This column originated from Sol del Valle and has been translated for our English readers.

The other day at the grocery checkout in Denver, Colorado, I struck up a conversation with the cashier, as I’m apt to do. When he asked where I was from, I told him, “Rifle.” 

“Those mountain towns are so nice. I know your type,” he replied with a look of disdain and disregard. 

My blood boiled. Rifle isn’t a mountain town, per se. It’s a Valley town, a working-class town far away from the ski resorts and cozy chalets of the mountain towns on postcards. The class dynamics are complex. I’ve written about the Upper Valley/Lower Lalley divide for years. If someone out of state stayed in Rifle for a ski getaway, they’d never come back. I wanted to sit him down and begin describing the ins and outs of mountainous Colorado. 

But instead, I just stood there, stunned, unable to explain anything at all really. Mostly because I was bagging my groceries, but a small part of me was shocked at just how invisible those complexities might be to people outside the Valley. 

How could they know? Tall white peaks, endless trails, cottages dotting the mountainside. Bighorn sheep, ski straps on car roofs and “Native” bumper stickers. Patagonia fleeces, craft beer, Subarus and weed. If I’m free to make assumptions, my cashier, who let slip he was from Philadelphia, had made a nemesis of this collage and its privileges. 

There’s not a more beautiful place in our country than the Mountain West. Sometimes, I’m guilty of forgetting that. But despite the scenery, I never want Rifle and the Lower Valley to be mistaken for the ski towns. The Lower Valley keeps the Upper Valley from collapsing in on itself, bearing the weight of its beauty and its privilege. 

No one ever said oppression had to be ugly.

I think I’m trying to say that I want people to know about the injustice of the Lower Valley. I want people to know that Colorado’s mountain valleys are some of the most class- and race-segregated areas in the state. I want them to understand how the Upper Valley industries exploit Lower Valley workers, wringing out their time and wages. The postcard-perfect Colorado, where you can access nature on a whim, is only available to those who can afford it. 

Some of us hike without insurance. We whitewater raft, climb and boulder despite the lack of time or resources to do so. And if we don’t? It’s because we’re too damn busy supporting the industries so someone else can enjoy those things. 

But maybe that’s too much to say. When I sing of Rifle, should my song be sweet or bitter? Ideally, I’d praise my hometown to anyone willing to listen — it’s where my sweetest memories were made, after all. But what about the glaring warts? Should I glaze over the harsh truths to honor people’s persistence and tenacity? What does it sound like to honor a place without patronizing its people?

What’s worth telling about my mountain town to an unfamiliar stranger who’s bagging my groceries? Will he care at all? 

It’s a lot to say in the checkout line. Maybe my reaction should’ve been, and perhaps always will be: “I loved it for what it was.”