Day 37: La Junta CO to Placerville CO

Day 37

Miles 391 (10,455)
Two Lanes 389 (7511) 72%
Top Down 388 (8576) 82%



Old Fort Bent was a commercial center on the Santa Fe Trail. Built by the Bent brothers, it operated from 1833-1849. 3 weeks from Santa Fe to the southwest and 5 weeks from Independence, MO, this was a slice of civilization. This was not a military fort but a trading center. Nevertheless, it was built as a fort with two turrets for protection. It was the combined Target, Hyatt, Restaurant, and Pub of the surrounding several hundred miles. In 1836 wagons brought in a full sized English billiard table. They had whiskey and fine French wine.

The trading occurred between four parties: the Mexicans coming north from Santa Fe; the Americans coming west from Missouri; the trappers; and the Cheyenne Indians.

The Americans coming west were not for the most part settlers, but trains of wagons, owned by corporations that ran fleets with hired drivers, bo different than today’s trucking firms.

The Cheyenne traded buffalo hides for Anglo goods. The decimation of the buffalo is often blamed on the white an, and the white man deserves that accusation, but in this case the Cheyenne became so ‘hooked’ on commercial items that they brought in over 100 million buffalo hides, and soone wiped out the buffalo. The Cheyenne had to range farther and farther from Fort Bent until finally the trade dwindled. This, coupled with the increasing popularity of the Cimarron cutoff that bypassed this part of the original trail, led to the demise of the trading fort in 1849.

From old diagrams and careful measurements documented when the fort was built, the US National Park Service rebuilt the fort in the 1970’s to the time of 1846. Enjoy the photos.

Continuing to follow the Arkansas River, we passed Pueblo and came to Canon City and the Royal Gorge. The Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad ran its passenger trains through her for decades, proudly boasting “The Royal Gorge Route”. Amtrak years ago chose to run its trains north through Glenwood Canyon and Moffat Tunnel into Denver. Now the tracks are for the most part abandoned, used only as a place to park over 100 empty gondola cars. These cars are used when needed to haul coal from the local mines to power plants to increase the carbon load in many ways.

The Gorge is “owned” (really) by the City of Canon City. They charge $22 per person to see it, walk on the bridge, and ride the gondola to the bottom; one price for all. That is a good deal unless all you want to do is see the gorge, which is what we wanted. So, turned away by the commercialism, we decided to spend our time down the road at Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.

The Arkansas is a rafting river. In fact you can raft through the Royal Gorge. We stopped at one of the many put-ins and stuck our toes in the water. Cool but not cold. Rafting the Royal Gorge is something to consider in the future. It may be the only way I see it.

After some lunch in an outdoor patio café and a pint of the local brew (O’Dell’s), we headed for the Black Canyon.

I am not a geologist, but this kind of a trip makes you want to read “Geology for Dummies.” In the case of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison River, almost 2 billion years ago (half of the life of the earth) very hard rock was pushed up to the surface as a large long dome. Eventually mountains were raised on both sides, and the erosion covered the hard rock dome. Then volcanoes pushed up to the north and forced the ancient river south over the soft rock covering the hard dome. The river cut through the soft stuff then found itself trapped over the hard ancient rock. It had no choice but to continue to cut through at an estimated rate of the width of one human hair annually.

Doing some quick math, if a hair is ¼ of a millimeter thick. Then the river would cut a mm in 4 years, a cm in 100 years, a meter in 10,000 years and 1000 meters in 10,000,000 years, 3300 feet in 10,000,000 years. What we have trouble wrapping our brain is the multiplier of time. It is enormous.

So this land was built up and eroded and the cycle was repeated many times, but that hard ancient 1.75 billion year old rock called schist remained. Only the river could cut slowly through it.

This leads to what exists along the walls of the canyon. The surface rock is 170 million years old. But down several feet the rock is 1.75 billion years old. All of the rock for the years in between is missing. Some never formed, the rest was formed and completely eroded away, repeatedly. Wrap your brain around that.

I will let the photos tell the rest of the story.

We then drove to the northern edge of the San Juan Mountains, home to ski areas like Purgatory and Telluride. We spent the night at the delightful Blue Jay Lodge.


Bent's Old Fort







Ah. The good stuff.



The billiard table, brought by wagon in 1836.



The Arkansas River above Royal Gorge






Blue Mesa Lake (reservoir) on the Gunnison above Black Canyon



Black Canyon of the Gunnison










The San Juans