I Think There’s A Secret Wizarding School In The Rocky Mountains

In today's episode, Debbie lets her nerd flag fly... again. Hear me out on this one. Like many of my generation, I'm a big fan of the Harry Potter Series, and with the new series set in the Wizarding World taking place primarily in North America, we have gotten a lot of information about Witches and Wizards in America. J.K. Rowling, Author of both the Harry Potter Series and the screenplays for the Fantastic Beasts Saga, has released information about the American Wizarding school, Ilvermorny.

But my issue with this is: Why would there only be one?

Ilvermorny is described on Pottermore as being located on the highest peak of Mount Greylock in Massachusetts. It was modeled after Hogwarts, being started by a descendant of Salazar Slytherin and her adopted family in the new world. It's also described as one of the most inclusive Wizarding schools in the world.

However, the math doesn't check out for Ilvermorny to be the only school in the fictional alternate universe United States where magic is real. Great Britain has a population of about 57.25 Million, and only one school that has approximately 280 students attending it at any given time. Applying the same math with the United States' 325.7 Million population, there should be at least 5 Wizarding Schools of the same size of Hogwarts within the boundaries of America.

That leads me to my crazy theory. I don't think, in the context of the Wizarding Universe, that Ilvermorny can be the only school in the United States, and I think the perfect place to hide a second one is right out here in the Rocky Mountains. Hogwarts was placed in the Scottish Highlands to avoid non-magical people from stumbling upon it, so the Rocky Mountains would make the most sense.

And yes, I've thought about this far too much. With the political climate for Witches and Wizards in North America described on Pottermore, I'm certain the Manifest Destiny aspect of founding your own towns out in the old west would have appealed to early Wizards, and that maybe some of those ghost towns you see left over from the old frontier aren't actually ghost towns at all. They might just be cleverly disguised wizarding communities.

My theory is that there's a wizarding school somewhere near Estes Park, Colorado. That instead of carriages or riding boats to the school, students use a modified ski lift, and that the school itself is disguised from non-magical eyes to look like an ordinary mountain peak.

What do you think? Better than Ilvermorny in Massachusetts?