A few hours’ drive takes my team to the hushed beauty of the remotest place in the lower 48. By Debi Boucher
Wildflowers, not power lines. That’s what the seven of us from Colorado Springs want in our late summer photographs, so we pick the remotest place in the lower 48, the place with the fewest roads, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, for a road trip.
Home base for Operation Wildflower is Ouray, where we rent 4×4 jeeps (sedans can make the trip – but it’s not advisable) and with military precision pack them with an abundance of camera gear, water and food. We’ll need everything because we’re headed to a convenience food desert – Hinsdale County, Colo. We won’t see civilization again until we reach Lake City, beyond two rugged mountain passes along the Alpine Loop – a combination of two 4×4 roads over two passess: Engineer and [Cinnamon].
Our journey begins on the Million Dollar Highway and continues over Red Mountain Pass. We caffeinate in Silverton.
Our route through the wilderness, the foresaid Alpine Loop, is an ancient one. Native Americans cut hunting paths. Those paths much later became roads for hauling supplies to prospectors seeking gold. From the comfort of our heated vehicles, we marvel at the “no-guts-no-glory” gumption that propelled these hunters and pioneers into places and situations beyond what most of us urbanites can imagine.
The ghoslty evidence of that gumption is in the scattered remnants of a mining town. Animas Forks, at the crossroads of California Gulch, Cinnamon Pass and Engineer Pass. Once the home of 450 residents, with stores and 30 cabins, the community moved on when mining stopped. Fire and avalanche consumed what remained. Today you see a three-story “bay window house,” built by a postman and miner who struck it rich in the mines, and since then lovingly restored.
A quarter mile farther down the road rests the skeletal frame of an old mill, transported by the Silverton Northern Railroad, loaded into wagons and hauled to the site for assembly in the summer of 1912. Today, it is silently flanked by a sea of yeallow wildflowers.
We drive slowly over the top of Cinnamon Pass, named for the spice-colored dirt. From this 12,640 – foot vantage point, we see three of the nation’s highest mountains – Handie’s, Redcloud, and Sunshine Peaks. At the foot of Handie’s Peak lies American Basin, one of the most photographed locations in the San Juan Mountains. Columbine, scarlet paintbrush, lupine, sneezeweed and others bloom in abundance.
We see wildflowers everywhere along the drive, but now and then, nature puts on a show with a force that lifts our feet off the accelerator and plunge the brake pedal. At some unlabled location on the road high above timberline, we see a field of vibrantly colored mixed wildflowers. A little further along, a valley of purple; only one flower – elephant head – blooms here.
On the way up Engineer Pass, we chatter like school kids on the steep, seat-bouncing, switch-back grade. Then we reach a pull-out known as Oh! Point, aptly named. Spread before us is the green, grassy tundra of American Flats, surrounded by dozents of peaks, many of them fourteeners. Here the clouds enclose us. The hush is otherworldly, as if we had entered an entirely new space, or dimension.
Cinnamon Pass Road takes a northeasterly direction as it approaches Lake San Cristobal. The lake sits at 9,003 feet, the second largest natural lake in Colorado, damned by a massive landslide 700 years ago. The yellow earth, known as Slumgullion Earthflow, a name deriveed from a miner’s stew of similar color, continues to slide at a rate of about 20 feet per year.
Among the willows at Lake San Cristobal, I watch a bull moose and a red-winged black bird test each other’s tenacity. The bird perches on the bull’s antlers. The bull shakes off the bird, which attempts several more landings, until the bull rises up on his hind legs and angrily paws the air, finally ridding himself of his annoying visitor.
The only incorporated town in Hinsdale County is Lake City (summer population: 800). Founded in 1875, it’s one of the oldest and best preserved historic communities in the state. There are no fast food restaurants here, no chain stores, and many businesses in town close for the winter. But in the summer months Lake City bustles with the one industry that survives — tourism. The mouthwatering smell and smoke of BBQ greet you from a converted 1950’s era gas station with an old Texaco sign and gas pumps. Consuming brisket tacos and BBQ by the pound, our hunger and our solitued are forgotten.
Along the historic boardwalk, we wander into galleries and gift shops, and admire the late 19th-century architecture. The Operation Wildflower team agrees that spending some time at the San Juan Soda Company’s old-fashioned soda fountain would be a good idea. An over the top cherry ice cream soda caps my day in the remotest spot south of Canada.
Hinsdale County
- 1,123 square miles, 96 percent public land.
- Five fourteeners and more than 20 thirteeners.
- The Continental Divide crosses twice: Weminuche Wilderness and Gunnison National Forest.
Courtesy On The Road
- Stay on designated roads. Obey posted signs for parking and trails.
- Drive slowly and watch for on-coming traffic.
- Stay on your side of the road on blind curves. Honk to warn on-coming traffic.
- Uphill traffic has the right-of-way.
- Do not park or stop on narrow sections of the road. Use pull-outs or wider areas of the road to park.
- Respect private property.
- Stay out of mine buildings, tunnels, and shafts.
- Let others know your travel plans.
- Plan your route and carry essential equipment and water.
- Be prepared for changing weather.
- Keep track of you time. Travel her is difficult in the dark.
Debi Boucher is a freelance writer and photographer and a regular contributor to EnCompass by AAA Colorado.
