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We're Four Corners, Exactly Thereabouts

By Jan Nesset

Our publication provides outdoor, recreation and culture coverage of the Four Corners region of the Southwest. It's the region in which we live. It's a wild, wonderful, glorious place and we love covering it. But where, exactly, are the boundaries of the "Four Corners region of the Southwest"? It's a question I am asked frequently by students when I speak in a classroom. It's a topic of discussion around a campfire. It is a good question.

Our staff defines the boundaries of the vast Four Corners' playground rather broadly along fat, undulating lines that stretch between the communities of Green River, Flagstaff, Albuquerque, Taos, Pagosa Springs, Silverton and Telluride, with the epicenter located at the actual meeting point of our four states. But our actual coverage area is even broader than that. We're not opposed to covering topics about nearby (outside) places of interest, preferably to points that do not stretch too far beyond the boundaries a single tank of gas. For examples, we're prone to using Escalante National Monument, Great Sand Dunes National Park, the Grand Canyon, Fruita mountain biking trails and Gallup, NM, all destinations beyond our described boundary. The places make sense to us to cover because our residents are interested in them, we do travel to them, and as such we cannot overlook them.

But our publication is Inside/Outside Southwest magazine, not Inside/Outside Four Corners magazine, so where are we now? Hangin' loose, that's where. Among other interesting descriptions, the Southwest has been described as the area between Durango, Colo., to Durango, Mexico, and from Las Vegas, Nev., to Las Vegas, NM. In this issue, we've all but stepped over this line. We go to Nacapule Canyon, Mexico, where author/poet Pamela Uschuk has found a bit of paradise to share. We're taking the big step south of our range because it's where many road trip-lovin' Southwesterners turn when the weather turns cold. Our coverage probably won't make a habit of road trippin' to Mexico, but we'll see.

Inside/Outside Southwest magazine is taking another step, a big one, starting with the next issue. Rather than the tabloid format that has been our mainstay since issue one, we'll be what we say we are and hit the stands as a magazine, not a tabloid. With our smaller size comes big improvements, such as every page will be in color (no more black-and-white ones) and there'll be more pages. We're starting out easy with the addition of eight pages, and will stretch out further when we can. So rather than 48 pages you'll get 56 pages, all full-color and still free.

Also, in our most literal big step, it's been necessary to expand our distribution range. Seems our little pub has become quite popular outside our "Four Corners region of the Southwest," in particular the Front Range, Texas and California. We can measure that by increases in out-of-area subscriptions and advertising inquiries. So, Inside/Outside Southwest will be hand-carried to three times the number of distribution points we currently serve.

All told, we're not changing much other than how and where we appear. In other words, we're not getting too big for our britches. Our britches fit just fine, but we are trying on a new pair to see how they show off our butt.