The Wet Mountain Valley is a high elevation mountain valley mostly located in Custer County but extending southward into Huerfano County in south-central

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

. Westcliffe and Silver Cliff are the two towns in the valley which is mostly devoted to cattle ranching.

Geography

The Wet Mountain Valley is nestled beneath the

Wet Mountains The Wet Mountains are a small mountain range in southern Colorado, named for the amount of snow they receive in the winter as compared to the dried Great Plains to the east. They are a sub-range of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, in the southern R ...

on the east, and the

Sangre de Cristo Range , country= United States , subdivision1= Colorado , subdivision2_type= Counties , subdivision2= , parent= Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Rocky Mountains , borders_on= , geology= , age= , orogeny= Fault-block mountains , area_mi2= ...

that parallels the valley on the west. Both mountain ranges are in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains system of the

Southern Rocky Mountains The Southern Rocky Mountains are a major subregion of the Rocky Mountains of North America located in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Wyoming, the central and western portions of Colorado, the northern portion of New Mexico, and e ...

. The valley is approximately long from north to south and wide with elevations of between and . The two towns in the valley are Westcliffe and Silver Cliff which are located side by side at an elevation of just under . According to the U.S. census for 2020, Westcliffe has a population of 435 and Silver Cliff has a population of 609. DeWeese Reservoir is near the two towns. The valley is known for its historic ranches.

Conservation easement In the United States, a conservation easement (also called conservation covenant, conservation restriction or conservation servitude) is a power invested in a qualified private land conservation organization (often called a "land trust") or gover ...

s preserve some of the ranches from sub-division and development. Silver mining attracted early settlers. The sparse remains of two former mining towns, Rosita and Querida, are east of Westcliffe. Both had a population of more than 1,000 people in 1880. The valley is drained by two major creeks, both of which rise in the Sangre de Cristos. Grape Creek begins in the south of Custer County near Music Pass and flows north into DeWeese Reservoir; from there it enters a narrow gorge before reaching the

Arkansas River The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. It generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's source basin lies in the western United Stat ...

. Texas Creek begins northwest of Westcliffe and flows to the northeast meeting the Arkansas River at US Highway 50. A small part of the valley drains southward into the Huerfano River.Google Earth In 2015, Westcliff and Silver Cliff became an International Dark Sky Community, the first in Colorado, the ninth in the world, and at the highest elevation of all dark sky communities. The designation as a dark sky community requires a local effort to limit light pollution. An observatory in Westcliffe welcomes tourists.

Climate

The Wet Mountain Valley has a Dfb climate (humid continental with warm summers and cold winters) in the Koppen Classification system and DCblo (humid continental with mild summers and cold winters) in the

Trewartha climate classification The Trewartha climate classification (TCC) or the Köppen–Trewartha climate classification (KTC) is a climate classification system first published by American geographer Glenn Thomas Trewartha in 1966. It is a modified version of the Köppen ...

system. At Westcliffe from 1948 to 2005, the warmest month was July with an average temperature of and the coldest month was January with an average temperature is . Precipitation was annually with the majority in the summer. Snowfall averaged annually. The highest elevations of the valley may have a Dfc (continental subarctic) climate. The surrounding mountains have an ET (arctic tundra) climate at elevations above about in elevation.

References

Valleys of Colorado Landforms of Custer County, Colorado Sangre de Cristo Mountains {{Colorado-geo-stub