I grew up in Bozeman, and it was different then--around 12,000 people-, instead of a "metropolitan area" about 10 times as large. Am very familiar with Alder, since my father and his brother founded and ran the Virginia City Players for many years. I worked for the theater during summer as teenager, mostly doing grunt work, partly because I could walk outside of town in 2 minutes and start hunting with my .22.
Am now 70 miles away from Bozeman. Moved here 30 years ago when it was still really rural, and helped establish the local range. Even though the range is between Bozeman and Helena, it gets a LOT of use due to the area growing so much in recent years.. In fact what used to be just a "club" range now regularly hosts shoots that have people coming from several surrounding states. It was expanded to 1000+ yards a few years ago, with around 20 concrete benches.
Am also somewhat familiar with your area of Colorado. Hunted northwest of Craig for mule deer with a friend close to 20 years ago, and got an ancient, heavy-antlered 3x3, and my partner got a very good typical 4x4. Great country, and am glad to hear it's still pretty rural. Dunno what we're gonna do with the recent vast "Californication" of this part of Montana. Thought we were too far from the Bozone to get invaded, but might have to sell out and head farther east.
