Before the boomtowns, before the railroads, before the silver rush that built Gunnison and buried it again — there were the Tabeguache Ute. The largest of the ten Ute bands, they called themselves Núu-ci — The People — and the Gunnison Valley was their indigenous homeland. According to their own creation tradition, it was the place they came from. Then came 1880, the Removal Act, and an army escort out of the Shining Mountains. The land that was taken is the same land every ghost, every tragedy, and every unanswered question in this region is part of.

We look at a gated religious compound that operated in a Gunnison mountain valley for nearly fifty years — members only, no exceptions, until January 2025. We look at what moves through the high country that experienced outdoors people cannot explain. And we look at the cases of peopl ...