First of all I should say that I know this works because I’ve done it. This is exactly how I got started in Colorado in 1998. I moved to Estes Park in my truck with a stack of printed resumes, my camping gear, and nothing more.
If you really want to move to the mountains, but don’t know how – here’s a blueprint for you. The first thing that you really need to know is that in order to get a decent job in a mountain town, you’re going to have to interview for that job. And you won’t be able to interview if you aren’t there. So you need to go ahead and move to the mountain town of your desire. Then the trick will be to support yourself while you wait for job opportunities and interviews to come along.
And the best way I’ve found to do this (I’ve actually done it twice) is to get a summer job at a mountain lodge or national park. These places almost always include housing and meals as a part of the employment package for summer workers. This is huge! So you don’t need to bring much with you for your initial starter job. Just throw your stuff in a cheap storage unit and head out. And you also don’t need any money for an expensive apartment, etc. Just show up, get to work at the lodge, but also get to work applying for jobs in the area. And this way if and when you get an interview, you’ll be able to actually go to it. It’s up to you to do well in the interview and land the job.
Then when you get a better job, you can return to your hometown and load up the rest of your belongings and head back to the mountains for good.
Of course do an initial search online for jobs that you want. Make sure they exist in the mountain town where you want to live. You may have to compromise a bit. You may have to live in a slightly less desirable location in order to have a larger pool of jobs for which to apply. This pretty much explains why Denver is so popular. It’s a big city with lots of places to work, but is still vey close to the mountains. But now the city is very crowded, and so are the mountains. Because everyone there heads to the mountains at the same time and along the same two roads.
Anyway, lodges, either in national parks or otherwise offer a path to your new life in the mountains.