ANGLER’S GULCH, Colorado — According to legend, a raft guide a few years ago working out of Buena Vista walked back to his home only to find it missing.

In its place, a groundskeeper left him a note saying it was not appropriate to leave trash around the area. Insulted, the man found the groundskeeper, explained that this was where he lived, and promptly got his tent and belongings returned.

So goes life in Tent City, the temporary home for a hundred or so raft guides, transients and rainbow-colored hippies just out side of Buena Vista, about 80 miles south of Vail.

It is situated among the canyons of Angler Gulch on the private property of Joe Cogan. The homes there range from dilapidated tents to pop-up campers to a classic 1955 Shasta, complete with a solar-powered kitchen and decorative party lights.

Cogan, the landowner, opens his property up to recreationists without discretion each year. With zero advertising, the land becomes settled by guides each spring as the snow melts, and will have more than 500 weekend campers on it on the Fourth of July.

Claire Chappell, a 25-year-old guide from Steamboat, lives in Tent City every summer in the back of her 1996 red Isuzu Trooper. She parks it away from her neighbors in a quiet area surrounded by large rock formations, dirt roads and a view of the 14,000-foot Collegiate Peaks.

“I don’t have a table, I don’t have a chair, but I do have a bed,” said Chappell, in her third season as a guide. The mattress fit perfectly in the back. Her clothes were scatted throughout the truck, but everything she possessed seemed to fit comfortably.

“Last year, I did this for seven months,” Chappell explained, noting that was about the limit for how long she could last without four walls and a shower. “But I’m much more comfortable in here. When it gets super hot in August, there’s nothing better than driving up the hill toward the trees and grabbing a nap in the shade.”

Her neighbor, fellow guide Reid Williams, chose an equally rustic approach. Williams, a 34-year-old bilingual Ohio native, has spent the past four years guiding around North and South America.

From 1999 and 2004, he worked as a reporter and photographer for the Summit Daily News, but gave up the office life for a tent, a locked trailer and a makeshift kitchen table made from a couple boulders and plywood.

“One of the reasons I wanted to do this job is I wanted to spend more time outside,” said Williams, a high-school valedictorian who received appointments to the Air Force Academy and West Point, and graduated from Ohio State University. “I wanted to spend 100 nights in a tent.”

Last year, he estimated he slept more than 200 nights among his worldly possessions: a bed, two rugs, snack foods (ginger snaps and potato chips), bottled water and a makeshift bookshelf -- complete with “A Whitewater Safety Manual,” a Bill Bryson novel, a short-story book called “The River Reader” and the “Theory of Poker.”

“It’s not easy,” said Williams, who earns between zero and $200 in tips for each trip he guides. “I’m going to have to figure out a way to earn a retirement. For now, my lifestyle and salary are on an even footing.”

On a recent Wednesday in June, a breeze kicked up a dust cloud that settled around Kristin D’Epagnier’s home, a rusted-orange 1955 hand-me-down Shasta camper with a front-door lock and solar power.

Only 100 yards from Williams’ tent, she politely bragged about the work she has done to add a creature comfort or two. In the Tent City, you might consider her place the Taj Mahal.

“I’m living the high life,” she said. She has 80 square feet and million-dollar view. “Plus, I have electricity, and I create it myself.”

The power — two panels mounted on the roof — allows her and her friends to watch DVDs, and supports a stereo, water pump, refrigerator, mood lighting and an electric massage pillow. “If I had a heater, I could probably live year-round,” she said.

Other guides who heard her comment laugh, as if heat was breaking one of the unwritten rules for Tent City.

Or, maybe they were just giddy from this year’s season, which is nearing epic levels. One raft company owner said he had not seen water like this since 1995, and guides like Williams said they’d never seen water like this ever in Colorado.

Snowpack still in the 100 percent to 200 percent range above the Arkansas River valley promises more to come. The popular commercial section of the Arkansas, Brown’s Canyon, sees 30,000 tourists each year (more than any other stretch of river in the country), so the guides are expecting a busy season.

Most guides are between 19 and 25 years old and look athletic. Each day, they wake up early, throw on a wetsuit and head into town where they meet visitors signing up for a trip through Brown’s Canyon or beyond.

By 9 a.m., the Tent City is mostly vacant except for the evidence of civilization — empty cans, parked cars and makeshift shelters in just about every corner of Angler’s Gulch. They return by 5 p.m. for dinner, sometimes together around a campfire, sometimes alone.

Every Wednesday night, the guides all head into town for Disco Night at a local pub, where they swap swimming trunks for bellbottoms, not to mention stories about anxious times in the rapids.

On nights like these, Chappell parks her Red Trooper behind the pub and avoids driving drunk. She sleeps off the party and calls this “one of the greatest conveniences of living in a car.”

Liz Doby, a 23-year-old guide, is a kinesiology major at the University of Maryland who lives in her tent and her truck, and most of the time, rides the 10 miles to work on her bike. When she decided to forego a traditional career, the Virginia native said her father was jealous and wanted to join her.

Doby, who also shares rent with a friend in Breckenridge, was eating a traditional dinner for guides. In no more than 15 minutes, she devoured a burrito, a pickle, some carrots, a banana and a piece of sausage.

“I eat like a pregnant person,” she joked. “I might as well dig out some ice cream.”

The learning curve has been steep for Doby. Rookie guides go through extensive training, and must spend nearly every waking moment for two weeks on the water preparing for worst-case scenarios.

Yet, she’s never regretted her decision, even when a snowstorm blew in as they floated down the river valley, or earlier when a monsoon turned the sandy Tent City floor into a gushing river.

She’s convinced “If everyone did this, they’d be a lot happier,” she said. “But maybe most people can’t handle the conditions, as it takes a special person to live out of the back of their truck.”

That lesson — a divorce from materialism — is one trait all residents of the Tent City share. The evidence is everywhere. Meager campsites, bumper stickers promoting “Love” and empty propane tanks are abundant, and getting a guide to complain about the elements is nearly impossible.

Williams said the lessons he’s learned the past four years are worthy of consideration by all.

“If I could get everyone in the world together here, they’d learn they can be happy while keeping possessions to a minimum,” Williams said. “And every person is a lot harder and tougher than they think they are. The kind of things that would make me whine and complain before — chipped nails or a paper cut — I have them all over my body now.”

As a dog wandered by the site, and his girlfriend packed up her tent nearby, Williams acknowledged the lifestyle does limit the chances to build a family. “I wouldn’t want a dingo carrying off my child,” he half-joked.

He packed up his truck with a few must-haves before joining other guides for dinner. The sun started to set, and the guides beefed up their wardrobes with coats and stocking hats. He mustered one more sentiment about his future, his career as a guide and the potential to one day have a family.

“If I had to say what my dream home would be, I don’t know,” he says, pausing for thought. “I’d say I would live somewhere near a river. That’s about all I can say for sure.”