Pursuing legends

Beaver pond on Cucharas Creek

Too many mornings had passed since I struck out to wander. For all the attention the central Rockies receive, I wanted to head south. People joke that Colorado turns into New Mexico at Pueblo, but it isn’t that simple.  A series of hardscrabble ranching towns survive on the route south, including Walsenburg, the jump-off point for adventures on both side of the Sangre de Cristo range, which has few paved passed.

I had crossed La Veta pass into the San Luis Valley but a less-traveled route that continued south called to me. Who could skip a route named the Highway of Legends, especially when the legends involve the Ute Indians and the spirits of a Conquistador party that vanished along the route more than 400 years ago?

Fifty miles out from Walsenburg, the Spanish Peaks slipped free of the foggy morning. On clear mornings, the two volcanic mountains – one a 13’er and one just below - can be seen from high spots in Colorado Springs. The first time I spotted them while crossing a shelf of land on the east side of town I wondered if I saw them. Sure enough, it was them.

Before jumping onto the route at La Veta, I wanted to do a little exploration in Walsenburg, where I had I barely paused on previous trips.

I wandered downtown with camera, catching shots of the scaffolded courthouse, the theater offering ‘May the Fourth Be with You” to passersby and the myriad bars and restaurants closed by the shelter-at-home order. I was days away from buying beer at Crafty Canary, the southernmost brewery in Colorado.

West of town the Spanish Peaks loomed large. The twin volcanic mountains, known in Ute as the “Breasts of the earth” (tee-hee), they strike a sharp image before the Sangre de Cristo range running behind them. They don’t appear as dramatically as Pikes Peak, but they do rise nearly a mile above the surrounding countryside.

Radial dukes off the Spanish Peaks

I skipped through the short blocks of La Veta, a charming tourist town I visited a few weeks before the pandemic shuttered everything. Everything but the grocery seemed closed. Near a bed and breakfast, I stopped long enough for a state trooper to roar past me, disappearing onto the Highway of Legends. Few roads anywhere better earn their names, as this high ground in southern Colorado is driven with myths of Indian and Spanish origin.

The rock features are unique and appear soon after La Veta fades. The Spanish Peaks loom larger as the radial dykes come into view. Walls of rock burrowed deep into the earth contrast with the mountains. Some look fragile, as if a stark wind could push them down. Others are dense and august, seeming to emulate Roman aqueducts despite their volcanic construction.

The road swept through a bit of ranchland before burrowing into the pine forest at higher elevations. At Dakota Dukes Gift Shop in Cuchara, the owner sat outside smoking. The second I thought to wave his hand went up, just as it did for everyone who passed while he sat outside.

The Cucharas River is fed by numerous creeks, including Cucharas Creek flows along a placid U.S. Forest Service road down from the heights of the Sangre de Cristo range. The creek’s steeply descended along to the mountain grade, its fall eased by a series of beaver dams.

Looking up from the San Isabel NF

I reached the campgrounds on the upper lakes. Blue Lake and Bear Lake both sit around 10,500 feet above sea level, but the thin air didn’t bother me today. With USFS campgrounds and trailheads mostly closed, the road was desolate and peaceful.

Before returning to the Highway of Legends, I stopped at the biggest beaver pond. I could spot the lodge within the beaver-created lagoon, but no beavers would emerge this morning. Still, it was a relaxed, almost spiritual place, with water draining from the dam at strategic points. The dam’s creation had killed trees previously on the creek banks, providing a steady supply of fresh lumber for dams and lodges.  I didn’t want to leave this little reservoir.

AS I reached Cucharas Pass I found the wildlife that escaped me on the forest service road flung themselves in front of my car. A series of mule deer bounded on the road and down a steep embankment.

Cucharas Creek

The highway snaked around a high-altitude reservoir whose surface was dotted by a few fishing boats. In the shade trees on the west bank more mule deer waited in the shade to spring out.

At the town of Stonewall, an actual stone wall greeted visitors. This split fin of red rock was among the volcanic features radiating off the Spanish Peaks.

After Weston, the forks of the Purgatoire River met on their journey up the Arkansas. I turned onto a dirt road and immediately felt like I crossed out of Colorado into New Mexico. The Bosque del Oso state wildlife area fanned out in the arroyos and canyons along the Purgatoire River, also called the Picketwire. Fans of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance might remember references to the Picketwire – Purgatoire has been Anglicized into Picketwire. In the east, the Purgatoire might qualify as a creek. In the arid southwest canyonlands, its floodplain made any life possible.

Purgatoire or Picketwire

The rushing waters boast an even better Spanish name - El Rio de las Animas Perdidas, or the River of Lost Souls. French trappers named the river to honor a party of Spanish soldiers who died in the vicinity of the river.

A burnt-up old ranch resembled the home that John Wayne’s Tom Doniphan set ablaze in the movie. The river itself boasted decent flow, with massive cottonwood groves along its floodplain.

The road and the river followed a series of canyons and floodplains – in a few miles, I zipped past Smith, Valdez and Widow Woman canyons on the way, the landscape rolling in ways had not anticipated.  

I followed the Purgatoire through many small towns and rises that brought me to Trinidad Lake, a state park and reservoir in the shadow of august Fisher Peak. While only 9,000 feet above sea level, it rises 3,000-plus feet from Trinidad and is higher than any point in the U.S. east of its longitude. A few weeks earlier in May, the peak became part of the Colorado state park system, immediately qualifying as the second-largest park and opening a pristine wilderness to the public.

I took several turns into the hilly neighborhoods, attempting to snap a good shot of Fisher Peak, the mountain that rises abruptly from the city. Eventually I gave up – I could not find a good spot, not after many hours on the Highway of Legends.

Trinidad moves at a frenetic pace, one that makes it difficult for the casual visitor to melt into its main drag. I grabbed a quick to-go lunch at a Main Street restaurant and returned to the interest, Fisher Peak looming as I ascended the highway out of Las Animas County.

The allure of the Highway of Legends grew stronger on the flat, desert plain leading back to Walsenburg. The low mountains to the west hid the majestic Spanish Peaks. The Highway of Legends ran just to the west, and already felt like a myth.

Deserted ranch

Alright, Ringo, you win