Road Trip: Silverton

On Tuesday last week we decided to make the 50 mile drive from Durango to the old mining town of Silverton. The plans were made without taking into account two major considerations: the road up through the mountains and the weather.

So we awoke early on Tuesday to find it snowing in Durango. How wacky, those of us from Arkansas thought, snow in April! It was in the 60s or so the day before, and the snow was just barely sticking to the grass in Durango. Ignoring this, we piled into the car and headed north on Hwy. 550 towards Silverton.

The road heading north from Durango is deceivingly flat as it heads out of town. But it quickly begins to climb up into the San Juan Mountains. As we drove up higher in elevation, the landscape began to be covered in snow.


Before starting out on the drive, we didn't realize that the road to Silverton actually goes over two mountain passes, each well over 10,000 feet in elevation. The snow turned heavy, and about three inches had accumulated on the road as we slowly made our way through.

Since the excursion to Silverton was mostly my idea, my friend who was driving was shooting an occasional dirty look in my direction as he navigated the snowy roads. I think visions of his Honda skidding off the road were flashing through his head. He pulled over at the top of the second mountain pass, and we all discussed continuing on or turning back around to safety. Luckily, we decided to forge on ahead. Silverton was only 15 miles away, and the roads would be clearer the lower in elevation we went.

I took advantage of the stop and went out to get pictures. This was the view from the top of the mountain pass, which was still shrouded in several feet of snow.


And these were taken out of the window of the car - I'm amazed they turned out:




This one didn't turn out at all, but I'm going to include it anyways since it shows how steep the terrain is. The Animas River runs through a valley located far below the road. Notice the lack of a guard rail too...


But we made it safely down the mountain, and pulled over to get some shots at a spot that overlooks Silverton. The town sits in a valley surrounded by tall mountains.




We stopped at a visitor center run by the chamber of commerce, and found out by a lady there that this was just a typical Spring day in the Rockies.

We went into town and decided to explore some. I found this small park, along a creek that runs into the Animas River.


I was amazed at how deep the snow was still in Silverton.


This is a shot of the San Juan County Courthouse in Silverton. San Juan County is the least populated county in all of Colorado, with a population of only 558 people. Part of the reason for that might be that the county also has the highest mean elevation of any county in the country, at 11,240 feet.


I walked around town some, and walked by what might be the old jail.


And the Silverton City Hall, with the snowy San Juan Mountains in the background.


Silverton was founded in 1876 and is the only town in all of San Juan County. The town has a year-round population of about 500 people, but it is visited by nearly 250,000 people every year. It really is an interesting old town, which does feel like a remnant of the Old West era.


The mountains form a tight circle around the town, shrouded in snow...




Silverton sits 9,318 feet above sea level, which is about 9,000 feet higher than what I'm used to. The old buildings here are well-preserved, and most of Silverton is listed as a National Historic Landmark District.


I had some time to walk around and explore the town. This is an old church a block or so off of the main road.


Being from Arkansas, I'm not accustomed to seeing so much snow. Most places still had several feet of snow on the ground. This was the first time I had ever tried to walk across snow like that, which is an interesting experience. You can take a few steps, but then a foot will wildly sink a few feet into the snow pack. We were exploring the train station, and my friend got this shot of me sunk knee-deep in the snow.


This station is the terminus for the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, which we would be riding the next day. The train doesn't go all the way to Silverton in the Winter or Spring, I guess because of the few feet of snow on the tracks. This old steam engine was parked in front of the station.




It had stopped snowing, and the sun was struggling to break through the clouds. At least the drive home would be a bit safer...


And it was safer, the snow had either been cleared or had melted on the roads.


The next day in Durango, I was talking with a souvenir shop owner. I told her that we had made the drive up to Silverton, and she shook her head disapprovingly. She said that she hates hearing about people "from your part of the country" make that drive, since we don't know how to drive in the mountains. She said that she almost never drives that road to Silverton in the winter. Every time she has tried to drive it in the past, she says, an avalanche falls down near her car. She also had a small chuckle when I paid for some souvenirs using my debit card from the Bank of the Ozarks. She actually said "the Ozarks - how cute."

And one last view, from one of the mountain passes.


At one point, I saw a gauge set in the ground that measured how deep the snow was. It showed that there was over five feet of snow on the ground there.

Road Trip: Mesa Verde National Park

So last Monday we left our hotel in Durango and made the drive over to Mesa Verde National Park. We were a bit surprised to learn that the Park Service was letting people in for free that day, but then a bit disappointed to learn that it was because they were doing road construction and maintenance on some of the cliff dwellings (which were closed).

From the park entrance, the main road is steep and twisty as it climbs up a few mountains. With some delays from road construction in the park, it took awhile to finally make it to the visitor center. But along the way we did stop at a few overlooks. This is a view from the Geologic Overlook, of some snowy Rocky Mountains.


There was a really strong wind blowing through the park, so I'm not sure how sharp these pictures are. The wind made it a bit hard to stand still for pictures....


We stopped and had a look around the visitor center, and then drove to the Chapin Mesa Museum. From the museum, you have a nice view of the Spruce Tree House cliff dwellings, which are usually open to the public via a self-guided tour. But that trail was closed for maintenance. I asked a ranger why, and he said they were re-paving the trails that day. It's much easier for them to close the entire trail down instead of leaving parts of it open, since people tended to ignore the "keep out" signs in order to trod over the wet concrete.

So here is the best I could do of the Spruce Tree House:


The park contains several steep valleys and peaks, with elevations ranging from 6,100 to 8,400 feet above sea level.


Mesa Verde became a National Park in 1906, in an effort to preserve the ancient cliff dwellings. Looting and vandalism had left their mark, so the government finally stepped in to protect it. And it's easy to see why it needed protecting. The cliff dwellings here are massive, and over 800 years old.

The cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde were built by the ancient Pueblo people known as the Anasazi, sometime around the 13th century. Mesa Verde contains a surprisingly large amount of ruins, several of which are small and are perched precariously on tall bluffs. The larger cliff dwellings are like small cities, all constructed from blocks of sandstone that were held together with adobe mortar.

There are two loops in the park, with overlooks above many of the cliff dwellings. This is a view of the Square Tower house, which is the tallest dwelling in the park. It's thought to have been occupied between the years 1200 and 1300.


The Anasazi built and lived at Mesa Verde for about a century, but then mysteriously disappeared. No one knows for sure why they abandoned the area, but one of the main theories is because a series of droughts disrupted their crops.


Although these ruins were abandoned by humans, there are some new residents here. A massive bird's nest sits in the top right corner of this shot, home to some sort of huge black bird:


After the Anasazi left, it doesn't appear that anyone else even saw these ruins for centuries. Spanish explorers went through the area in the 1760s and 1770s, but they didn't reach the cliff dwellings. They did name give the area its name, which is Spanish for "green table."

News of the dwellings became known in 1873, when a prospector visited the area. The next year, that same prospector led a photographer into the Mesa Verde area, and he made the first ever photos of the cliff dwellings. More and more ranchers started moving into the area, which led to vandalism and looting at the cliff dwellings. Ancient artifacts were removed, presumably sold on some sort of 1800s version of Ebay.

But the souvenir seekers did some heavy damage to the old cliff dwellings. They knocked down walls, just to let in more light into some of the rooms. Ancient timbers that supported roofs were torn out for use as firewood. The man-made destruction, along with natural erosion, left the cliff dwellings in a bad state. The concerns about damage to the area led to the creation of the National Park in 1906.


These shots were taken from the Sun Point View overlook, which is an amazing spot. The overlook includes numerous cliff dwellings, including that of the Cliff Palace. But several smaller dwellings can be seen, situated quite carefully along the bluff and some alcoves.


It's really amazing to consider that this was built 800 years ago, along the side of a sheer bluff. I can't even imagine how difficult that must have been.






We headed on towards another overlook, this one of Cliff Palace. This was called Camera Point, so it seemed like a fitting spot to test out this new camera. The Fisher Price MarkD Rebel EOS Evolt E-30 is an amazing and compact camera. It has a high megapixel count, an enhanced digital sensor, and a fancy plastic flash that pops up when you hit the shutter.


But here is a view of Cliff Palace from the Camera Point overlook. Cliff Palace is the most famous cliff dwelling in the park, and is thought to be the largest cliff dwelling in the world.


Another view from this overlook was of some distant mountains. It was a bit hazy out there that day, thanks in part to some distant storms.


We headed to yet another overlook, which provided closer views of Cliff Palace.


For a comparison, this is a shot of Cliff Palace back in 1891. It shows what state the ruins were in before the Park Service did some restoration.



And a closer view of Cliff Palace. It's now thought that construction on this massive cliff dwelling started around 1190, and was occupied up until 1300.


It would be a neat area to live, since you get to have a view like this as well:


There were a series of bad forest fires at Mesa Verde a few years back, and you pass through several miles of scorched trees that are just now beginning to recover. You can see some evidence of the fires in the top of this shot:

Road Trip: Newkirk

From Glenrio we travelled west and stopped for a bathroom break at the small town of Newkirk, New Mexico. The Route 66 guidebook we were using made no mention of the town, so we were pleasantly surprised to see that it contained several old buildings. It could also almost be considered a ghost town, except for the lone open gas station that sits like an oasis among the shut-down stores next door.

The off-ramp on I-40 passes right by an abandoned church that sits in an overgrown field.

I made a quick look in the window and saw that there were still pews in the church.

This old building was constructed back in 1910 and was once the town's post office. It also served as a gas station and store. An old car, an Ambassador actually, sits just off to the side...


Further down old Route 66 is another abandoned gas station - Wilkerson's.


Apparently this old station stayed open until 1989, but had to close down because they weren't seeing too many customers.


From there we travelled west, passing by the ghosts of Route 66. When we hit Albuquerque we headed north towards our main destination for the trip: Durango, Colorado.

Road Trip: Glenrio

Heading west, we paid a visit to the old town of Glenrio, which sits right on the border between Texas and New Mexico. Although it appears a few people still live around Glenrio, it can easily be called a ghost town. A string of old gas stations, motels and cafes sit along what was once Route 66, but all are empty and abandoned. The only signs of life were some junkyard dogs that loudly barked when we walked by.

Interstate 40 passes just by Glenrio, and there is an exit there. That exit is marked by two abandoned gas stations. Both now just sit empty as the nearby freeway traffic speeds by.


Glenrio was established way back in 1903, when the Rock Island and Gulf railway opened a station here. In the heyday of Route 66, the town was a popular stopping point. Several gas stations and cafes opened up to welcome the traffic passing through. But the town suffered a major setback when the Rock Island depot was closed. The final nail in the coffin, so to speak, was the construction of the freeway which bypassed Glenrio in 1973. All of the businesses would soon shut down.


This is the Little Juarez cafe, which hasn't seen any customers in decades:


One of the most prominent buildings along the old Route 66 in Glenrio is the "First Motel in Texas/Last Motel in Texas." Depending on which direction travelers were coming from, this was what welcomed them into the state. The sign and building are there, a weary reminder of the glory days of Route 66.




This is a shot of the old post office, which was one of the last buildings to close in Glenrio. All of the buildings along Route 66 in Glenrio were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.

The state line between New Mexico and Texas passes through Glenrio somewhere, but it isn't marked. It is marked on the nearby freeway, but the signs for both states are located on the edges of Glenrio. It's almost as if both Texas and New Mexico are reluctant to claim part of the town. That certainly adds to the lonely and forgotten air that lingers about Glenrio.

An interesting fact about Glenrio - the name comes from the English "glen" for valley, and the Spanish "rio" for river. However, the town isn't located in a valley or along a river. This is one of the old gas stations that shut down long ago along Route 66 there:


There are concrete dividers in the old road, which must have been added to help control traffic back in the days when Glenrio actually saw traffic. The entire time that we were out there we only saw one other car, which just promptly turned back around and headed to the freeway.


The last time I took a road trip out west we stopped at Glenrio, so it was interesting to see the old town again. Since it's located right by the freeway, it really is a neat, although sad, place to visit.