Every morning, Warren Hill wakes up to sunshine and a view of the mountains. Since retiring from the National Park Service in 1997, a job that took him to many of America's most beautiful places, he chose to settle in Colorado Springs, Colo. "I hiked 5 miles this morning and I got home by noon," says Hill. "It's 15 minutes to get downtown but it's also 15 minutes to the mountains." After 13 years of weekly hikes, he has seldom needed to repeat a trail unless he especially enjoyed it.

This idyllic lifestyle hasn't busted Hill's retirement budget. "In other places, we looked at, the cost of living was pretty high compared to here," says Hill. The median home in Colorado Springs sold for just $175,000 in 2010 and the cost of living is well below the national average. Instead of pricey entertainment, Hill volunteers one day a week at Garden of the Gods Park and works part-time leading tours of Colorado parks for several of Elderhostel's Road Scholar programs.

To find this and other low-cost mountain towns, U.S. News fired up our Best Places to Retire search tool. We looked for places that offer access to plenty of skiing, trails, and wildlife, while still providing affordable housing and a reasonable cost of living. We also used the Onboard Informatics data to screen for other retiree-friendly characteristics, such as access to health care and a low crime rate.

Read more here: http://finance.yahoo.com/focus-retirement/article/110083/best-mountain-towns Article provided by Yahoo!/USNews