An Awesome Spot to Call Home
With flavors of the American West, the Upper Rio Grande has abundant sunshine, open blue skies, and vivid starlit nights. It’s a better place to raise a family than the city, but with city accessibility.
City of Monte Vista
Famous for producing special barley for Coors Rocky Mountain Beer.
Town of Del Norte
A Mountain Bike Destination on the Rise with 5 Must-Ride Trails.
Town of South Fork
Awarded 2015 Colorado Small Adventure Town
Education
With three public K-12 schools, each recently built new with Best Grants, having small class sizes, personalized programming, safe learning environments, and high academic standards. Trinidad State Junior College and Adams State University are 15 minutes east of Monte Vista, and offer educational opportunities that support the future of our workforce and community.
K-12 & Colleges – Upskill and Reskill
Creating citizens with skill sets through credentialing and concurrent enrollment
Recreation
From an award-winning golf course, beautiful municipal parks and signature biking trails…. to two million acres of public lands; we have it all.
River
The Upper Rio Grande offers some of the best fishing in Colorado. Gold Medal waters on the Rio Grande and an abundance of creeks, lakes, and reservoirs provide year-round opportunities for the avid fisherman! The Town of Del Norte has the FIRST dedicated recreational whitewater feature on a section of the Rio Grande in Colorado with a multi-use boating playwave for kayaking, rafting, paddle boarding, tubing, and body surfing.
Forests, High Desert Canyons, Mountains, and Wildlife Refuges
Something for everyone, with four seasons of family friendly outdoor recreation away from the crowds.
Healthcare & Wellness
H5-star hospital with ER and Flight for Life, 5 medical clinics, behavioral health, fire, senior services, veterans’ care, eye and dental care.
Signature Attractions
Natural Amenities
Our region’s natural amenities for adventure and sport
- Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge with 14, 804 acres of waterfowl habitat wetlands
- Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve with the tallest dunes in North America
- Zapata Ranch – A Nature Conservancy Preserve of 103,000 acres, a working bison, cattle, and horse ranch
- Colorado Gators Reptile Park, a sanctuary for unwanted exotic pets
- Ski Hi Park
- Penitente Canyon, an internationally recognized rock climbing, hiking and mountain biking area where you can experience high desert valley terrain
- Wheeler Geologic Area in the La Garita Wilderness, 640 acres of haunting landscape; The area was designated a National Monument from 1908 until 1950 and was Colorado’s first National Monument.
- Stone Quarry Trails, for a high desert experience, just east of Del Norte, you not only find 8-foot slabs from the quarry still strewn on the ground, but you can hike in the canyons and to the tops for panoramic views of the entire San Luis Valley.
- Pronghorn Trails System, another experience with big vistas of San Francisco Creek, the Valley and the Upper Rio Grande
- Wolf Creek Ski Area, in the San Juan Mountains, a world class powder destination where knee deep days are not unusual.
- Old Spanish Trail used by fur, mule and horse traders and serving as a trade route linking Santa Fe, New Mexico and Los Angeles, California.
- Lookout Mountain Park Trails System, in Del Norte’s 200-acre park, the USGS summit is 8,475 feet elevation with Valley wide views and the Upper Rio Grande corridor
- Rio Grande Golf Club adjacent to the Rio Grande National Forrest, this semi-private award-winning golf course has rolling alpine terrain and mountain views
Culture
Places that attract tourists and where locals go for fun festivals, good food and beer, and great repertory theater.
- Annual Monte Vista Crane Festival
- Ski-Hi Stampede and Ski Hi Park
- Creede Repertory Theatre, a world class theatre in the Rocky Mountains
- Rhythms on the Rio, a benefit music festival on the historic Rio Grande
- Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, America’s most authentic steam-operated railroad
- Museums
Key Industries
Four of the five largest companies by employment in the San Luis Valley are located in Rio Grande County.
Health & Wellness
Rio Grande County alone has five medical clinics, an H5-Star hospital with ER and Flight for Life, behavioral health, senior services, veteran’s care, fire, eye and dental care. Rio Grande Hospital, the second largest employer in the county, has plans to expand with a Wellness Village on its campus in the near future.
Food & Agriculture
The San Luis Valley is famous for growing the highest quality potatoes thanks to its arid warm days and cool nights. Other crops include alfalfa, native hay, barley, wheat, lettuce, spinach, canola and carrots. Ranching of cows and sheep are important agriculture industries as well.
Value-Added Ag
Value-added ag entrepreneurs include co-ops offering a full line of hay and potato equipment, farming and ranching necessities, petroleum services, full-service fertilizer, and grain marketing services. Another top employer is a premier potato dehydration companies making potato starch and potato flour. Rio Grande County is a primary source of barley for Coors Beer. And the county’s newest malt company, works with local growers to develop optimal varieties, providing sustainable and consistently malted grains to craft breweries, distillers, and food companies in the Rocky Mountain Region.
Engineering & Manufacturing
The newest manufacturer in the county is engineering and fabricating equipment solutions for planting, farming, harvesting, and processing industrial hemp for customers around the globe. And two industrial service repair and full-service machine fabrication and metal warehouses do business nationally for hydraulic and pneumatic power and heat transfer equipment, agricultural pumps, fabrication flights, augers, and conveying systems .
ready to make the move?
