High Mountain Institute

Blog

Letter From The Head of School

Sam Critchlow Fall Photo - Edited

Summer moves quickly through Leadville. As Summer Term students can attest, snow persists in the mountains well into July most years, and frost is a frequent nightly occurrence. Famously, Leadville has recorded snowfall during every month of the year. As I write this, summer, in all its two months of glory, has passed. The aspens of the Sawatch have taken on their autumn hue: gradients of green, yellow, into a rich golden orange crawling across the foothills and racing up mountain drainages. The last day of summer brought snowfall all the way down to 10,000 feet, leaving several inches on campus and a foot on the peaks. Fall HMI Gap students arrived amidst an early-season blizzard, only to wake to sunny skies and warm temperatures the next morning. HMI students bear witness to this type of change each semester, as the landscape enrobes and disrobes in its seasonal garb. 

Beyond our seasonal flows of students, snow, and sun, the HMI campus has changed over the years in noticeable ways. From our humble beginnings in 1998 (one school building, four cabins, one mostly-constructed yurt) the campus has grown in thoughtful steps–some small, some big, but all meaningful. Our campus, twice its original acreage, now boasts the Academic Building, East and West Buildings, Stuen Hall, Bus Barn, and seven cabins, nestled around the original Barnes Building and cabin loop. As of this summer, we house nearly ⅔ of our full-time faculty and staff in beautiful, HMI-owned, campus-adjacent housing. 

For alumni and families who have not visited campus in some time, seeing this cumulative change for the first time can be startling. Our hope is that this newsletter will help orient our community to our evolved and improved home, built over time and with great purpose. We will also reflect on how Leadville has changed over the years and hear from our most tenured faculty member on a decade of teaching and leading backcountry trips.

Through this growth and change, the things that anchor us grow in significance. The mission, values, people, and community are throughlines between HMI’s many chapters. As I have remarked before, on my return to HMI last summer, while buildings and programs have grown, the soul of the place feels very familiar to our humble beginnings. Nearly thirty years since our school’s founding, we still tread lightly on the land, value small community, and celebrate learning that connects students to the world around them.

A final note on this publication: you will notice that we have combined our fall newsletter with our annual impact report that thanks and honors our myriad supporters. This is an effort to save paper, money, and time, while expressing our gratitude for our supporters to the HMI community as a whole. 

Sincerely, 

Sam

This article originally appeared in the 2024 Fall Newsletter & Impact Report

Scroll to Top