Glade Park is an unincorporated

Unincorporated area

In law, an unincorporated area is a region of land that is not a part of any municipality.To "incorporate" in this context means to form a municipal corporation, a city, town, or village with its own government. An unincorporated community is usually not subject to or taxed by a municipal government...

 town

Town

A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size a settlement must be in order to be called a "town" varies considerably in different parts of the world, so that, for example, many American "small towns" seem to British people to be no more than villages, while...

 and a U.S. Post Office

United States Postal Service

The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...

 located in Mesa County

Mesa County, Colorado

Mesa County is the fourth most extensive and the eleventh most populous of the 64 counties of the state of Colorado in the United States. The county was named for the many large mesas in the area, including Grand Mesa. The county population was 146,723 at the 2010 United States Census. The...

, Colorado

Colorado

Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The Glade Park Post Office has the ZIP Code

ZIP Code

ZIP codes are a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service since 1963. The term ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, is properly written in capital letters and was chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly, when senders use the...

 81523.

Geography

Glade Park is located at 38°59′37"N 108°45′00"W (38.993572,-108.749886), and is 16 miles (25.7 km) west of downtown Grand Junction, Colorado

Grand Junction, Colorado

The City of Grand Junction is the largest city in western Colorado. It is a city with a council–manager government form that is the county seat and the most populous city of Mesa County, Colorado, United States. Grand Junction is situated west-southwest of the Colorado State Capitol in Denver. As...

, the largest city on Colorado's western slope. To access Glade Park, one must drive up the Rim Rock Drive

Rim Rock Drive

Rim Rock Drive is a scenic road in Colorado National Monument. The 23-mile drive follows the upper rim of a series of canyons, extending from the vicinity of Fruita, Colorado in the west to near Grand Junction, Colorado in the east, connecting points only eight miles apart in a straight line...

 in Colorado National Monument

Colorado National Monument

- Trails :The Monument contains many hiking trails, with lengths and difficulties to suit all tastes. Summer storms can cause flash floods as well as dangerous trail conditions. Rattlesnakes are found on the Monument, and rough terrain exists everywhere, but most trails are well-maintained...

, gaining approximately 2500 feet (762 m) elevation over 4 miles (6.4 km) of hairpin curves. The views on the drive are spectacular, encompassing red sandstone canyons and sheer rock faces. The elevation of Glade Park is approximately 7000 feet (2,133.6 m). Due to the higher elevation, often the temperature in Glade Park is 10 degrees lower in summer than the temperature in Grand Junction. In wintertime, temperatures can be significantly warmer than in Grand Junction because of an inversion layer present in the Grand Valley below; however when an inversion isn't present temperatures in Glade Park are typically 10 degrees cooler than in Grand Junction.
First hand experience of weather conditions for the years 2007-2008: Glade Park, like Grand Junction reached 100 degree days in the summer. Situated on the Colorado National Monument at a higher elevation than Grand Junction, made for temperature differences of 5-8 degrees cooler in the summer but more extreme sun exposure.

Community

Glade Park is a former western Colorado ranching and farming community. As precipitation has declined, much of the ranch land has been split up into 35-40 acre parcels on which homes now stand. Area zoning permits a density of one house per 35 acres (141,640.1 m²) parcel. There is no municipal water system available in Glade Park; most houses have water wells. The water table is approximately 500 feet (152.4 m) below the ground surface. Some homes harvest their own water off the roof.

The remoteness of the area and the creativity of its residents, has made Glade Park home to an unusually high number of alternative and sustainably-constructed homes, including Earthship

Earthship

An earthship is a type of passive solar house made of natural and recycled materials. Designed and marketed by Earthship Biotecture of Taos, New Mexico, the homes are primarily constructed to work as autonomous buildings and are generally made of earth-filled tires, using thermal mass...

s, rammed earth

Rammed earth

Rammed earth, also known as taipa , tapial , and pisé , is a technique for building walls using the raw materials of earth, chalk, lime and gravel. It is an ancient building method that has seen a revival in recent years as people seek more sustainable building materials and natural building methods...

 construction, straw bale, geodesic dome

Geodesic dome

A geodesic dome is a spherical or partial-spherical shell structure or lattice shell based on a network of great circles on the surface of a sphere. The geodesics intersect to form triangular elements that have local triangular rigidity and also distribute the stress across the structure. When...

, earthen berm and log construction. The distance of many of the building lots from electrical infrastructure has stimulated construction of a number of energy self-sufficient homes.