Middlebury College was ranked third in Outside magazine's September cover story, "40 Best College Towns: The Coolest Places to Work, Play, Study, Party, and Live." Middlebury followed the University of California at Santa Cruz, which was ranked first, and the University of Colorado at Boulder, which was ranked second. The roughly one-column long article is accompanied by a photo of a canoeist in Otter Creek. It also mentions that "Fifteen minutes east, the Green Mountains offer more than 500 miles of hiking trails" and that "the campus has a cutting-edge environmental conscience." The Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the environmental studies program, and the Mountain Club are all mentioned as well. The article is on the magazine's Web site at http://outsideonline.com/outside/features/200309/200309_college_towns_1.html.