We Finish Our Colorado Parks

After leaving Great Sand Dunes, we wound our way over to Durango, CO where we spent the night. The winding roads and tight turns on the switchbacks the through Rocky Mountain N.P., down to Great Sand Dunes N.P. and on to Durango had left Jane feeling sick, achy, and nauseated.

Chimney Rock

The train rolls by as we were grilling

As a result, we didn’t do much exploring in Durango, and chose instead to rest up in our room and grill a delicious pork roast at the motel’s picnic area. While we were grilling our meal, the Durango to Silverton steam locomotive rolled by our picnic area. This train makes a 50+ mile loop on a daily basis and provides the tourists with an exceptional view of the surrounding mountains and streams.

Stamp it, baby!

The next morning with Jane feeling a little better, we drove the 50-odd miles to Mesa Verde and entered the park.

Mesa road to the ruins

This park was so unlike any other that we had visited as it was dedicated to preserving the ancient Puebloan peoples that inhabited this area and constructed dwellings and communities into the sides of large cliffs in the area.

Spruce Tree House

After going to the visitor’s center, collecting the stamp, viewing the exhibits, and watching a video about these Indians, we made our way to Spruce Tree House which was considered to be the best preserved of all of the communities in the park.

Viewing the ruins

To get there, we had to hike about ½ mile down a very steep pathway that would prove to challenging when we returned. Although it was far smaller than we thought it would be, we were told that it would shelter about 50-60 people which convinced us that these Indians were pretty small by most standards.

Trying to reach the top

After viewing the ruins and listening to the rangers describe the various structures, we started our climb back to the top. To collect ourselves and cool down, we visited the museum and viewed several exhibits until we felt refreshed.

We left the park and that was when the fun began.

Homes in Silverton

Capt. Larry had chosen a route to Montrose, CO, where we would spend the night and only be a few miles from our next park, Black Canyon of the Gunnison N.P. Jane was looking at the map (Capt. Larry has no clue as to why, because she can’t read it) as we approached the exit, and started to voice concerns about the mountainous road we intended to traverse.

A beautiful backdrop

Capt. Larry tried to assuage her fears and noted that only two routes to Montrose existed, and while both were over mountainous winding roads, his choice was considerably shorter.

Silverton church

The other route would require returning 60 miles to Durango before we began to head north. Jane was beside herself when we stopped at the exit, so against his better judgment, and to keep the Queen happy, he turned the car back towards Durango. About an hour and one-half later we arrived back at Durango and Jane was already feeling queasy.

Love the architechture

As we turned north to head for Montrose, we noticed an informational road sign telling motorists about a road closure north of Silverton, CO, between certain hours in the morning and another closure period in the afternoon.

City Hall

Because Jane can’t read a map, the importance of this message was lost to twisting, tortuous, winding road we suddenly found ourselves on. There was no berm whatsoever, and the road’s edge was met with a precipitous, sheer vertical cliff-like drop of 2,000-3,000 feet. And to make matters worse, the temperature dropped to 36° and it began to rain. Capt. Larry began to worry about icy conditions on this road as we approached the summit of around 12,000 feet, and Jane became very sick, very quickly.

Main Street in Silverton

On the bright side, we only had about 90 more miles to go, a distance that would now be considerably less had we taken the original route! We did our white-knuckle driving on this route until we reached Silverton. With only about 50 miles to go, we decided to press on and get this ordeal over with. Less than 1 mile outside of Silverton, we encountered another sign.

Heading into the red light district

This time we stopped to take the message in. The road north of Silverton in the Red Mountain area was closed Monday-Saturday from 0830-1230 and 1300-1830. It was a Friday at 1320. We drove a little further because we kept seeing oncoming traffic, but were stopped by a signalwoman who told us the road ahead was closed and we just missed it by 25 minutes.

Red light district watering hole

The oncoming traffic, we were told, was what was let through between 12:30 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. Capt. Larry was doing a slow boil and Jane was peculiarly silent. It was too late in the day to turn back and take the alternate route, and heading out on these roads at 6:30 p.m. and possibly driving in the dark with potentially icy conditions didn’t seem too feasible. The only option seemed to be to turn back and spend the night in Silverton. We returned to Silverton and stopped at the visitor’s center where we explained our situation to an employee named Warren, and asked what our options might be for staying the night. Warren made a smart-ass remark about the signs that warned of the closure, and everything he said after that did not register as Capt. Larry was seriously weighing whether or not it would be worth going to jail just to see this guy beaten to a pulp. When reason prevailed, we collected some pamphlets and found a motel with a vacancy (several other motorists were in the same predicament) and checked in. After a couple of drinks and a nap, we checked out the town which turned out to have been the setting for several western movies. The town was delightfully quaint and untouched. We stopped at a bar in the old red light district for an appetizer and a couple of locally brewed beers, then went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner. What was originally a disaster of a day, turned out be a really interesting experience, with the exception that Jane still wasn’t very perky.

The next day we started for Montrose at daylight to make sure we made the 8:30 a.m. cutoff. After some horrendously tight switchbacks, the road became reasonably straight and we cruised on into Montrose and had some breakfast.

Welcome to the surprise park

We continued on to the park which had a long approach road to reach the entrance. Driving this road, we were pretty sure that this would not be one of the more interesting parks. Boy, were we proven wrong. At the first overlook we were just blown away by the scale and beauty of the scenery.

Our first glimpse of the canyon

This park is all about the canyons that have been carved by the Gunnison River over a very long period of time. What makes it really interesting is that the rock that is being eroded away is very, very old (some of the oldest in the continent) schist (crystalline metamorphic rock with parallel or foliated constituent mineral grains) rock that is very, very hard.

Getting the stamp!

Against this rock, the river is able to erode about 1 inch of depth every 100 years and the canyons are about 2,000 feet deep.

The Gunnison carves the hard rock

We collected the stamp at the visitor’s center, viewed the exhibits and a video about the park, and then drove along the canyon rim, stopping at several overlooks to view the beauty of this place.

Absolutely beautiful

The only thing we didn’t do was drive down into the canyon to the river level, and that was because we had concerns about the winding, hairpin turns and 16% grade we would have to negotiate to get there. We left our last Colorado national park and headed for the next 5 parks in neighboring Utah.

The canyon

The river continues its work