The Highs and Lows of Colorado
by Leon Schwarzbaum



I'm looking over the buffet at a cocktail party when Nita comes over and asks, "Where are you going next?" Our friends know my wife and I travel - a lot. I shrug, and mumble, "I dunno." Nita gives me one of her grins and asks, "Why not Colorado?"

I know she lived there for many years, so I take the bait. She tells me what she has in mind. We'll fly to Denver, rent a car and spend the next two weeks visiting sites she will recommend. Sites I never heard of. Tops of mountains, bottoms of gorges, with a few off-beat destinations. When I call my wife over and tell her what Nita and I have been discussing, she says, "You're kidding." But I'm not, and three weeks later, we go.

We pick up a rental car at the Denver airport. Denver is a mile above sea level, so I know the car has been tuned for high altitudes. Later, we'll see what happens to cars from near sea level.

Driving south on I-25, our car overheats. We stop at the rental company's location in Colorado Springs, elevation 5,980 feet, where they exchange our "steamer" for an new sedan. After checking into a motel, we begin our exploration. Nita has omitted the Air Force Academy from our itinerary, and we pass it up. Instead, we take US 24 to the Garden of the Gods, a 1,300-acre park at the base of Pike's Peak. The park contains towering red sandstone formations that change color as the sun moves across the sky and sundown approaches, and the road takes visitors through an incredible display of local flora, even though it is mid-summer.

The next morning, we decide not to drive up to Pike's Peak, but to take the cog railway that carries passengers up to an elevation of 14,110 feet. Again taking US 24 to Manitou Springs, elevation 6,636, we learn that we should have made a reservation, but luckily some passengers haven't showed up and we board the railway car and begin our climb. The schedule calls for the round trip to take 3 hours and 15 minutes, but the constantly-changing views make it seem much shorter. We see some Rocky Mountain sheep as we climb - they look like goats to me, but I am assured that both male and female sheep have horns. At the summit, we can see Denver, 75 miles to the north and the Sangre De Cristo Mountains, 100 miles to the south.

We skip the Cave of the Winds (too many tourists) and return to Colorado Springs to take High Drive, part of the city's park system. My wife tells me it's a breath-taking experience, but I can only attest to the heart-stopping experience of driving uphill along a one-way road with no guard rails, through steep mountain terrain for four miles and then three miles more of descent. It's definitely not on my "recommended" list. I can barely pry my fingers from the steering wheel when we stop for coffee.

Our next stop is Canon City, elevation 5,348 feet, and the Royal Gorge Bridge, 8 miles west. Built in 1929, the one-lane toll bridge is the world's highest suspension bridge, 1,053 feet above the Arkansas River. We park and pay our toll to walk across the bridge. We also take the world's steepest inclined railway down to the bed of the river, and follow that up with the aerial tram. Royal Gorge's ups and downs fascinate us.

That evening, we drive to the city of Pueblo for dinner. As we cross the plateau between Canon City and Pueblo, we see a thunderstorm moving parallel to our route. Huge dark cloud masses, flashes of lightning and curtains of rain move with us, but we are driving in afternoon sunlight and not a drop of rain falls on us or the roadway.

From Canon City, we take US 50 to Salida and Route 17 south toward Alamosa. Our destination is the 38,000-acre Great Sand Dunes National Monument, where the wind-borne sand, carried northeastward from the San Luis Valley is deposited at the base of the Sangre De Cristo mountain range. The somber, shifting sand dunes have been deposited over the past 15,000 years, some rising as tall as a 70-story office building. We sign up for a 2-hour jeep tour of the dunes and end the visit at the visitors' center, where we have left our car.

In Alamosa, elevation 7,531 feet, we browse through the gift shops and, on a side street we discover a factory where "antique" jewelry is manufactured. When the silversmiths finish tumbling and applying patina to their creations, you would accept a story, without question, that these are someone's grandmother's cherished heirlooms, pawned to provide rent money. We buy a couple of bracelets, to give as gifts, paying the "right" prices for them.

We skip the alligator farm and wild life refuge and check in for the night.

The following day, we drive west on Route 160 and climb to the Continental Divide, where rivers will now flow to the Pacific. At Wolf Creek Pass, elevation 10,800 feet, we begin our descent to the west side of the Rockies. Country and Western music fans may remember Johnny Cash's song describing a runaway truck, descending from Wolf Creek Pass and finally stopping against a general store in Pagosa Springs. Well, pardner, here we are goin' through Wolf Creek Pass (albeit with brakes) and passing through "downtown" Pagosa Springs. Our route takes us to Durango, elevation 6,500 feet.

We have adjusted to the high altitude - rarely have we descended below 5,000 feet on this trip. Travelers with respiratory or cardiac problems are frequently warned, by signs posted in parks and rest rooms, that high altitude activity requires more effort and problems may occur if oxygen deficiency symptoms appear. Motorists from low-altitude areas, and there are many, have discovered another caveat. Unless your carburetor or fuel injection system has been adjusted, your car won't start in the morning. Ours, comfortable in the mile-high thin air, gives us no trouble.

In Durango, we have a choice of adventures. We can ride the Durango & Silverton Railroad, a narrow gauge line built over a century ago to take miners to Silverton or float down the Animas (Lost Souls) River. Or, we discover, buy a combination ticket for both. We confer and decide to pass both up - they're not on Nita's list. Instead, we push on the Mesa Verde National Park, where we have reservations for three nights at Fair View Lodge, within the park boundaries. We have been advised that advance reservations are absolutely necessary. No ticket, no bed.

The 80-square-mile park rises to 2,000 feet above the valley along the north side and slopes gradually to the cliffs on the south, and contains more than 4,000 ruin sites, including 600 cliff dwellings. Our accommodations are surprisingly comfortable, in spite of our isolation high on the plateau. From the Lodge, we can see Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, spread out before us like a green and tan carpet. When we walk out at night, starlight is so bright we can see our way clearly. No smog, fog or haze obstructs our view of the universe around us.

More than 20 large canyons cut through the mesa (Spanish for "table top") and in these, archeologists have discovered hundreds of cliff dwellings. Only a few of these sites have been "stabilized" - readied for visitors. Asphalt roads lead to overlooks to the main ones. Evidence exists to date the first of these to 1,500 years in the past. Some researchers speculate that the cliff dwellings were established as a means of preventing the Aztecs from taking slaves to support their empire's need for laborers.

Fair View Lodge gives us an edge on the other visitors to the park. The lodge presents a multimedia depiction of the history of the Anasazi (Ancient Ones), who inhabited the area for almost 800 years, until a drought forced them to abandon their villages and homes.

We arrange to visit some of the sites, and, because we are staying at the Lodge, we can take early tours and avoid the mid-day heat. Our guides provide running commentaries, some of which are as funny as any sitcom. "If you can't climb our 40-foot ladders," says one, "we can let you use our 37-foot ladders to reach the ruins." Names have been given to the sites by the archeologists, and we plan to visit Balcony House, Cliff Palace, Fewkes Canyon Ruins, Spruce Tree House, Square Tower House and Sun Temple. We drive The Ruins Road, two six-mile loops that provide views of 40 cliff dwellings and several lookout points. Although we have become acclimated to the altitude, we are finding it harder to maintain the level of energy we usually have at sea level.

After three days of intensive sightseeing and lecture attending, we leave the Park and head back to Durango and north on US 550. At Montrose, elevation 5,820 feet, we detour to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument. Here, the Gunnison River has carved a twelve-mile gorge through some of the Earth's oldest rocks to a depth of 2,700 feet. The top of the canyon is about 1,000 feet wide but at the river level, it is only about 40 feet wide. We descend on a walkway carved into the black rocks - schists, granites and other Precambrian rocks - in the company of a ranger. Halfway down, she directs our attention to what look like mummy cases, tied to the wall of the gorge. These are rescue baskets, used in lieu of stretchers to hoist stricken climbers in an emergency.

The climb back to the surface, as you may imagine, is difficult. The gasping and wheezing preclude conversation. Some of us sheepishly accept the oxygen bottles offered by our guide and take deep breaths of the energy-restoring gas.

Back on US 550, we parallel the Gunnison River to Grand Junction, named because of the joining of the Gunnison and Colorado Rivers. Our vacation time is running out, so we opt for I-70 to Glenwood Springs and then take Route 82 through Snowmass to Aspen, elevation 7,937 feet. We have friends who summer in Aspen, renting out their condo in winter to skiers while they occupy their other home in Arizona. Here, too, we hear cars from Texas and other low-altitude locations churning as their drivers try to start them in the morning. The local service stations reap a bonanza from these uninformed motorists, who call for service trucks to get their cars started.

Our friends take us hiking in the hills, to admire the bright Alpine flowers along the steep trails. We spend a day visiting the towns, now almost ghost towns, bearing names that recall the reason for their founding: Leadville, Copper Mountain, Basalt, Granite. The ski slopes are green and the village gives little evidence of the crowds that fill the streets during the winter.

"You have to see it," our friends insist, so we leave on Route 82 east to US 24, and then north to Vail. We look. Ersatz Alpine chalets, imitation Swiss shopping centers, rental units and condominiums, and, we discover, inflated prices in shops and restaurants. Paraphrasing the old saying, after staying overnight, I grumble, "It may be a nice place to live in, but I wouldn't want to visit."

Our time has run out, so we take I-70 back to Denver. We have reserved a room at the Brown Palace Hotel, an elegant structure built in 1892. The atrium lobby, a pioneer in architectural concept, and the period furnishings, rugs and stained glass ceiling, delight us as we check in. Our room is modern, well-equipped and comfortable. We have dinner at the Palace Arms, a four-diamond restaurant in the hotel, and are pleasantly surprised by the prices, low by New York standards.

After a comfortable night, we return our rental car and board our plane for the flight home. We agree that Nita was right about Colorado. We haven't seen everything she listed, but we have visited sites we never would have considered without her advice.