Colorado Adventure, Part 7 (Last)

When we got up yesterday in Rinker Cabin at Mount Elbert Lodge, the weather report said it was 13 degrees in Leadville, but felt like 7 because of chill factor. Oh, boy. Do we really want to attempt Mt. Elbert today?

We both got our daypacks ready. Multiple layers of clothing, water, food, and all the gear you bring for the unexpected. We wore international orange vests: big-game season is underway, and I really wouldn't want some hunter mistaking my bald head (white, round) for the backside of a big horn sheep (also white, round). Doris is not susceptible to that sort of problem, but I am.

We probably had way too much stuff, but I've done enough in these mountains to know that when you get careless, you often wind up regretting it. Plus, neither of us are in the best condition and we don't move too fast.By the time we left the cabin it had warmed up to 23 degrees, a nice, reasonable temperature.

We had explored the 4WD road to the trailhead several days before, and concluded we couldn't get all the way up and would have to park below and walk to the trailhead. Much too rugged, rutted, rocky, and just plain undo-able.

That was before we did Weston Pass. Having done Weston Pass, I looked at the road with new eyes. No problemo. We went all the way to the trailhead and did not leave any oil pans, axles, differentials, bumpers or mufflers on the road. Success. Sweaty palms, but success.

Next problem. We got to the trailhead sometime around 10 AM. It's four miles up. That also means it's four miles back. I do not want to drive this road in the dark. So we've got to keep a careful  eye on the clock, and turn around with enough time to get back the car and down the road before dark.

After an easy half-mile on the Colorado Trail, we got to the South Elbert Trail. It took off to the west and immediately began climbing steeply. Really steeply. Really, really, really steeply.

We ascended through multiple stands of aspen trees; the floor of the forest was carpeted in the gold leaves that had fallen. It was beautiful. And, really, really steep. Some sections of the trail had a trace of snow.

There was very little, almost none, of the trail that was flat. It was a steep climb all the way up. Think about the stairs in your home. Then think about them being four miles long, a virtual unbroken climb. Then think about them being up from 10,000 feet to 14,000 feet, where the air is thin. Now you've got the picture. Needless to say, we were in granny gear the whole way.

Okay, enough belly-achin', complaining, moaning and whining. The flip side of the coin was that every step was drop-dead-beautiful. (I actually thought I would drop dead. Several times, in fact.)

Under the brilliant mid-day sun (temp was now high-40s, low 50s, very comfortable), the mountains looked like burnished silver.

I had no problems with my leg at all (remember the stress fracture?). Felt great, was very pleased. Until the walk down, Doris had no problem with her knees. But we were moving slowly and the clock was not. Mount Elbert was getting closer, but we were still two miles to the summit, and according to the hikers that passed us going down from the summit, the hardest part of the trail was ahead of us.

A look at the clock, our condition, and remembering that we still had a very steep walk down (if you've done much hiking, you know that a steep downgrade can be as tiring as a steep upgrade--uses different muscles), I made the call to stop for a late lunch and then turn around. Conquering Mt. Elbert will have to wait for another year.

But the view from where we were was amazing. We were just under 12,100 feet up (the summit of Elbert is around 14,440). Click any of these pictures for a larger view.

We could see forever, even into South Park in one direction. The farthest distant mountains, faintly visible above the landbridge between the lakes, are actually the mountains bounding the far side of that section of South Park.

In my Part 3 post, I included a telephoto picture of the trail up Mt. Elbert. While eating lunch on the shoulder of Mt. Elbert, we were sitting in that photo, just below the horizon on the right side of the picture. Here's a telephoto of the Dexter Cabin from where we ate lunch.

I made the right decision to turn around. The shadows were long and our legs were rubber when we finally got back to the vehicle. I wish we could have gone all the way, but neither of us were in adequate shape to do so. But it was a GLORIOUS walk, and I'm so glad we did it.

In a few minutes from now, we'll be starting to pack up the cabin for an early getaway tomorrow morning. Hats off to Mount Elbert Lodge, and Scott and Laura, for a wonderful, refreshing stay. I love this place!

Tomorrow night, Kansas City. The next night, Greenville, Ohio. It has been a fabulous vacation, and it makes me realize how blessed I am. I serve a great Creator God who has redeemed me thru Jesus Christ, I have a wonderful wife, and I serve a great church. It is far more than I deserve!

Colorado Adventure, Part 6

Ghost towns. Not the silly, phony paranormal stuff. No, these are the little towns that sprang up around gold and silver strikes, from about the Civil War through the end of the nineteenth century. They flourished briefly and then disappeared after the mines stopped producing. Colorado is full of them, both marked and unmarked. Colorful characters, instant wealth, dashed dreams, tragedy--the ruins drip with all these elements.

Nothing seemed to stop the men determined to make their fortunes through mining. It was a dangerous livelihood. This defunct operation (the Hungry Five Mine, I believe) was clinging to sheer cliffs in Buckskin Gulch. It was shot with telephoto under low light, so I had to do some tinkering to make it more visible.

The first question is, how on earth did they get up there? The next question is, how did they get the ore down? The answer to the first: haven't the foggiest. Someone might say, "Ah, but I see a road!" Yes, friend, but the road was built to get equipment to the mine. The find came before the road. What possessed them to go up there before the road was there? The talus you see (the loose rocks comprising the lower portion of the slope) is pretty much at the critical angle, meaning, you step on it and it starts to move. Rock slide!

The answer to the second: they built an aerial tram with steel cables and bucket cars that brought the ore down to the Paris Mill, a stamp mill, from where I was shooting the picture.

 As a backpacker I've run across many mine works, cabins and graves marked on no maps. Some of the old towns persist with year-round residents, such as Fairplay, Alma, and Leadville. One of the things I learned on this trip is that active gold mining continues, with both old claims as well as new discoveries. The Colorado residents I spoke to insisted that there remains much mineral wealth and ore yet to be discovered.

Dor and I left our cabin on Tuesday morning, determined to explore four ghost town sites that are on the map. As we drove up Clear Creek Road, we ran across a herd of maybe twenty-five big horn sheep.

The females and the young run in herds, the adult males are loners (apparently don't play well with others). Female adults have horns, but not as large as the males. All these were adult females or young.

First stop was Beaver City (the beavers are still there, by the way).

Some of the cabins have been/are being restored. Some you can actually rent from the Forest Service to stay in. Further up the road was Vicksburg.

It was set up as kind of an unstaffed museum. Many of the cabins had been restored, and some were still owned and used by the descendants of the original miners.

After Vicksburg was Rockdale.

There was very little of a "ghost town" feel to this one, it looked more like a modern summer camp with the restored cabins. There is a great and commendable interest in Colorado to preserve its heritage. Unfortunately, some of the restoration efforts leave the cabins and structures almost indistinguishable from a modern rustic structure. To that degree, in my mind, they fail to preserve the historic character.

Our last stop was Winfield. Fascinating little town that has managed to preserve the historic feel of its founding.

The next morning we set our sights on St. Elmo, a ghost town about twenty miles SW of Buena Vista. Before we left, however, had to deal with a little ice on the windshield. Because of the very low humidity the temperatures change rapidly up here. When the sun goes behind a cloud, it gets chilly quickly!

St. Elmo sits just shy of 10,000 feet elevation, and was founded in 1880. It grew to a population of about 2000 people in its heyday. One of the mines produced over sixty million dollars of gold.

St. Elmo has permanent residents to this day. Although it is a combination ghost town/tourist trap, with people still living there, they have done an excellent job preserving the historic character of the town.

The building on the right is sided in some sort of sheet metal.

I am guessing that this was done to protect the structure from fires. In these tightly packed main streets in which all the buildings are made out of a very dry wood, if a fire broke out it would spread swiftly to neighboring structures. Many early mining towns were wiped out repeatedly by fires. For some towns, it was the end of the road. For others, if there was still an economic justification, they rebuilt. Fairplay's entire business district was wiped out by fire in 1873. I picked up a great anecdotal history of the area by Laura Van Dusen, Historic Tales from Park County: Parked in the Past. The author, in addition to writing, works  at the South Park Ranger District office in Fairplay. One of the many interesting stories was about the Fairplay fire.

We spent two fascinating days exploring some of Colorado's history through the medium of ghost towns. Tomorrow, we're finally going to attempt to climb Mt. Elbert. We're half-excited, half-dreading the attempt. Supposed to be very cold tomorrow morning. Stay tuned for the update.

Colorado Adventure, Part 4

Friday was a planned cabin day, with a side trip to Buena Vista so Doris could do a software download using the free Wifi at The Roastery. Here’s a couple of nerds in their cabin, glued to their laptops. We are both enjoying downtime.

It was a beautiful day. This is the scene from the deck.

On the way to BV we decided to take Lost Canyon Road. In this country, if you see a dirt road, and it’s not posted, you can take it. So I did. It ended at a gate and a barbed-wire fence. This was the view down the road we’d just come. Click on the picture for a bigger view.

This sign was posted on the gate.

We decided not to enter the gate.

On the way home from BV, we encountered a herd of about 40 mule deer, including quite a few bucks.

Saturday was a cabin day as well, because we wanted to watch the Iowa-Perdue game (Iowa won! Yay!). I spent most of the afternoon sitting on the cabin’s deck reading Outlander Chronicles: Phoenix.

“Why,” you ask, “would you read your own book?” I know—it might seem a little odd, but I had to refresh the characters in my mind in order to begin work on Outlander Chronicles: Icarus. And, no, I have not done any writing yet. 

Sunday we went to a great church: ClearView Community Church. Really enjoyed worshiping our mighty God with this group of believers.

After church it was time to do laundry. We found a laundromat through Google called “The Missing Sock,” but managed to get lost finding it. Apparently they have multiple streets named Antero Circle. After finding the wrong one, we kept looking and found the right one.

Does the view from your Laundromat look like this?

Didn’t think so.

Well, Monday is the great 4WD adventure over Weston Pass to Kite Lake. But that will have to wait for Part 5 . . .

Colorado Adventure, Part 2

Monday morning began in Fort Morgan. Grocery shopping was our immediate task. To our already grossly overloaded car, we added about two weeks of groceries, and continued west. I do believe that if we get snowed in, it will be Christmas before we need more food. Never, never go to the grocery store when you're hungry.

Never, never ride with me in a car in Colorado if I am driving. The last thing I'm looking at is the road. God protects fools, consequently I am not writing this blog post posthumously (which would be quite a trick).

First stop was part of our Henry Marshall tour. Here is the fateful Starbucks frequented by Tim Hardy. South Table Mountain is visible in the background.

Busy Jackson street is where Aries and Viper attempt to eliminate some more evidence, much to Hardy’s dismay. It is a little different than it appears on Google Earth. I mistook the bicycle lane for a third lane of traffic. Across the street you can see 1600 Jackson, Marshall’s campaign headquarters.

We grabbed coffee at Starbucks (without getting run over) and headed down US 285. After attaining Kenosha Pass, we stopped at the same overlook where Marshall paused.

This gorgeous view of South Park has been indelibly stamped on my brain since I first saw it in the 70’s—and little has changed (except the speed limit, which is now 65 mph, not bad for a two-lane road). South Park is huge: the scale of this high valley between mountain ranges is hard to comprehend. Take a gander at this panorama. You can click it (or any of the pictures) for a larger view.

In Fairplay we stopped to get a picture of the District Ranger Office, where Ranger Randall fired up the Snow Cat for a rescue attempt.

 Above Buena Vista we paused to get a picture of the picnic table where Jackson and Trujillo had their secret meeting.

The road into Buena Vista is visible from the edge of the overlook.

And last we stopped at the Roastery, where Marshall explains the impact federal money has on college tuition rates. Right now Dor and I are sitting in the Roastery doing online things (like this blog, etc). I'm enjoying a cup of coffee and a MASSIVE peanut butter cookie. Dor is enjoying a bottle of something called Izze. Don't ask. Haven't the foggiest.

On Monday night, we finally arrived at the cabin, grateful to the Lord for safe travel and beautiful scenery.

Stay tuned for Part 3 . . . 

Colorado Adventure, Part 1

You know you're a Cobb (at least the Chris Cobb edition of the Cobb clan) if you're always packing too much stuff. There is an exception to this rule, and that's when the Cobbs go backpacking. If you have to carry everything on your back, you tend to be a lot more careful about what you bring. Well, we weren't going backpacking.

Can you tell?


 This is the view from the driver's seat. Forget the rear view mirror, this baby is packed to the rafters. If we get into an accident we're going to be crushed by 900 pounds of luggage. But I should be optimistic: at least the impact will be cushioned--we'll be gently crushed to death. Okay, that's enough optimism for now.


You also know you're a Cobb, a son of Lewis Milner Cobb, if no matter how much you bring you can still make it all fit.

I did.

We're probably down ten degrees at the stern. I am convinced that we brought everything in triplicate. Doris tries to console me, telling me that we've got so much stuff because we're going to be cooking our meals at the cabin. I convince myself that she's right, lower the hatch, brace my feet against the back of the garage, and squeeze the silly thing shut. I am positive I heard the car groan.


We're off like a herd of turtles. On Saturday night we stopped at Iowa--twin  Diane's--and managed to disgorge a few items. Now there's actually room for Doris. Yay!

As we headed west early Sunday, we read half a dozen Psalms together, and a chapter of Isaiah. It was a good time of worship (at 75 mph). Needless to say, we didn't close our eyes during our prayer time.

Sunday was a long, long, long drive. Especially since we had to listen to the Broncos lose. Made it even longer. But finally there was a ray of hope: the Lord gave us a sign.

<sigh> What a wonderful sign!

And then more beautiful rays of hope!

 Sunday came to an end at Fort Morgan, Colorado. Tomorrow we would begin a Henry Marshall tour (seeing up close and personal the various locations I included in The Candidate) and end our day at the Mount Elbert Lodge in Rinker Cabin.

Stay tuned for Part 2. . .