Outdoor recreation is estimated to contribute more than $1 trillion to the U.S. economy. In many rural communities, particularly in the Rocky Mountain West, it plays a vital role in economic development.
A new podcast explores how this is playing out in several communities in our region, from Moab, Utah to Montezuma County in southwest Colorado.
Maeve Conran spoke with Ilana Newman, a reporter for “The Daily Yonder" and the producer of “Getaway.”
Ilana Newman: ”Getaway” is a five-episode podcast series about rural recreation economies. My background is in the recreation industry. I have worked as an outdoor educator, guide, and outdoor reporter before coming to “The Daily Yonder” where I work now as a reporter and multimedia producer. I live in a small town in Colorado, in Mancos, Colorado, and we're surrounded by mountains and desert, and I spend a lot of my time outside, rock climbing and skiing and trail running.
And while I've been reporting on my community and other rural communities across the Mountain West for “The Daily Yonder,” the reality of what it means to be a rural recreation economy was just this through-line, through everything that I was looking at, and it felt like one of those projects that was almost too obvious. It almost felt like something I shouldn't do because it made so much sense. And then I realized that that's actually exactly why I should do this project.
So basically, the whole series kind of looks at what it means to be a rural recreation economy. These communities that depend on recreation and tourism, and some of the downsides that come with that, like the housing crisis that a lot of our rural recreation economies face in places like Telluride and Aspen and Moab and Taos.
Maeve Conran: I know one of the areas you're looking at across the entire series is how many of these resort towns or communities that are leaning into having a recreation economy, they're former mining towns or they're towns that have relied on extractive industries. Can you talk a little bit about the intersection between those two things, extractive industries and an economy based on that, and a recreation economy?
Newman: This intersection of an extractive industry, a historic extractive industry like mining, coal, logging, oil and gas, and even agriculture could kind of be looked at in a similar way, a lot of these communities have a history of these extractive industries and those are kind of boom and bust industries.
Like here in Montezuma County, we had a lot of oil and gas that is kind of going bust right now over the past decade, and we're trying to focus more on tourism. I think that is a really interesting dynamic to look at, and I also am thinking a lot about and reporting a lot on the ways that tourism can also kind of be extractive.
Whether that's driving up housing prices and cost of living in our communities and driving out people who used to be able to afford to live in these communities who now have to leave. Or even just trash on our public lands and degrading our public lands because of overt tourism and recreation that is not sustainable or respectful of our beautiful public lands.
So, I am kind of looking at this intersection of historic extractive industries and how the tourism industry itself can be extractive if not done in a sustainable way. So that's a big focus of the podcast throughout the whole series.
Conran: A major part of this as well is the impact of the climate crisis. Because when you have economies that are based on people being able to recreate in these spaces that are really being impacted by the climate crisis, whether it is less snow or changing snowfall patterns for the ski resorts or the impacts of wildfire and drought in some of our public lands as well. So, what did you find out about or what are you exploring in terms of the intersection between recreation economies and the climate crisis?
Newman: Yeah, that's the focus of the fourth episode of the series. And, like you said, there's a lot of that around winter recreation. So, lower snowfall contributing to a serious decline in monetary impact to the communities that depend on these ski resorts and other forms of outdoor recreation in the winter, like ice fishing, snowmobiling, and cross-country skiing. All over the country, this is being felt, and these communities are kind of having to transition into pursuing more summer recreation industries and pushing more of their marketing into kind of summer recreation.
But then, you know, here on the Colorado Plateau, it's drought. Our rivers don't have enough water to support rafting trips. And we don't have enough snow. That affects our wildfire season, of course. Something that we've found in previous reporting that one of our reporters (who comes on the show) Sarah Melotte — she's our data reporter — has looked at how communities most affected by wildfires are actually receiving some of the biggest in migration of people moving to those communities. And that's not because of wildfires, but it is typically because those are the communities that are attractive because of the public lands surrounding them that are also at risk for wildfires, that is increased danger because of climate change. So that's something that I'm looking at very specifically, as well as other types of climate-caused disasters like flooding and drought. So that's a big focus of the podcast as well.
Conran: Well, that is coming up on episode four. But (in) the very first episode, you take a look at two communities in southwest Colorado that are actually at the very beginning in terms of creating and building a recreation economy. Where do you look at, what are those communities and what did you find out?
Newman: So I looked at Cortez, Colorado, here where I live in Montezuma County, and Monte Vista, Colorado, which is in the San Luis Valley. Both of those communities are kind of working on creating an attractive place for people to live, and they're not necessarily focused on the tourism aspect. I think something that I heard a lot in my reporting was if it's good for the locals, it's also good for tourists, especially the right kind of tourist.
And both of those communities are also working on some big trail projects right now, kind of working to connect their recreational amenities, like national parks and trails and public land to their communities, because that is something that helps bring people who go on a hike to those restaurants after their hike and really return to the communities that host these public lands.
So, something that's interesting here in Montezuma County is how much we're bordered on the east by Durango. A lot of people end up staying in Durango and then coming over to our national park, Mesa Verde, and then returning to Durango. So, Cortez, as a city, is working to make it more attractive for people to stay in Cortez, which is a lot closer, it's just not the destination that Durango is when it comes to tourism.
So, both of these communities are doing a really great job, being really thoughtful about the ways that they plan and create a sustainable tourism plan for not only the people who are visiting but also the people who live here and really investing in the locals.
Conran: You mentioned that one of the problems with a recreation economy is the impact it has on housing. I know in episode two you really take a deep dive into that and one of the communities you're looking at in terms of how this has played out, but also in terms of how that community is looking for solutions, is Moab, Utah.
Tell us a little bit about what's happened with housing in that community that's happening in so many resort communities across the country, especially in the Rocky Mountain West, and what are some of the solutions that are emerging?
Newman: Yeah, so Moab, like a lot of popular tourist destinations, just does not have enough housing for their workforce specifically.
One of the solutions that I looked at in the podcast is their community land trust, and the community land trust model basically involves a nonprofit. So the Moab area Community Land Trust owns this property that was actually generously donated to them, and they have been developing on it over the past few years. It will eventually serve over a thousand residents if it's completely full. The land trust owns the land, but the houses are purchasable by residents and they lease the land underneath.
So it basically allows developers to build much more affordable housing, and those houses are available at a much lower than market rate for the community. However, they don't actually own the land, so they also typically have deed restrictions on them so they can't necessarily sell them for more than inflation. However, it's a really good foot in the door to owning a home and can provide a lot of stability for residents in the area when there's not any other options for the community.
So I looked at a few different ways that different nonprofits and organizations in Moab kind of come together to support the housing crisis through things like the Community Land Trust, the Housing Authority, and other organizations in the community.
Conran: Ilana Newman is the producer of “Getaway,” a podcast series that takes a deep dive into rural America's recreation economies. Ilana is a reporter with “The Daily Yonder” and you can catch her reporting and more information about the podcast at dailyyonder.com.
Ilana, thank you very much for taking time to talk to me.
Newman: Thanks so much for having me, Maeve.
Copyright 2025 Rocky Mountain Community Radio. This story was shared via Rocky Mountain Community Radio, a network of public media stations in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico, including KDNK.