Get Outdoors Leadville! offers bikes, packs, skis and more to Lake County residents in a national model for increasing diversity in outdoor recreation.
Geonna Bowers, Get Outdoors Gear Library intern, cleans and applies bike lube on a chain April 9, 2021, on the Colorado Mountain College Campus in Leadville, CO. (Hugh Carey, Special to The Colorado Sun)
Vanessa Saldivar was 5 when her father hiked her up the bunny slope at Mt. Hood Skibowl in Oregon. She didn’t have a fancy jacket. She used socks as mittens. Her dad gave her a nudge. And she was hooked.
“All these barriers just broke down in that moment,” said the new executive director of Get Outdoors Leadville!, which last week opened a new gear library that lends outdoor equipment to Lake County residents. “The gear library is addressing those barriers. How big of a difference would this have made in my community growing up? I could have had gloves!”