Many of the issues that dominated local headlines in 2015, including homelessness, the rising cost of housing and a steady influx of transplants, continued to be hot topics this year. But from an unpredictable, insane election to the media frenzy over the twentieth anniversary of JonBenét Ramsey’s death, 2016 threw out plenty of curveballs. Keep reading for strange but true transplant stories from the past year that once again prove that truth is definitely stranger than fiction.
In January, a 34-year-old man from Australia was partying with friends in a hot tub in Aspen when he found himself stranded on the roof of a condominium in eight-degree weather — wearing only his swim trucks. The presumably very drunk man (he couldn’t remember how he got on the roof) had the good sense to start yelling, which woke up about half the residents of the complex. Police were summoned, but some third-floor guests had already been kind enough to allow the Aussie to use a ladder to climb to safety.
A recent transplant to Colorado took to Craigslist to tell off all the native haters who accuse newcomers of simply moving here to smoke weed. And he didn’t mince words, either: “Yeah, I moved here post-weed bill. Guess what I don’t do? Smoke weed. I’ll let you elitist fucks take a minute to let that soak in. I moved to Colorado AFTER weed was legal, and it wasn’t to smoke weed. I have been turned down for second dates, denied service, and judged on a daily basis because I’m not a native. Big fucking deal. Never before have I seen this type of behavior. I feel like I’m in a state of constant quarantine. I came here because my hobbies didn’t line up with my home state. I came here to climb mountains, enjoy quality backpacking, see new things and meet new people.”
Major props to Jeremy Cadwell for coming clean to Westword about his newbie blunder. Cadwell, a self-described adrenaline junkie, and his girlfriend had moved to Colorado in July from Ohio. Though he’d climbed the Flatirons twice since relocating, he decided to take a hike without proper gear after a hard day at work in August. “I maybe lost respect a little bit for the grade of climbing I was on and overestimated my own competence,” he told us. Cadwell got stuck on the Flatirons and had to call the Rocky Mountain Rescue Group to come to his aid. As any good family would, Cadwell’s gave him shit for weeks about his brush with death.