The Fairplay plate. Relief from Copernicus GLO-30; rivers and lakes from USGS NHD; watersheds from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset; roads and city limits from Census TIGER 2024.
Chance of showers
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy; warmer
Showers likely
Chance of showers; cooler
Chance of showers
Showers likely
66° on Nov. 16, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1976. Next is 59° in 1980.
Fairplay’s center stands about 9,940 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 9,650 ft to 10,570 ft, a difference of 920 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Lincoln, about 14,230 ft, 11 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Gravels and alluviums (gravel, unconsolidated), from the Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old.
The section below crosses 14 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 4×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Arkose, conglomerate, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gravel, unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Cambrian to Carboniferous, 324 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 8 smaller units along the line are not listed.
Heights from Copernicus GLO-90 (a surface model: it includes buildings and tree canopy); summits from USGS GNIS; rivers from USGS NHDPlus HR; rock from the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation.
A raindrop that lands in Fairplay reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Middle Fork South Platte, the South Platte, the Platte, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,530 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Elevenmile Canyon Reservoir and Spinney Mountain Reservoir.
1,170 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Fairplay; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Fairplay has a subarctic climate. Summer afternoons average 71° in July; winter nights fall to about 5° in January. A normal year brings about 157 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 14 inches of water.
On November 14 Fairplay normally reaches 38° and falls to 13°. The record high is 63°, in 1999; the record low −12°, in 2000. The most rain on this date, 0.25 in, fell in 2006.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1976 at Leadville Lake County Airport, 17 miles west. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
