Mountain Byways & Volcanic Debris

Prior to the mid-nineteenth century’s massive expression of Manifest Destiny and the mineral extraction craze that plagued the western United States, the Ute Indians occupied all of what is now Colorado and spilled over into Wyoming, New Mexico, and Utah.  The people of the Shining Mountains (as they called the Rockies) were a semi-nomadic people who were content to live off the land and own none of it.  Mountain men and other intrepid explorers had made forays into the Colorado Rockies prior to the Civil War, but the biggest push began shortly after its end.  The devastation in much of the South and other regions of the newly-reconstructed country helped encourage a large migration of people west.  They all weren’t sod-busters in Conestoga wagons; the most aggressive were the mineral extractors.   A number of gold strikes in southwestern Colorado created a frenzy of activity.  Prospectors crawled over the high mountain passes that previously served the Utes as passages from winter to summer hunting and living areas.  When strikes were made, the prospectors widened the old Indian trails to handle wagons to carry ore and, later, built toll roads and railroads for the same purpose.

American Basin

The Rockies are riddled with these old routes.  Most have been long abandoned; others thrive as playgrounds for Jeepers and ATV enthusiasts.  Where we are located, near the heart of major mineral finds, there are countless four wheel roads (that’s a fairly generous description of many of these routes) that can be used to penetrate the highest reaches of the San Juan Mountains.  One such is the 50-mile Alpine Loop Backcountry Byway.  This is a series of roads cobbled together to form a loop, but initially the roads were used for the transport of ore from mines located in remote recesses of the mountains to transportation hubs located elsewhere.

The Alpine Loop begins and ends in Lake City.  There are lots of options for the four wheeler besides completing the loop.  Among them are side trips to both Silverton and Ouray over different routes; however, your travelers chose to take the loop in its entirety.  Our friends from Buena Vista, Ed & Jeri, joined us for a couple of days, and the trip on the Alpine Loop was the highlight of that visit.

Near the top of Cinnamon Pass

One cannot begin to describe the beauty of the backcountry in this part of the state. There are high mountain vistas with fields of wildflowers.  On clear days the views are more than spectacular—we had such a day.  The road itself is interesting in that one can take a two wheel drive street car on portions (we saw a BMW sedan at one of the trailheads) of the road and other sections require four wheel drive vehicles because of the steepness and the necessity for high clearance.    The Byway climbs from an altitude of 8,761 feet (that’s 2,640 meters for our Commonwealth friends) at Lake City to over 12,800 feet at Engineer Pass.  One actually must pass over Cinnamon Pass at 12,600+ feet and then descend to Animas Fork before climbing again to Engineer.  From the Loop, energetic folks can access trails that will take them to five fourteeners and more than a half dozen thirteeners.  Much of the Loop is located in BLM land, but is surrounded by Weminuche and Uncompahgre Wilderness areas.

View NE from Cinnamon Pass

A Cluster of 14ers

On the return to Lake City from Engineer Pass we were treated to the sighting of a black bear.  He was on the other side of Henson’s Creek from the road.  He was very large and very perplexed.  It seemed clear to us that what he really wanted to do was cross the creek and then the road and continue on his merry way.  However, because there were several of us parked and taking pictures of him and gawking at him through binoculars, he wasn’t about to make any attempt to proceed.

One cannot put too fine of point on the beauty one encounters on the Loop.  However, we were equally stunned by the mass of humanity that converged on the Loop on the day of our visit.  There were all manner of ATVs and nearly every brand of four wheel drive vehicle made in the U.S.  The ATVs tend to swarm together like angry wasps—they actually sound like a swarm of angry wasps, too.  In our humble opinions, they are the scourge of the earth.  Some folks probably feel that way about all motorized vehicles, but not us, we are Jeepers.  To illustrate the crowd, on one particularly nasty part of the four wheel drive road up to Cinnamon Pass, we met a line of Jeeps.  A fellow from Texas in front of the group quipped, “Traffic’s worse than Houston.”  That pretty well summed it up.

Masses of humanity notwithstanding, we thoroughly enjoy our outing and we managed to get out of the mountains before the afternoon rains hit.  There would be the danger of lightning strikes above timberline as well as incredibly slick roads had we be caught up there in a thunder storm.  We did get the dust washed off the Jeep on the ride home, which was nice.

Views from Engineer Pass

Having not exceeded our capacity for four wheeling, we set off on Friday to explore the Wheeler Geologic Area.  Unlike the Alpine Loop, this trip we encountered no other traffic on the way up and only a couple on the return trip.  This 640 acre area was once a National Monument under Teddy Roosevelt’s administration, but because of its remote location and difficult access, it was transferred back to the Forest Service and in the 1950s was designated a National Geologic Area.  In the early 1990s it was added to the La Garita Wilderness.

Twenty odd million years ago this entire region was an active volcano and the resulting caldera was the product of an explosion that was 5,000 times as strong as Mt. Saint Helens (no, that is not a typo).  The rocks that comprise the geologic landscape of Wheeler consist of coarse volcanic tuff.  The debris that formed this tuff was blown into the air from volcanic vents and settled in this place.  Over millennia, wind and water eroded the rock into the existing spires and pinnacles.  At some point in the future the area will be eroded completely away.

All the published guides indicate that the Jeep trip into the area requires a commitment of about 10 hours due to the difficulty and roughness of the 15 mile road.  Undaunted, we started off on the four wheel drive road.  Three hours later, after passing through a variety of sub-alpine terrain and driving on one of the roughest roads we have ever been on, we arrived at the end of the road.  From there it was supposed to be a half mile hike.  It was at least twice that and then we decided to explore the Wheeler Loop Trail, which took a couple of more hours.

As with the Alpine Loop road, words to describe these stunning, picturesque features are hard to find.  After arriving at the end of the road, we hiked into the lower access trail where we got an up close and personal look.  It is amazing to see how the elements have worked the rock to create the unique characteristics.  Later, we backtracked from the base so we could have a view from a higher vantage point.  We weren’t disappointed…it was truly mind-blowing.  While there, we met local artist Stephen Quiller, who has an art studio in Creede.  He was very friendly and tolerated our interruption of his work for a few minutes and graciously allowed us to take a couple of photos of him at work.

Stephen Quiller

After our seventh hour on this trip, we were finally ready to depart for home.  We knew we probably had at least a three hour drive to get off the four wheel drive road.  Not long after our first hour on the road out, we encountered some ATVers who looked like they were having trouble with one of their vehicles.  Since we were the last ones out (it was about 5:30 p.m.), we stopped and asked if they needed assistance.  They were thrilled.  It was decided that we would take half of the six person group with us and the others (two men and a young boy) would attempt to tow the broken down vehicle back to the staging area.  Hence, we wound up with three generations of women: grandmother, mother, and daughter; Texans all.  It seems to be our week to pick up and rescue strays.

Our Rescuees, Safe and Sound