Palisade Peaches Review

In the Grand Valley near Grand Junction, the little town of Palisade grows what are, by wide agreement, the best peaches in the American West. The trick is the geography: hot high-desert days, cool nights coming down off the Grand Mesa, and irrigation from the Colorado River, which concentrates the sugar into a peach so juicy you eat it over a sink. For a few weeks from late July into September, roadside stands and farm trucks all over the Western Slope — and Front Range farmers’ markets — sell them by the box, and Coloradans plan around it. A truly ripe Palisade peach in August is one of the state’s great seasonal pleasures.