MOSCA, Colo. — Wes Arneson planted his bare feet in the mud and prepared for the fight of his life: a tussle with a 400-pound alligator called Big Bertha who lives in a geothermal swamp under a willow tree in high-desert Colorado.

Bertha opened her jaw like a lion and let out a hiss like a snake. “Ride it like a cowboy,’’ someone yelled. Arneson hopped on.

Residents call the San Luis Valley, a vast alpine desert in southern Colorado, one of the weirdest patches of the West. Sparsely populated and largely free of light pollution, the valley lays claim to over a dozen spiritual centers, a UFO watchtower, and a roadside attraction called the Colorado Gators Reptile Park.

Here, the headline activity is the alligator wrestling course, a three-hour endeavor in which novices wrangle carnivorous reptiles with names like Pitbull, Darth Gator and Sir Chomps-a-lot. The cost: $100.

Critics see the park as a dangerous, even cruel, gimmick contrived for adrenaline junkies raised on reality television. But to the people of San Luis Valley — which is isolated, agricultural and missing out on much of Colorado’s economic boom — homespun tourist attractions are a way of life.

“In order to survive down here, you have to do something different,’’ said Judy Messoline, 71, who opened the UFO watchtower down the road after her cattle operation failed. (In 16 years she has had 30,000 visitors, she said, and 110 extraterrestrial sightings.)

In an era of pricey tourist attractions with well-rehearsed routines, the gator park is defiantly do-it-yourself, with dirt roads, hand-painted signs, rusty pools and a disdain for safety measures like work boots and gloves. The park has no insurance, and a caution sign looms at the entrance: “Warning! Trespassers will be delicious.’’

“It’s an adventure,’’ said the park’s owner, Jay Young, 42, whose family moved here in 1974; they started a tilapia farm using thermal waters that flow beneath the landlocked valley, brought in alligators to aid in the cleanup, and eventually converted the operation into a reptile menagerie. “It wouldn’t be fun,’’ he said, “if it was safe.’’

While alligator wrestling exists in swampy parts of the country like Florida, it is most often performed by professionals, and few places allow rookies to take part. Here, injuries are part of the package. “We’ve only lost one finger,’’ Young said. “Actually it wasn’t lost. I pried it out of the gator’s mouth and sent it to the hospital.’’

The gator park attracts people like sky divers and motorcycle racers looking for the next thrill — but Young also seems to have cornered a market few knew existed: people who use gator wrestling as therapy.

Arneson, 52, is a tourist from Minnesota who works part time for a tribal school district. He suffers from chronic pain caused mostly by a car accident and said he was looking for a few minutes, or even seconds, when all he could think about was something else.

He planned his trip around the class. “Freedom, that’s what this is about,’’ he said.

He wore khaki shorts and a T-shirt to his lesson, and brought his girlfriend, Lorie Steinke, who mostly stood far back.

In Pond 1, two employees taught Arneson and another student to pluck 2-foot alligators from the water by the nape. The park’s turkeys cackled and a crew of emus looked on. “Toes sticking up make a good snack,’’ said an instructor, Drew Nelson, 36. “If you feel something you don’t like, be a tree.’’

Then they were on to Pond 2, which teemed with alligators measuring 4 to 7 feet in length. Nelson ran in like a child at the shore, yanked an alligator named Kim Kardashian by the tail and, with a giant tug, jumped onto her back.

Arneson, the student, went next.

“This is the most dangerous-size alligator,’’ Nelson said. “They’re big enough to do some real damage, but small enough to move real fast.’’