6 Picturesque Small Towns in The Rockies for a Weekend Retreat

Bridal Veil Falls plunges 365 feet off the cliff at the dead end of Telluride's main street. It is the tallest free-falling waterfall in Colorado. In most places a view on that scale means an hour up a canyon by car. In Telluride it closes the road. Several small towns across the Rocky Mountains put their scenery that close, a short walk from the cafes and storefronts. Each is small enough to see across a weekend. A couple of these towns turn loud with bluegrass and bike races by midsummer. Most see almost no one in the same weeks.

Whitefish, Montana

Downtown Whitefish is a few blocks of brick storefronts along Central Avenue, under the snow-dusted Swan Range. The 1927 Tudor Revival depot at the north end still takes Amtrak's Empire Builder. City Beach opens onto Whitefish Lake at the north edge of town, water against forested ridgelines.

Whitefish Mountain Resort rises just north of town, with skiing in winter and hiking on the Danny On Trail in summer. Glacier National Park is about 25 miles east, where the Going-to-the-Sun Road threads past glacier-carved valleys.

Red Lodge, Montana

Red Lodge is the town at the northern foot of the Beartooth Highway, the All-American Road that winds up the mountains in a stack of switchbacks. Downtown is Broadway Avenue, a compact strip of brick storefronts and Old West saloons under the peaks, walkable end to end in an afternoon. Red Lodge Mountain, minutes from the main street, has skiing in winter and chairlift rides in summer.

The road tops out at a 10,947-foot pass before the long descent toward the northeast entrance of Yellowstone National Park, about 68 miles on. It opens only between late May and mid-October.

Jackson, Wyoming

The best-known sight in Jackson is the Town Square, where four arches of shed elk antlers mark the corners of the park. Raised wooden boardwalks edge the surrounding blocks, a frontier-era holdover that gives downtown a stage-set look. The antlers come from the nearby National Elk Refuge, where thousands of elk winter.

A short drive north of town, the road reaches Grand Teton National Park, where the range rises straight off the valley floor without foothills to soften it.

Crested Butte, Colorado

Elk Avenue is Crested Butte's main strip, a row of painted 1880s buildings among Colorado's largest historic districts. Independent shops and cafes crowd the street, with no chains in sight.

The hillsides above town turn solid with lupine and paintbrush by mid-July. The state legislature named it the Wildflower Capital of Colorado in 1990. The Wildflower Festival adds ten days of guided hikes and workshops that month. Mountain bikers ride the same meadows on singletrack like Trail 401.

Ouray, Colorado

Ouray occupies a tight bowl in the San Juan Mountains, ringed by 13,000-foot peaks that earned it the nickname the Switzerland of America. Its downtown is a compact grid of restored Victorian buildings, the 1886 Beaumont Hotel the grandest among them. The Ouray Hot Springs Pool, fed by a geothermal spring, opens year-round at the center of town.

Just outside town, Box Canyon Falls pours through a narrow slot in the rock, loud before it comes into view. In winter the canyon walls above town freeze into the Ouray Ice Park, a free public climbing park of man-made ice. The switchbacks of the Million Dollar Highway head south from town toward Silverton.

Telluride, Colorado

Telluride ends where its box canyon does, Colorado Avenue pointed straight at the back wall under Bridal Veil Falls. The main street is a National Historic Landmark District, its clapboard storefronts little changed since the mining years.

A free public gondola lifts riders over the ridge to Mountain Village. Two festivals headline the summer, the Bluegrass Festival in June and the Film Festival over Labor Day weekend. Skiers take the same slopes in winter.

Short Trips, Tall Peaks

In Whitefish, the train still stops at a 1927 depot two blocks from the lake. Red Lodge points its main street straight at the Beartooth switchbacks. Jackson frames its square with elk antlers, with the Tetons just up the road. In each one, the best scenery is within walking distance of a place to eat and sleep.