In some respects it feels like slipping in through the backdoor. The bed of the river is a mere 3350’ above sea level and without a mountain in sight it doesn’t appear much like Colorado. And yet it is the gateway, the entrance, and perhaps the most straightforward route across the Colorado High Country – the Backbone of North America.
US 50 runs from the Maryland shore to Sacramento. It is known as the “Loneliest Highway in America” for its solitary run across Nevada and western Utah – Stegner’s “Desert Heart” of the American West. Farther east, in west-central Kansas, it meets up with The Arkansas River. The road and river are from there constant companions while on the east side of the Great Divide.
Westward…
Lamar. The name deserves to be a synonym for “tenacious”. At ground zero for the Dust Bowl, the town carries on in breathtaking isolation on the remote plains. Given that, a poignant thought: Grandma had a sister who lived here. And died here…much too young… It seems that even here not everyone could escape the grip of the Spanish Flu…
Las Animas at the confluence of the Purgatoire River with the “Ark”. It was here that the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail, following the Purgatoire, took off southwest toward Raton Pass and the Promise of New Mexico. La Junta, where US 350 splits off the main road and takes a more level path on the Mountain Branch. Rocky Ford, home of the world’s best melons.
Pueblo: “Steel City” as was. Now better titled “Wind City” or perhaps “Solar City”. It is here that the Ark really starts its rise toward the heart of the high country. The deep defile is narrow, but the pathway is clear – the small break between the elephantine Front Range to the north and the double fence of the Wet Mountains and the northern Sangre de Cristo to the south.
A southwest run through Royal Gorge to clear the Front Range and Wet Mountains. A northwest turn to clear the northern end of the Sangre de Cristo, rail and road hugging the river through Bighorn Sheep Canyon…
At the south end of the broad Arkansas River Valley sits Salida. At 7100’ elevation it is at the bottom of the valley, but with a top-of-the-world feel. Salida: “The Exit”. From its origin near Leadville the Ark runs south to Salida before making the sharp turn southeast to exit the high country and make the long run to the MIssissippi, Gulf, and Atlantic. And then…
The Saguache: In the Hall of the Mountain Kings
Salida is an appropriate place to stop and take a breath. The western skyline is the Saguache Range (also “Sawatch”); if the Colorado Rockies are the backbone of the continent, the Saguache is the backbone of the Colorado Rockies. Eight of the twenty tallest mountains in the state are found here, as are stratospherically high mountain passes. It is the Great Divide, splitting the continent. Time to go over the top…
Viewed from Salida, the path becomes clear. The southern Saguache, tapering ever so slightly, is directly ahead, beckoning the traveler onward. The approach is made following the valley of the South Fork of the Arkansas, at first westerly, and then as the climb continues, curving 90 degrees southward as the summit is approached.
It is the Monarch, and at a pass elevation of 11,312’ it’s actually a low-elevation transition of the range.
There are certain design consequences… At an average grade of 6.4%, it exceeds the maximum slope (6.0%) standard for highway passes (Still, it’s not Slumgullion with its 9.4% northbound approach). The south-facing exposure on the westbound climb and the south-southwest on the eastbound serve well in the winter as they put maximum sunlight on the road surface. That can be less helpful on a hot summer day…
The westward transition descends the Tomichi Creek Valley, first southward and then westward; the long run across Colorado’s Western Slope awaits.
The valley meadows are alpine (we’ve a ways to go to get down to Gunnison). This is ranching country; the extent of agriculture is baling the summer grasses for winter feed.
The confluence with Quartz Creek is at the US Post Office in Parlin. Tertiary highway 76 is to the right; it will claw its way northeast back into the Saguache and up toward Cumberland and Cottonwood passes…a couple of 12-er’s…
At the confluence with Cochetopa Creek Colorado 114 makes a torturous run south up the valley into the Cochetopa Hills and over North Pass (10,149’) before descending into southern Colorado’s San Luis Valley at…Saguache.
The traverse along the Tomichi concludes in Gunnison where the Tomichi reaches confluence with the fabled river. At 7700’ Gunnison sits at the bottom of the valley, almost a bowl-like configuration. There are meteorological consequences: Gunnison is prone to winter temperature inversions, a layer of cold air trapped below warmer air above. Winter nights can be cold. The coldest?: – 47 F.
The run from Gunnison to Montrose is first along and then above the river. The river reach here?: The Black Canyon of the Gunnison. What to say?… It’s a story unto itself…look for it later…
Montrose, at the sprawling upper end of the Uncompahgre Valley. The elevation is low enough that agriculture has a place. Grains and root vegetables predominate at the upper end, but the transition to the lower end brings one into the orchard country for which the Western Slope is justifiably famous. Losing more elevation the highway makes the northwest run to Delta, where the Uncompahgre River joins the quixotic Gunnison, having exited its strange mountain journey just to the east.
The road’s ultimate Colorado stretch follows the Gunnison downstream to its terminus: confluence with the Colorado River. Here in Grand Junction (so named because of the junction of the Gunnison with the “Grand” River, as the Colorado has been called in these parts) the road does not so much end as it is subsumed by the Interstate System. The high sagebrush desert of the eastern Colorado Plateau beckons, an encounter with the Green River awaits, as do the possibilities of southeast Utah’s Canyon Country. It’s a country of austere beauty, but somehow seemingly better suited to I-70 than US 50…
Never fear, we’ll see US-50 again, another 200 miles down the way. Westward… Neither the traveler nor the road are done yet…
