, but apart from yarrow there wasn't any. Within an hour's drive it was completely different. The wild microclimatology of the Rockies was at its best.

https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/colorado/bear-creek-trail--8

And this hike is just remarkable. It has the largest aspens I've ever seen, then hoary bats roosting in the gambel oak groves just beyond them, then the best fungi foraging I've found outside of Nederland.