Crossing into the "Enchanted Land"

One thing I've learned on the Re-Tramp is that a good portion of Lummis's route is shadowed by Interstate Highways, or more accurately, the "Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways". It's convenient when you can follow Lummis's steps by driving on one of these massive, limited access roads that a third of all car miles are driven on in the US.

But in a few places you have to get off the Interstate to stay faithful to the Tramp.  When Colorado Springs is well behind you and you begin to approach the Spanish Peaks in Southern Colorado, this is one moment the intrepid Lummarian must venture off the Interstate.  At this point, I-25 South follows the route of the Santa Fe trail east of the Spanish Peaks on the plains side.  But as I approach the Spanish Peaks I get off the Interstate towards La Veta.  Why does Lummis veer west at this point to take the more difficult La Veta Pass, north of the Peaks?  Author Mark Thompson speculates in his biography of Charles Lummis that he took the La Veta Pass route because it was the scene of the opening passage of a novel, White Chief, by one of Lummis's early literary hero's, Mayne Reid.

I had had 6 days of great luck with weather since I started this trip.  A few grayish days, but no serious impediments.  Winter weather had been one of my chief concerns setting out, and I had even told myself that I would ditch the trailer mid-trip if things got bad.  But so far I've had beautiful weather almost all the way.

Reports of bad rain storms in California had started trickling down to me, even in my tramping state.  I should have tramped to the first weather doppler 3000 or whatever I could find at the first hint of these storms, but instead I just let it be.  Scattered clouds the last few days in Colorado only seemed to add to the picturesqueness of the unfolding country.  Increasingly these clouds were starting to look a little darker.  But no precipitation yet.

The scenery I'm driving through once I get off I-25 is absolutely beautiful.  Some of best times on this trip were when I got off the Interstate.  I passed through small towns, notably Walsenberg, then continued winding my way towards the pass.  In the miles before the pass, you travel through a wide, flat-bottomed, fertile-looking valley flanked by tall mountains.  In this bucolic setting, about a mile before beginning the ascent up the pass, light, ethereal white stuff started falling from the sky.

At the first appearance of flakes I'm very nervous, but it's behaving like flurries so I hope for the best.  Soon after I start up the pass, the white stuff starts clinging to the road.  Soon after that I can start to feel the car shuffling side to side some.  I slow down to 15 mph and turn my hazard lights on as cars begin passing me.  There is now significant accumulation as I start up the largest hill yet.  I just hope by driving slowly and carefully I can get through the pass to lower elevation on the other side.

No dice.  My front wheels, the power wheels, are beginning to spin out and I slow down to a crawling pace up the hill.  The road is a two-lane highway with shoulders.  With my last ounce of forward momentum I steer the car and trailer onto the shoulder and stop.  I get out of the car.  Since I first entered the pass it has become a white out.  I can barely make out the mountainside next to the road.  Standing there in the cold with the flakes coming in at my collar, I consider my options.  I decide that I will not attempt to get this rig any further.  I call AAA and arrange a tow out of La Veta Pass.  It's funny, I think to myself, Lummis too experienced a sudden snow storm crossing this pass: "On the summit of the Pass I had the pleasure of wading through a fierce snow-squall, which was unlooked-for and unwanted."

Sitting comfortably in the roomy cab of the tow truck I feel a rush of relief and can finally enjoy the scenery around me.  I kick off my boots and warm my toes.  What's intensifying the relief is that about 10 minutes before the tow truck arrived, the previously impermeable clouds began to disappear from the pass.  In only a few minutes the white out conditions have been replaced by a gorgeous, blue sky.  I'm squinting as the sun peaks out between mountains, when just 30 minutes ago I was resigned to camping out in my car on the pass if necessary.  It's eerie when we pass a tracker trailer in a deep ditch on the side of the road.

All the sudden we are out of La Veta Pass and descending into the sunny San Luis Valley when a magnificent site greets me.  Off to my right: a massive bluish-purple mountain seems to be rising straight out of the level plain, its very top shrouded in lingering clouds.  This is the storied Mt. Blanca.  As we sit in the silence, the driver who has just pulled my car out of the pass says to me, "I bet you've had enough of these mountains."

"I don't know, it's kind of pretty country actually..."

SHU