Monica LaSalle, Peak to Peak. It is typical for Americans to be raised to lay out a path for our futures, especially when we leave the safety of our home and family to embark on the journey into adulthood. Whether you are continuing education, moving into the workforce or lapsing into a depression and remaining in your parents’ home till you’re 30, we all have some form of established path. 

Growing up in Sioux City, Iowa, where famous people were known to own hideaway homes, Rich Snyder chose to become a plumber. A profession that offers job security and a decent, steady wage, Rich took that and moved to Colorado where he arrived just in time to use his skills to help build Invesco Field. He has been working for himself ever since. 

As he sits across the table from me at Backcountry Pizza, sipping a pint of beer and munching down on pesto pizza, he tells me that times became lean for him one winter while living next door to his good friend on South Beaver. Little work means little funds generated to live off of, a common dilemma for those self-employed. One night, he and his friend were brainstorming ideas on how to make some money when he stumbled across an idea inspired by a childhood memory. 

In elementary school, Rich was often bored and stirring up trouble. One day, he decided to glue a tack to his teacher’s desk chair, an action soon discovered with the typical ramifications. Having been raised by his parents to do the right thing and accept responsibility for one’s actions, Rich’s father decided to make an apology present in the form of crafting a wire tree for Rich to take in to his teacher. He grins mischievously at me as he tells me how he took some old copper phone wire he found lying around and made several versions of this tree his father made so long ago and took them into Roy’s Last Shot to see if there was interest in selling them for the holiday season. Roy liked them so much, he bought a large number of them to put in his restaurant. 

Between this sale, subsequent sales of trees at Taggerts, and working for his friend, not only did Rich make enough money to survive but to continue planning his future. He started looking for land, searching in the more affordable San Luis Valley where living is laid back and casual and no one messes with you. 

He found a plot on the southern edge and bought it, heading down with his tent to camp and check out his purchase. He found wild horses grazing and sleeping on the property so he chased them off, cleaned up the horse dung and set up his tent. That night, he had a dream that turned out to be a vision of what he came to find out was part of the Ute Indian Tribe living in a village on the exact spot he was sleeping, “his land.” Waking up surprised that he was not surrounded by the Native American men, women and children he saw in his “dream,” he was so stunned by the vision that he packed up his car and went to a hotel. Having never experienced such a thing before, he did not spend the night on his land again until he had the majority of the cabin built. 

While working his new land, Rich eventually stumbled upon what turned out to be a burial ground for the Ute tribe, as well as remnants of the hunting village they lived in seasonally. He describes how upon his initial arrival his realtor had shown him some arrows on one of the many “chimneys” that were strewn about the land, saying they were known to be the beginning of a treasure map that would lead to what later turned out to be a medicine man’s last place of rest. All these discoveries added up to quite a puzzlement for Rich, so he began researching the history of the area to figure out which tribes frequented the area in the past. He thought maybe it was Comanche or even Navajo, however after much research he discovered it was actually where the Ute set up their hunting villages. 

There is little documentation about the history of the Utes, as the current tribe members will attest to the lack of any definitive information because it was lost along the way on the Trail of Tears. Rich contacted the local tribal organization with the artifact discovery on his land, and they all soon realized the significance of what he found. Archeologists were falling over themselves with the momentous discovery. 

Rich spent two years contemplating his discovery. Like I said, he was raised to do the right thing despite any economic feasibility. During his contemplations, he finished the cabin and began staying on the land. As you may have guessed, he eventually came to the conclusion that not only did he not belong on the land, but no one should own the land but the Ute Indian Tribe. Contacting them again, he turned the land over to them and instantly became a highly esteemed person of whom they invited to be an honorary member of their tribe. 

Rich stares out wistfully at the bustling activity that is Nederland these days. I can see the impact of the unexpected situation reflected in his eyes; the look of a man who sincerely thought his life was heading down one path only to realize that for whatever reason he was being called to a higher purpose. He tells me that in his hometown of Sioux City, he grew up around the Sioux and Winnebago tribes of Iowa. “Land ain’t fit for a rabbit, give it to the Indians” was a phrase he had been hearing since he was a kid. The land he owned was so obviously sacred land to the Utes, he knew the right thing to do with it. Hopefully, this act will be an example to other land owners who find themselves in similar circumstances and are faced with a very obvious choice. Choose the higher path you find yourself called to in life, for the right choice and the hard choice are often the very same thing.

Finding his savings gone, Rich has not given up. His tree sales are still strong, his plumbing business is thriving, and he is looking at moving to a different location in the same round about area as his former land. A place where people are much less formal, where they mind their own business and the living is easy. The exact location will remain unnamed…

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(Originally published in the June 20, 2019, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)