LEADVILLE, Colo. — As Goose Gossage, a coffee cup in hand, stepped onto the deck outside his cabin on a recent morning, he considered the view.

Beyond the small lake in front of him, a broad grass valley gave way to an escarpment of spruce and pine that climbed until it ran out of oxygen, leaving exposed the tops of a snowcapped, snaggletooth row of 14,000-foot peaks.

Gossage, who turns 67 next month, first came to the edge of this former mining town one summer in the late 1950s, singing, “America the Beautiful,” while riding in the back of his uncle Bert’s Jeep on what was then a day trip from his home in Colorado Springs.

Gossage bought one cabin in this enclave in 1974, just as his Hall of Fame pitching career took root. He bought the cabin next door, one that belonged to a Maytag heir, in 1978, after the Yankees bestowed on him what was then an eye-popping, free-agent contract for a reliever: six years, $2.85 million. Ever since, the cabins have served as retreats — to hunt elk, fish for trout and revel in the solitude.