It's a bad place to stray unless you've come prepared.
Our Bermuda Triangle is a bit north and west of the more familiar Bermuda Triangle, but cross country teams have been known to take on teams from this region and never be heard from again.
Roughly speaking, the verticles of the triangle are stuck in the map at Fort Collins, Greeley, and Loveland. Within the triangle, teams rise and fall, but it's been well over a generation since the triangle didn't have at least one (usually more) team in the thick of a state title hunt.
One of the reasons this region has been as historically dominant as it has is the fact that youth running is deeply entrenched in "the triangle." The pipelines feeding into the high schools stay full year after year after year after year. Of course, it could also be true that there exists of critical mass of exceptional coaches within the boundaries of the triangle.
5A Teams
The 5A teams in the triangle include Loveland, Fort Collins, Poudre, Rocky Mountain, Fossil Ridge, and Greeley West. Between them, they have 23 state cross country championships. It might have been a few more but for some bad breaks in years gone by. Fort Collins alone owns 14 of those state championships and has missed a few opportunities of their own on account of bad breaks on the big day. Poudre just might own the distinction of having the smallest team ever to win a large-school state title; I'm told that at least one of their teams from the 93 - 95 era barely had a varsity seven. I'd love to hear more details of that story. Interestingly, Rocky Mountain and Fossil Ridge are the only two schools without at least one state cross country championship to call their own. They are also the two newest schools on the list. Give them time; this, too, will change.
4A Teams
As good as the 5A teams in the region are, there's some serious cross country tradition attaching to the 4A teams as well. The list of schools includes Greeley Central, Northridge, Windsor, Berthoud, Roosevelt, Mountain View, and Thompson Valley. The combined count of state titles for these seven schools stands at 12. And, it's been noted before that Loveland is the largest city in Colorado where every (public) school has at least one state cross country championship.
3A Teams
Since the Bermuda Triangle covers a good share of the real estate of the Patriot League, it's not surprising there are some solid 3A programs in the triangle as well. That would include Valley, Eaton, Platte Valley, University and Frontier Academy. As shown above, however, Eaton and Platte Valley fall just outside the bounds of the triangle, but they fit within this regional grouping better than any others.
As for as success goes, Frontier Academy is rapidly closing in on its first cross country state championship, and University claimed their first in over 50 years last fall.
2A Teams
Highland, Resurrection Christian, Heritage Christian Academy, and Liberty Common make up the 2A contingent from the triangle (or, in the case of Highland, from near the triangle). No state championships have yet emerged from this group, but these teams are creeping closer. Outside of Highland, each is a relatively new school and just now reaching the point where the athletic programs have attained a level of maturity. Resurrection Christian just might someday drop the "public" qualifier from the statement about every school in Loveland winning a state cross country title; they've been a steadily improving program of late.
The Meets
As you might expect, the schools in this region host a few invitationals, but maybe not as many as you'd expect. Fort Collins, Loveland, Fossil Ridge, Greeley West/Greeley Central, Platte Valley, and University each regularly host meets (I'm giving Fossil Ridge credit for "regularly" in hopes that they will make an annual affair of their meet after a two or three year hiatus).
The Greeley West/Greeley Central meet honors the memory of Andy Myers, one of the best ever to run the streets of Greeley, catching an occasional faint whiff of feedlot along the way when the breezes were out of the east. The Fort Collins meet honors the memory of John Martin, one of the state's most decorated track and cross country coaches ever to hang up the whistle. The Loveland meet runs in a grassy, hilly park and celebrates the condition of mutual twitterpation (In Facebook parlance, that would be "in a relationship."). Paradoxically, the University meet urges participants to "Break Your Pace." It's a two-miler that has typically opened the season for the area's small schools, but the pace-breaking two-miler ran late in the season last year. Platte Valley tends to collect most of the Patriot League at their annual invitational.
Thompson Valley formerly hosted meets at a guest ranch kind of place on the west side of town but abandoned the idea after a couple of years. For several years, Mountain View hosted the Centerra Invitational on a pancake-flat course that wound around a couple of ponds on the east edge of town, but industrial development in that vicinity put the skids to that idea. Until that happened, however, the meet had grown to be widely recognized as one of the most competitive meets in the state and maybe the one meet in the state where you most wanted to bring a pair of binoculars if you cared to see how the race was developing at any point between 0.05 and 3.05 miles.
Historically, Windsor has hosted some meets, but that doesn't seem to be on the Wizards' agenda any longer.
Of the meets still operating, the John Martin, Andy Myers, and Sweetheart meets would be classified as large meets. John Martin and Andy Myers make use of substantial amounts of urban hard surface, the Sweetheart makes extensive use of lush park grass. Applying that information, you can probably guess which two tend to turn out faster times. Kelsey Lakowske is the one person believed to have tamed the deep Kentucky blue of the Sweetheart Invitational course, although she waited until the league meet to run 18:03 on that course, which I believe is the course record. It is possible, however, that I have misplaced the location of that Front Range League meet from 2009. If I have, the course record is much less impressive than Lakowske's 18:03.
Just a couple years ago, the individual title in the boys Division I race at the John Martin meet was settled by an arm-wrestling match. Spotters and the timing system were unable to come to a decision on the winner, so they settled it the old-fashioned way. If you want to know who won the arm-wrestling match, you'll have to read the article, but I can tell you that Matt Norton's teams have been doing more GS work ever since that incident. The John Martin Invitational is also a great way to sneak a peak at the rising middle school talent in the Loveland/Ft. Collins area. They do, however, run the races there in close succession, so you have to concentrate to keep track of who's on the course and when.