Outrunning Winter
We are heading south again and none too soon. When we wake up, the mountains are hidden by swirling clouds of snow. As they begin to lift, we can see that there is a lot more snow up on the peaks, very beautiful, but yesterday’s fun in the snow at Black Canyon has left us a little jumpy about driving in snow. There are a lot of vehicles that are snow covered coming down, and we ask the truckers about snow on the passes. Red Mountain, the cliff walk that thinks it is a road, requires chains this morning. The very word makes me shiver, remembering those New England blizzards. You won’t find me towing over Red Mountain on the best of days anyway. After a few more CB discussions and a phone call, it appears that Lizard Head Pass is just wet, so we press on.
I have driven this road before, and it was spectacular then, but with the snow on the peaks it is amazing. The road first climbs the Dallas Divide, where grassy valleys lie at the feet of the San Juans. Ralph Lauren has a huge ranch along here, with miles of pole fencing. Too much. Other passes just drag you up a big hill and throw you off the other side, but Lizard Head winds up then down, heading for Telluride, the beyond trendy resort. We have a number of steep grades, but then wander up valleys with streams and the aspens all gold. Every corner brings another astonishing rocky, snow-covered peak. The snow outlines the crags and slashes in the black rock. These post card mountains are literally breathtaking. So high, so cold, and in such sharp contrast that for a moment you are so astonished, you can’t breathe. And around the next corner, more and higher and well, almost impossibly beautiful.
The temperature was hovering around 33, and then we began the long slow descent along the Nuestra Senora de los Dolores River (Our Lady of Sorrows), through tired mining towns. In the rear view mirror, I can still see glimpses of the icy peaks, until at Cortez, they are only little bumps sticking up over the low brown hills. There was one icy patch, where a cliff kept the sun off the road, where we did the Hail Mary of the Ice prayer (where you just sit still, don’t touch anything and hope no one does anything stupid) but it was a great drive. We are now at the very southern end of CO, in a familiar desert. Like the TX Hill country, it is all cedar trees and rocks and cactus and other spiky things. Dry and aromatic. We stop for the night in a small CG in Cortez which has mostly construction workers in it, and a whole town of prairie dogs out back.
Mesa Verde, the Indian cliff dwellings National Park is here, and we have a mission to take a photo with a travel bug ( geocaching toy) in front of the sign. I am pleased to see that it is the original 1930’s CCC sign, although it has probably been moved over to widen the road. We do a little geocaching around town, walking around a pond in the fluffy dried weeds and flowers. There are yellow aspens and orange cattails and many ducks here, but also a sort of miniature mesa edge of sandstone, and a lot of prairie dog holes.
Next day, we head south into Navaho country. Miles and miles of nearly flat, dry lands with only sage brush growing on it. In some places the earth is very pale, with white alkali patches, and in others, dark red. Distant native compounds have their hogans, houses and run down barns, and although we see a fair number of horses on the land, only once did I see a flock of sheep, with shepherd and dog. But this land is so huge, anything might be out there. The ridge of rock that Mesa Verde is part of peters out, and there are only occasional classic western rock monuments, Chimney Rock, like a small skyscraper, and the cathedral that is Shiprock. Like Chartres in the wheat fields of France, you can see Shiprock for miles around. It draws the eye with its gothic towers of stone, and is a portent of powers we can’t understand. Volcanoes, earthquakes, sandstorms, big medicine here, and dangerous. The Navaho wisely consider it a holy place, and do not encourage more than a stop on the highway shoulder. There are, of course, folks who would like to try and kill themselves climbing it, some climb and are caught and fined, some are taken by the rock.
Eventually, even the rocks disappear and we are driving straight as an arrow south with hardly a tiny hill or wash to make a change. I always thought the desert was like the Sahara of the movies, one vast sand pile, but this is the real western American desert. We pull into Gallup, to meet a dear friend from back in MA who has moved here. She framed (and praised) my watercolors, and let me empty my talk tank, for which I am forever grateful. She has up and taken off for here and a nice guy that runs a very successful restaurant and bakery here in Gallup, shedding the chains of the East Coast. We have a lovely time over lunch and her guy worked at several of the same nuclear plants that Don did, so they have a merry time together while the ladies catch up. Glad to see she has had a good gallop and found a better place to be.
In Gallup, it is 70, oh joy, I shed my sweater and my chilly shoulders start to relax. We head on south to Show Low AZ to find some friends of Don’s who are at a CG there.
I have driven this road before, and it was spectacular then, but with the snow on the peaks it is amazing. The road first climbs the Dallas Divide, where grassy valleys lie at the feet of the San Juans. Ralph Lauren has a huge ranch along here, with miles of pole fencing. Too much. Other passes just drag you up a big hill and throw you off the other side, but Lizard Head winds up then down, heading for Telluride, the beyond trendy resort. We have a number of steep grades, but then wander up valleys with streams and the aspens all gold. Every corner brings another astonishing rocky, snow-covered peak. The snow outlines the crags and slashes in the black rock. These post card mountains are literally breathtaking. So high, so cold, and in such sharp contrast that for a moment you are so astonished, you can’t breathe. And around the next corner, more and higher and well, almost impossibly beautiful.
The temperature was hovering around 33, and then we began the long slow descent along the Nuestra Senora de los Dolores River (Our Lady of Sorrows), through tired mining towns. In the rear view mirror, I can still see glimpses of the icy peaks, until at Cortez, they are only little bumps sticking up over the low brown hills. There was one icy patch, where a cliff kept the sun off the road, where we did the Hail Mary of the Ice prayer (where you just sit still, don’t touch anything and hope no one does anything stupid) but it was a great drive. We are now at the very southern end of CO, in a familiar desert. Like the TX Hill country, it is all cedar trees and rocks and cactus and other spiky things. Dry and aromatic. We stop for the night in a small CG in Cortez which has mostly construction workers in it, and a whole town of prairie dogs out back.
Mesa Verde, the Indian cliff dwellings National Park is here, and we have a mission to take a photo with a travel bug ( geocaching toy) in front of the sign. I am pleased to see that it is the original 1930’s CCC sign, although it has probably been moved over to widen the road. We do a little geocaching around town, walking around a pond in the fluffy dried weeds and flowers. There are yellow aspens and orange cattails and many ducks here, but also a sort of miniature mesa edge of sandstone, and a lot of prairie dog holes.
Next day, we head south into Navaho country. Miles and miles of nearly flat, dry lands with only sage brush growing on it. In some places the earth is very pale, with white alkali patches, and in others, dark red. Distant native compounds have their hogans, houses and run down barns, and although we see a fair number of horses on the land, only once did I see a flock of sheep, with shepherd and dog. But this land is so huge, anything might be out there. The ridge of rock that Mesa Verde is part of peters out, and there are only occasional classic western rock monuments, Chimney Rock, like a small skyscraper, and the cathedral that is Shiprock. Like Chartres in the wheat fields of France, you can see Shiprock for miles around. It draws the eye with its gothic towers of stone, and is a portent of powers we can’t understand. Volcanoes, earthquakes, sandstorms, big medicine here, and dangerous. The Navaho wisely consider it a holy place, and do not encourage more than a stop on the highway shoulder. There are, of course, folks who would like to try and kill themselves climbing it, some climb and are caught and fined, some are taken by the rock.
Eventually, even the rocks disappear and we are driving straight as an arrow south with hardly a tiny hill or wash to make a change. I always thought the desert was like the Sahara of the movies, one vast sand pile, but this is the real western American desert. We pull into Gallup, to meet a dear friend from back in MA who has moved here. She framed (and praised) my watercolors, and let me empty my talk tank, for which I am forever grateful. She has up and taken off for here and a nice guy that runs a very successful restaurant and bakery here in Gallup, shedding the chains of the East Coast. We have a lovely time over lunch and her guy worked at several of the same nuclear plants that Don did, so they have a merry time together while the ladies catch up. Glad to see she has had a good gallop and found a better place to be.
In Gallup, it is 70, oh joy, I shed my sweater and my chilly shoulders start to relax. We head on south to Show Low AZ to find some friends of Don’s who are at a CG there.
posted by Thistledown24 at 10:22 PM
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