How this site works

Leadville Basecamp is built on a simple premise: take the best public data about the Leadville area, check it every day, and present it honestly. This page explains exactly how that happens.

Data sources

Every number on this site comes from public, primarily United States government sources, linked wherever it appears: weather and forecasts from NOAA/National Weather Service models (via Open-Meteo), air quality from EPA monitoring, river flows and water temperatures from USGS gauges (Arkansas River near Leadville 07081200, Halfmoon Creek 07083000, Arkansas at Granite 07086000), highway conditions from CDOT/COtrip, historical weather from the ERA5 reanalysis, and trail or closure notices only from official land managers: USFS, InciWeb, and in winter CAIC. We never invent a condition or a closure; if we can't source it, it isn't on the site.

How often things update

The dashboard's live cards refresh in your browser directly from the public data feeds every time you load the page. The daily brief is written fresh each morning from that morning's data. Trail and road notices are re-verified against their official sources every morning, and the check date is shown on the section. Guides carry a visible date and get re-verified on a rotating schedule; when facts change, the page changes.

Editorial policy

All prose on this site is original. We do not republish other sites' content. Health and safety topics are presented as general information with pointers to professionals and official sources, never as advice (see our Terms). Race information always defers to the race organization's official materials, and this site is independent: not affiliated with the City of Leadville, Lake County, Life Time, Inc., or the Leadville Race Series.

Money

The site may earn from clearly disclosed affiliate links and from featured placements purchased by local businesses. Placement never changes what the data says, never buys a recommendation, and is always visually labeled. Data and money don't mix here: nobody can pay to alter a condition, a notice, or a fact.

Corrections

If something on this site is wrong, we want to know: email [email protected]. Verified errors get fixed promptly, and material corrections are noted on the affected page. Provisional data from upstream sources (which is most live data) can be revised by those sources at any time; that's inherent to the feeds, and it's why every safety-relevant decision should be checked against the official source linked next to the data.