Young Writers Society

I'm writing a story that has a city built inside the Rocky Mountains somewhere, unfortunately I don't really know much about the Rocky Mountains or any of it's landmarks or cities. I ask of you, no, I beg of you to please tell me of any good locations for me to write about. I prefer it to be in the United States and on the side facing the Great Plains. Heck, even in places in Canada would be awesome.

Even cities or lakes nearby would be awesome so I can use that when mapping out my area for my story. The locations kind of play a huge role as my story involves a lot of travelling. At the very least, you could throw names at me and I will do the rest by looking it up on Google and finding the distance from one place to another, etc etc.

I would be so grateful for any help that you could give me. Thank you.

p.s. another question, would it actually be possible to build a city inside a mountain? I'm talking like an actual place where people live and work. It won't be like New York or anything. More like Moria with less amazing architect, and certainly no Balrog. So there's a network of tunnels and it's basically a city engraved into the mountains. It won't be huge, just something to house several thousand people. I guess I should mention that mankind is in the rebuilding process after the world nearly killed them all and the city was mankind's last effort to preserve them itself.

Oh HEEEY!!! I live in these her hills! I'm actually in a very small, rural, and wierd county in Colorado...we're not on the western slope though.
I do hunt there a lot, however, and since I live and travel a lot through here, there, and the passes, I could give you some research help.

I can help you out though, you should PM me for more info.

Other than that, I wouldn't use an actual town if it's post-modernistic future type stuff. For one thing, it limits you to a specific time and place, for another, it's a lot harder to write about a real life city, with real life people who live there, than to invent one of your own and add details that could characterize just about any local town.
(Yes, they're more of towns...compared to Denver anyway. But there are some pretty healthy ski cities)

About the mountin...well, it's possible, although highly improbable and very difficult science wise. For one thing, how are they going to get the materials to build something like that post-catastrophy? Pretty solvable with a convincing story. What's not convincing is that the Rockies are mostly made up of cold, hard, granite. Pushed up when two plates mashed against each other some thousands of years ago...so it's going to be very difficult to burrow in there and set up camp. However, it also means you're pretty solid, so there's less chance of cave-ins if you set it up right. (Physics wise, that is.) Still, it's going to take a ton of explosives to carve out something like that, and then you must consider where they'll be dumping all the dust and debri. If it's concealed, then they'll have to get creative with hiding that inverted mountain of dirt.

So anyway, PM me...I can give you a lot more if you provide me a bit more details on what exactly it is you want to know about.
~ED

Hey Kai! Eloq told a lot of things already about the RM, so be sure to keep in mind all those facts. For details on what the RM looks like up close, seethe 360 Cities site. Although this doesn't actually bring you there, it can provide an in-depth view on the landscapes.

Now on the question about that city...OF COURSE it's PROBABLE! Anything is; remember that you're writing fiction? Just provide enough science facts to support your ideas. Do you know Jules Verne? He's a fiction writer who wrote a book about man going to the moon...even before it happened! And guess what, most of his calculations are accurate. So you see, just add a pinch of imagination and a douse of science and you can have the city you're looking for!

Your pal,
Al