Hardship would greet Colorado’s early visitors — the likes of John Frémont, a famed explorer whose party was often outmatched by the harsh elements and treacherous terrain. In the early 1840s, tired and hungry in the stormy mountains west of modern-day Colorado Springs, it seemed the next morning was not promised.

And yet the morning was “beautiful and clear,” Frémont journaled, “and, all the people being anxious to drink of these famous waters, we encamped immediately at the springs and spent there a very pleasant day.”

Those were Manitou’s springs, as they came to be known. To Native people, Manitou was a “Good Spirit” who “breathed into the water the breath of life,” Dr. Edwin Solly wrote as the town rose in the 1870s.

Manitou Springs rose as a health retreat. As historian Marshall Sprague wrote: “Tuberculosis patients came to the Pikes Peak region to get well, not to die.”

And so we still come to Colorado — to get well.

Manitou Springs, of course, was not alone with its mineral waters. There were Glenwood Springs and Pagosa Springs, two more health retreats of the day that remain popular destinations today.

Today, we know Colorado’s benefits as far-reaching. Is it any wonder the state is regularly ranked as one of the healthiest?

One list is by U.S. News & World Report, which last year found Colorado’s obesity rate as the lowest among top 10 states: 24.9%. The rate was also noted by World Population Review.

Read the study: “This is likely caused by the high rate of physical activity of the state’s residents, with over 83% reporting regular physical exercise.”

How could we sit with the mountains calling?

One could point to Leadville as the birthplace of the ski industry as we know it. This area was where World War II-era soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division trained for alpine combat, and later returned to establish Aspen, Vail and Arapahoe Basin ski areas, to name a few.

Come summer, thousands are bound for the highest of peaks. But most are bound for something more mild.

“Most activities occur at local parks and trails, with walking, hiking and picnicking being the most popular,” Colorado Parks and Wildlife reported last year in announcing findings from a survey.

The results: 72% of Coloradans play outside weekly, “with 81% citing it as vital for their well-being.”

But it’s not just the outdoors making us feel better. Not just the fresh air, the views and the sunshine.

It’s a natural way of life seen at several apothecaries around the state. A metaphysical way of thinking seen at other shops dealing crystals and charms. It’s a sense of stillness, seen at regular yoga sessions. It’s a sense of spirituality, seen at Buddhist Drala Mountain Center in Red Feather Lakes, or any number of churches in Colorado Springs, which came to be called the “Vatican of the West” amid the evangelical movement of the 1980s and 1990s.

On the southern Front Range, a former campground represents something else. Squirrel Creek Canyon is the site of what the U.S. Forest Service considers its first developed campground, the creation of Arthur Carhart in 1920.

Just as Colorado could be called the birthplace of Forest Service camping, it is also often called the birthplace of the Wilderness Act. That’s another credit to Carhart: In 1919, he embarked to Trappers Lake, where he famously remarked on protecting places “where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”

Carhart’s reflections came at a time marked by a growing interest in the outdoors, as people were reeling from a world war and a pandemic. A century later, Coloradans seem to follow his words:

“Perhaps the rebuilding of the body and spirit is the greatest service derivable from our forests …”