Escape to Estes Park: 90 minutes from Denver, the town offers alternatives to typical convention centers.

• Author: Ford, Tess
• Position: RESORT REPORT

Conference time. Please find your welcome packet and nametag at the door. Help yourself to a styrofoam cup of coffee brewed yesterday from a tin drum and let us plow through this.

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For many business owners, planning and orchestrating a conference is an inevitable, annual chore. It's not the sort of event that typically allows for the time, inspiration or budget required to book a less-than-obvious location. A mandatory two or three days of sedated keynote speakers, fiscal planning, professional development--strategery--it's thrilling stuff.

As rough as business meetings can be, when it is time to slaughter a to-do list, it is best to have some measure of forced togetherness and seclusion. To effectively host a meeting of the minds necessitates a proper space complete with all the modern-day niceties business travelers have come to expect.

As luck would have it, these qualaties are available in a nearby Rocky Mountain setting, Without the distraction of the big(ish) city lights of Denver, being immersed, instead, in the tranquility of the clean wilderness of Rocky Mountain National Park, conference attendees can decompress while coolly slashing through agenda bullets.

The mountain town of Estes Park, founded in 1859, began its first boom when it dawned on founders that the "roll through" can be quite the cash-cow. Cabins and resorts sprang up to cater to travelers who may otherwise have just passed through.

It still proudly serves as the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park, and so sees much tourism throughout the year. "People come for the national park, hut stay for shopping along Elkhorn Avenue and enjoying the town itself," says Janice Mason of Visit Estes Park.

The strip of shops, restaurants and galleries that stretch along the postcard-appropriate road following the Big Thompson River is a year-round draw for tourists. But business owners may overlook the town as a practical and accessible meeting and conference destination.

The trip from Denver is an "easy 90 minutes," said Mason, "with no holdups on the highway. Not to knock I-70." She says the draw to Estes Park is dear: "accessibility."

The roads to Estes and Rocky Mountain National Park are open even during the worst winter weather, making this short trip possible when other destinations become inaccessible due to highway closures.

"And once you're here, we are here for the guests," said Mason, reiterating that Estes Park has and will always be a town...