Cranes, sand and beer in the SLV

Cranes gather  in late winter

Drive further, the cranes get closer

I headed south, unsettled on a destination. Just heading south - I knew nothing more. Pueblo seemed too close. The San Luis Valley, Trinidad, Raton …. Some place would win by the time I was 90 miles from the Springs. 

The day before I had thoughts of the San Luis Valley and leaving work early to get a hotel and explore early. As the workday pushed past 4 p.m., I decided to sleep early and maybe head to the SLV in the freezing pre-dawn hours. Instead I woke up around 6:30, and just resolved to go somewhere. Raton appealed, even if New Mexico has tighter COVID-19 restrictions. But I pulled back when the traffic cameras could not give me a good view of the pass. Trinidad seemed too far to drive and not cross into New Mexico. 

So when decision time arrived at Walsenburg, I veered to exit. I could have just as easily journeyed onto Raton, but I would take chances with the San Luis Valley. The Spanish Peaks were snow-dusted and I barely paused as I rode through Walsenburg and onto La Veta Pass. The only other car headed westbound across the pass stayed within two car lengths of me for 20 miles or more before mercifully passing me. With that old lady slump, she gawked into a cell phone barely watching the road. Who cares about cell phones on mountain passes? She passed a corner and I saw her no more. 

The wind kicked hard as I ascended the pass, pushing snow of recent days onto the otherwise dry road. La Veta Pass does not have big drop like other passes – when you hit Fort Garland, you’ve entered the San Luis Valley, which lies much higher than the land across the pass. Most of the towns lie around 7,500 feet above sea level. 

In the wide, wide SLV

Blanca Peak watches over the valley

Once you arrive, the wind from the pass sticks with you. It cannot be escaped on the valley’s west side. Tumbleweeds roamed freely, crossing the road, catching up under cars. To the east, snow-covered Blanca Peak held court, jutting nearly 7,000 feet above the valley floor. The prominent 14’er was among the few peaks to break from the hazy storms coating the Sangre de Cristo. 

I thought back to my first experience with the San Luis Valley, writing articles for my healthcare reports about the region of Colorado that felt foreign and mysterious, a place I might never see, let alone in winter. From Colorado Springs, I could engage its strangeness in less than three hours. Trees became sparse, except for the soaring cottonwood groves that broke the flatness in random groves. The valley’s largest town, Alamosa, means “of cottonwoods” in Spanish. 

Another decision approached as the turnoff for the Great Sand Dunes approached. It was no decision at all – I had a National Park Service annual pass, and I didn’t live here the last time I visited. I was just house-hunting. On clear days, the dunes can be seen from the turnoff, or almost anywhere in the valley. Today I had to strain to see them at first. 

Shimmering dunes

Looking toward Mosca Peak

Dune weather changes fast

The dunes possessed an unusual beauty this morning. They shimmered as the wind buffered them. The winds made the dunes seem hazy from a distance, giving them a magical feel on this suddenly cold morning. Aside from some patches of scattered ice, the broad sandy bed gave little evidence of Medano Creek, which could enliven the base of the dunes during the spring snowmelt. 

The lengthy plain seemed an extension of the Great Sand Dunes. It has been scoured of most features – I doubt any footprints last more than a few hours with the wind pushing like that. A few chunks of driftwood from past springs on Medano Creek broke the sand-covered creek bed. The magic from a distance did not entirely stick closer up – the wind made that impossible. Crossing the creek bed became tiresome thanks to the relentless cold gusts, the same forces that formed the dune field. 

My clothes felt quite sandy despite less than an our --- I decided to hit my westernmost stop next. The Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge lies six miles south of its namesake town, and the series of canals and ponds remains a major avian draw. If there were no cranes, I could still hit the Alamosa NWR on the way back. 

The Rio Grande emerges from headwaters in the San Juan Mountains then cut through the valley on its way to New Mexico and becoming the Texas/Mexico border. At this altitude, the river can be ice-covered for much of winter, aided by the plunge nighttime temperatures take in the valley. At the Rio Grande crossing in Alamosa, there was still significant ice although the river was far from completely covered.

Reports had show cranes arriving in the valley, so they had to hit one of the refuges. In a valley 120 miles long by 70 miles wide, I still felt I needed luck to find them. I was skeptical as flocks of Canada geese that seemed to own the sky. Finding cranes at the Monte Vista NWR required no luck at all. I barely started the 2-mile scenic drive when the flocks of sandhill cranes began warbling above me, arriving in waves ranging from three birds to 30 birds. 

Further down the road, the three cranes spotted at the first lake turned into fields covered by hundreds, possibly thousands, of birds. The cranes are distinguished by their gray bodies and red markings on their beaks and heads. Their spindly legs also fold up behind them when they fly. These cranes like spend the coldest months in Mexico and Texas.

 

The San Luis Valley draws them due to the lakes and canals of the refuge, plus a food supply in the valley’s barley fields. The sandhill cranes spend several weeks in late February and early March before continuing the migration north (they spend several weeks in October as well). A handful of other cars idled through the scenic drive. While flocks of cranes came and went from the main gatherings, they did not leave. The birds seemed mostly unconcerned with human observers. \\

Why do I feel like eagles are watching me?

Except one bird. The last large lake in the refuge bore an ice shelf. On the shelf’s edge, a bald eagle scouted for fish. The bird noticed me before I spotted it, and it surveyed a pair of ducks that flew a little too close. Every few seconds, the eagle cocked its head back toward me. The cranes could have care less about me watching them, but this lone eagle let me know I was there and eyeing it through a camera. I stopped for a coffee at Rain Brews in Monte Vista. The massive coffeehouse occupied much of an old building on U.S. 160, across from an attractive adobe hotel. 

Starting later in the morning made it feasible to stop at the Colorado Farm Brewery, which only opens three days a week. Its hours don’t usually work for visitors from the Front Range not staying overnight. 

The world’s first 100 percent estate brewery makes beer with the grain and hops its grows, water from its wells and yeast it harvests from the San Luis Valley air. I had a flight of their beers, and chose their delicious bitter lager for a follow-up pint. Staff were friendly and seemed as interested in me as I was in how they produced their beers.

When I mentioned the cranes, they told me hundreds had visited their farm fields this morning, then moved westward as the winds gusted. Since I ended up in downtown Alamosa, I ran into the Square Peg Brewworks taproom and scored a 6-pack of the Walvery Tulip, a Dutch kuit, a wheat beer bittered with peat. I didn’t taste it till much later, but the odd ingredients produce a smooth beer not unlike a Belgian tripel. 

The snow that guest onto the highway mounded into slushy ice. I slowed up fast, seeing the flanks of the Sangre de Cristo dropped several hundred feet below the guardrail. From the top of the pass, Walsenburg, the Spanish Peaks and the Picketwire Canyonlands all appeared in full view, where the rising full moon would soon join them. 

Hard to smile with sand buffering your selfie