|
|
Reader Service
Free Travel Info |
|
Colorado Calendar
|
|
About our Advertisers
|
|
|||||
MiniTour
Like history and want to escape the crowds?Article by Nancy Muenker, photos by David Muenker Southeastern Colorado's canyons, caves and plains reveal intriguing sights and tales. Huge dinosaur tracks gouge a canyon floor. Rock art etches sandstone walls. An adobe trading post chronicles frontier life on the vast prairie. Whether you like history from centuries, millenniums or millions of years ago, this AAA Colorado Mini Tour is certain to please, especially if you prefer to explore off the beaten path. A rough triangle—with the three points being Trinidad, La Junta and Comanche National Grassland around Campo—provides access to many of the region's lesser-known historical highlights, as well as a real "gem" that shines brightest at the spring equinox. A good starting point is Trinidad. Rich with attractions, it orients visitors to the region. During its early years, the community was a supply center for travelers on the Santa Fe Trail. The legendary route ran through the center of town, now known as Corazón de Trinidad National Historic District. In summer months, a free step-on/step-off trolley complete with tour guide transports visitors from the Welcome Center to downtown and such sites as the Trinidad History Museum complex. Two of its entities, the Baca House and the Bloom Mansion, show the lifestyle of prosperous citizens during the trail and railroad eras. Arguably the most impressive item in the complex's Santa Fe Trail Museum is Kit Carson's exquisite buckskin coat. The Old West comes alive in the striking paintings exhibited in the A.R. Mitchell Museum of Western Art, also located in the historic district. As a native of the Trinidad area, Arthur Roy Mitchell grew up among freighters, trappers and cowboys. These colorful characters and his experience as a ranch hand provided him with wagons-full of detail to incorporate into his art. From Trinidad, the Mini Tour follows the historic Santa Fe Trail—now U.S. Hwy. 350—as it arches northeast for 81 miles to La Junta. As it approaches La Junta, the road passes through one of two areas that comprise Comanche National Grassland (the other area is farther southeast on the border with Oklahoma). The federal government established this public land when it purchased farms from owners left destitute by the 1930s Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. Today, native grasses carpet the terrain, and canyons conceal prehistoric treasures. From La Junta, Hwy. 109 leads 15 miles south to Vogel Canyon, a Comanche National Grassland site whose walls display rock art images of animals and abstracts. Archaeologists surmise the petroglyphs were etched some 1,100 years ago. At Vogel Canyon, views from the one-mile, wheelchair-accessible Overlook Trail reveal the refuge that the canyon provided Native Americans, pioneers and ranchers. The easy, 1 3/4 mile Canyon Trail, which descends to the valley floor, provides a closer look as it winds past homestead ruins, a spring, and several specimens of rock art. Picket Wire Canyonlands, which is accessed just 15 miles south of Vogel Canyon (follow the signs from Hwy. 109), is also in the southern section of Comanche National Grassland and cradles the largest documented dinosaur track site in North America. More than 1,300 imprints formed in the Jurassic Period are visible. Reaching the locale requires hiking or bicycling 5.3 miles one way from the trailhead—a full day outing. Although long, the trail is flat, with easy footing on a wagon road. Drinking water, sunscreen and food are musts. The path descends 500 feet from the parking area to a valley floor carpeted with native grasses and cacti. Piñon pines and junipers blanket the slopes. Cottonwoods border arroyos. Along the way, the route threads past remains of the Dolores mission, built in the late 1800s by Mexican pioneers. Tombstones stand askew in the cemetery. Petroglyphs chiseled by nomadic hunter-gatherers decorate rock walls. At the 150 million-year-old track site, huge dinosaur footprints puncture the banks of the Purgatoire River. An interpretive panel gives details about the two types of prehistoric beasts that passed through here on the shore of what was then a large, shallow lake. The 33-ton, plant-eating brontosauruses left round impressions in the ground. Parallel tracks indicate that the younger ones traveled in groups. The other creatures-ferocious, meat-eating allosauruses — also stood two stories high but weighed only four tons. Their sharp-clawed feet left distinctive three-toed tracks. Footprints of both types of dinosaurs point in several directions, indicating heavy activity. Visitors can explore the area from dawn to dusk, year-round. Back on the Santa Fe Trail route northeast of La Junta (now U.S. Hwy. 50), Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site depicts life at this trading post from 1833 to 1849. For two decades, trappers, hunters, Plains Indians, Santa Fe Trail merchants and pioneers, and eventually American soldiers frequented the adobe known as the "Castle on the Plains." Indeed, the fort epitomized both a cultural and commercial crossroads. (Guided tours available September through May at 10:30 a.m. and 1 p.m.) From Bent's Fort, the mini tour travels southeast (via small county roads or U.S. Hwy. 287/385) to the third point in the triangle—the southern section of Commanche National Grassland-an area of the Grassland near Campo, a few miles north of the Oklahoma border and 100 miles east of Trinidad. In this remote spot is an extraordinary treasure. Twice a year, on the spring and fall equinoxes, the rays of the rising sun flow into the slit opening of Crack Cave in Picture Canyon and shine like a spotlight on an unusual petroglyph. Its design — a series of vertical lines with one horizontal line intersecting them — has stirred spirited debate among epigraphers and archaeologists. Some scholars liken it to a style of Old World Celtic writing called Ogam, which raises speculation that pre-Colombian Europeans traveled through here. On the equinoxes (March 20 and September 22 in 2004), a national forest ranger unlocks the metal gate protecting Crack Cave and interprets the phenomenon for visitors. In addition, on the fall equinox, the nearby town of Springfield hosts a festival and offers bus tours to Picture Canyon. The chances of a cloudless morning are about 50/50, rangers advise, but the area intrigues visitors whether or not the sun spotlights the petroglyph. The on-site ranger also points out other rock art in the canyon. Erosion has rendered many of the petroglyphs imperceptible to all but trained eyes. "Ahas" ripple among the visitors as they "discover" etched human figures, goats and boars on walls that just moments before were simply rock. The rock art also includes 18th- and early 19th-century pictographs, which were painted instead of etched on the walls. Among them are the Blue Horse, Black Buffalo, and Warrior with Two Spears. Some, like the Spotted Woman, tweak the imagination. Large circles decorate her torso. Is she a goddess or an outcast infected with deadly measles? Following the canyon trail reveals even more fascinating figures. Like the visitors who suddenly realize that a seemingly unadorned rock wall is etched with evocative images, those travelers who explore southeastern Colorado (over a weekend or several days) will come away delighted and surprised at the history, mystery and lore that they find. Nancy Muenker is the author of two travel guidebooks: Colorado Front Range History Explorer and Colorado Front Range Scenic and Historic Byways. Planning Your Trip For information about Vogel Canyon and Picket Wire Canyonlands, visit the Comanche National Grassland website, www.fs.fed.us/r2/psicc/coma/; call 719-384-2181; or write 1420 East 3rd Street, La Junta, CO 81050. For information about Picture Canyon, visit the above website; call 719-523-6591; or write P.O. Box 127, Springfield, CO 81073. Springfield, about 100 miles east of Trinidad, is the closest town that offers a selection of motels and restaurants; camping is permitted in the Picture Canyon's parking area. For information about Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site, visit www.nps.gov/beol/; call 719-383-5010; or write to 35110 Highway 194 East, La Junta, CO 81050-9523. For attractions, activities and lodging in the region, visit the websites for Trinidad, www.trinidadco.com; La Junta, www.lajunta.net; and Springfield, www.springfield colorado.com
|
