Nine thousand feet on the Peak to Peak
Ward is an 1860s mining camp at 9,253 feet, a townsite of about 150 people just off the Peak to Peak Highway (CO 72) with Left Hand Canyon dropping away below it. The housing is old miners' cabins and self-built homes on steep, rocky lots inside Roosevelt National Forest. The elevation sets the snow load, the slope sets the footings, and the forest sets the material.
The permit path, honestly
Ward's permitting runs through Boulder County Community Planning & Permitting in practice: we could not verify a Town of Ward building department, and the county's own page says it issues permits for unincorporated land while directing in-town projects to the municipality — so our first call on any Ward project is to the county office at 303-441-3930. Once that is settled, we build the packet to the county's Residential Deck Requirements checklist, file it, and manage inspections through final sign-off. A permit filed at the wrong counter costs weeks.
The county's highest snow bands
Boulder County's ground snow load map shows its highest bands, 75–100 psf, in the high country around Ward. The parcel figure is confirmed at plan review, and it sizes every beam, post, and footing. Under the county's deck rules, parcels above 70 psf need a design by a Colorado-licensed engineer or architect, so we plan on a stamped drawing from the first sketch. A covered deck or patio cover up here carries that load as a roof, and footings go below the 30–36 inch frost line. This is arithmetic, not instinct.
Wildfire Zone 1, by default
The mountains around Ward are Boulder County Wildfire Zone 1-West County, where Section R390 applies to county permits: ignition-resistant decking, 2x or heavy-timber framing, and gravel under the deck. We treat those as the baseline for every Ward parcel. Capped composite meets the surface requirement, and at this altitude it also skips the refinishing clock that wood starts the first summer. Framing bays get closed or screened so embers cannot nest; the underside is not storage.
Steep, rocky, and worth it
Self-built homes on rocky slopes rarely have a flat spot for a deck, which makes it the best outdoor square footage on the lot. Stepped footings into rock, taller posts, and railing in slim aluminum or cable that keeps the forest and the canyon in view — the structure is the project, and we design from the actual grade.
Old cabins, honest answers
Miners' cabins and decades of self-built additions mean plenty of decks here were framed to whatever lumber was on hand. We inspect first. A sound frame earns a re-deck in ignition-resistant composite; an undersized one gets a replacement on engineered, current-code structure. The answer comes in writing either way.
Eighty-five minutes, honestly
From our Centennial shop, Ward is about eighty-five minutes — up past Boulder to the Peak to Peak, near the far edge of our range and a bit beyond our Nederland work. Distance shapes scheduling, never the price or the guarantee. Most Ward builds get planned in fall and built once the ground opens in spring. Run the cost calculator for a planning range, then tell us what you are planning and we will make the county call for your parcel.