The Meadow at Fir

Mountain Rails Live, Fir, CO at the top of La Veta Pass, 9,242 feet. USA Today called it one of the top outdoor venues in the country. 300+ concerts were staged there.

If you have gone to the "About" page, you may have read a little about my love of music and trains, and about the magic at Fir, which is at the top of La Veta Pass, a remote place reachable only by train, where some of the most amazing music happened.

When we first brought music to La Veta Pass, I don’t think any of us fully understood what we had.

We would leave Alamosa on the train around 10 in the morning headed east. The train would rumble across the floor of the San Luis Valley to Fort Garland and then climb steadily toward the summit, and by the time we reached the top of the pass around noon, people were already leaning out the windows of the open air coaches, sensing that something different was about to happen.

And then they stepped off the train.

Arrival at Fir

The meadow at La Veta Pass is a naturally sloping amphitheater. We didn't have to build much. There was a stage, built to look like a boxcar, and a small station where we sold lunch. There was an array of solar panels and a windmill, because we were off the grid. We added a bathroom facility to replace porta potties.

If you looked west, you could see down toward the San Luis Valley, and beyond that the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, with several fourteen-thousand-foot peaks rising up in the distance. In the sun, it didn’t feel like a backdrop. It felt like part of the performance.

Behind the stage was a tree-covered hillside, which framed everything in a way that felt almost intentional. People would walk off the train, get their bearings, maybe grab lunch, barbecue or a hot dog, and then start looking for a place to sit. Lawn chairs came out of their sleeves. Blankets went down. Conversations developed and you heard laughter. Children played. People examined wildflowers and fed chipmunks.

And then the music began.

Gary Roller, artist and bass player for Michael Martin Murphey

We always had an opening act and a main act. The opening acts were people Peggy and I already loved. Anne Hills, Mark Dvorak, Bill Staines, Larry Penn. Some of them had played in our living room before all of this started. But they knew how to hold an audience, even when the audience was in a mountain meadow.

The main acts were booked through an agent in Nashville. Michael Martin Murphey, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Trout Fishing in America, Ricky Skaggs with Kentucky Thunder, and others. Artists who could draw a crowd, but also knew how to meet a moment like this.

Ricky Skaggs with Kentucky Thunder on stage at Mountain Rails Live

What struck me every time was how quickly people understood where they were.

There was no need to explain it. No introduction required. People stepped off the train, looked around, and knew they were in an amazing place.

The combination of the setting, the journey, and the music created something that felt different from a typical concert. No one was just attending. They had arrived.

And once we were there, the rest of the day unfolded at its own pace. Lunch, conversation, the opening set, the main act, the light shifting across the valley.

It all felt natural. Unforced.

Looking back, that meadow did more than host concerts. It set the tone for everything that followed.

Because once you experienced music in a place like that, you started to understand that the setting matters. The journey matters. The way people come together to listen matters. It was magical. And the train riders and music lovers told me that over and over.

And that realization led me, eventually, to something much smaller and more unexpected.

That was the club car. But that's another story.