Alpine Tunnel
On my third day visiting my Colorado friends, there was finally no rain, but Elantu did not feel well, and Harold can't ride in the Land Cruiser because his back is worse than mine. Mike and I were both positively itching to go somewhere, and it was likely to rain again the next day, so I took Mike up on his offer to go on a Land Cruiser adventure.
We drove up Old Monarch Pass, a well maintained dirt road with a lot of very long switchbacks, and then we went over Blacksage Pass and Waunita pass, so we bagged three dirt road passes on our way to our ultimate destination, Alpine Tunnel. We occasionally had to stop for various animals in the road: cattle, marmots, and one female blue grouse. Finally we passed through the town of Pitkin and headed up the road to Alpine Tunnel. This road is listed as a Class 1, but we've got a couple of substantial cowboy hats that we'll eat if that was an appropriate designation. It's an old railroad bed clinging stubbornly to the mountainside because if it lets go, it will plummet over a dizzying distance all the way down to the valley below.
We drove past one place where there used to be a town, but it was buried in a landslide, and pretty much everybody died and they never rebuilt. There is no longer any sign of the town. At another spot farther up, there was a former town where there were still a few beams remaining here and there.
We passed the entrance to Hancock Pass and continued up to where our road got really narrow. Since we were going up, we had the right of way over the Palisades, an area where the railroad workers seemed to have built the road out from the mountain instead of cutting it into the mountain. The road is supported by the stones that the workers cut and fitted themselves. It's narrow, so a full-size vehicle can drive along it, but two full-size vehicles would be hard-pressed to pass one another even at a pull-out.
We drove on by Williams Pass, which is a pile of very sizable rocks that someone refers to as a pass. It is only open from August 1 to August 30 each year.
We arrived at Alpine Tunnel 3.5 hours after leaving the house; we were at 11,600 feet. There was some rain and hail, but we walked out into it to see the old railroad depot, which has been partially restored through volunteer labor. It was quite interesting; I liked it that I could still see the depot's archway in the pattern of the fallen stones. There were some marmots sunning themselves on the restored engine turning area.
Alpine Tunnel caved in during the early 20th century. It has since been sealed to prevent fools like us from peeking in to see what it looks like in there, so of course we were disappointed, but we went ahead and hiked up to 12,000 feet through the rain and hail. The weather cleared up when we reached 12,000 feet. Mike stopped to rest and enjoy the view, and I scampered on for another 10 minutes down the Continental Divide trail toward Tunnel Lake, through an absolutely divine Alpine meadow full of wildflowers, little birds, and chipmunks. There were two stream crossings as well. I felt like Julie freakin' Andrews crossing the Alps, even though I hate that movie. It was perfect, and I hated to leave, but I knew that since it took us so long to get there, we really needed to be heading back. We had told Elantu we'd be back by 7.
On our way down, we had to pull over to allow a full-sized pickup to pass, and we thought we might have to back up the road to find a wider spot. Mike teased me for the rest of my visit because I kept telling him he had more space to pull closer to the edge of the cliff. However, the pickup's driver was extremely bold--you should have seen how he pulled to the very edge of that scary road to let a bunch of four-wheelers drive past him. Mike moved some rocks down from the cliff onto the road so that the pickup could drive at an angle with his right tires on the cliff, and he cruised right past us. After that we hurried down the road with no further incidents.
We thought about bagging another pass, but Mike decided to spare my back by returning over modern, paved Monarch Pass, and it was a good thing we did that, because we got back at 10 minutes of 7. Elantu was about to roust Harold and come out after us!
The four of us had dinner and a movie at the house, and retired for the night.
We drove up Old Monarch Pass, a well maintained dirt road with a lot of very long switchbacks, and then we went over Blacksage Pass and Waunita pass, so we bagged three dirt road passes on our way to our ultimate destination, Alpine Tunnel. We occasionally had to stop for various animals in the road: cattle, marmots, and one female blue grouse. Finally we passed through the town of Pitkin and headed up the road to Alpine Tunnel. This road is listed as a Class 1, but we've got a couple of substantial cowboy hats that we'll eat if that was an appropriate designation. It's an old railroad bed clinging stubbornly to the mountainside because if it lets go, it will plummet over a dizzying distance all the way down to the valley below.
We drove past one place where there used to be a town, but it was buried in a landslide, and pretty much everybody died and they never rebuilt. There is no longer any sign of the town. At another spot farther up, there was a former town where there were still a few beams remaining here and there.
We passed the entrance to Hancock Pass and continued up to where our road got really narrow. Since we were going up, we had the right of way over the Palisades, an area where the railroad workers seemed to have built the road out from the mountain instead of cutting it into the mountain. The road is supported by the stones that the workers cut and fitted themselves. It's narrow, so a full-size vehicle can drive along it, but two full-size vehicles would be hard-pressed to pass one another even at a pull-out.
We drove on by Williams Pass, which is a pile of very sizable rocks that someone refers to as a pass. It is only open from August 1 to August 30 each year.
We arrived at Alpine Tunnel 3.5 hours after leaving the house; we were at 11,600 feet. There was some rain and hail, but we walked out into it to see the old railroad depot, which has been partially restored through volunteer labor. It was quite interesting; I liked it that I could still see the depot's archway in the pattern of the fallen stones. There were some marmots sunning themselves on the restored engine turning area.
Alpine Tunnel caved in during the early 20th century. It has since been sealed to prevent fools like us from peeking in to see what it looks like in there, so of course we were disappointed, but we went ahead and hiked up to 12,000 feet through the rain and hail. The weather cleared up when we reached 12,000 feet. Mike stopped to rest and enjoy the view, and I scampered on for another 10 minutes down the Continental Divide trail toward Tunnel Lake, through an absolutely divine Alpine meadow full of wildflowers, little birds, and chipmunks. There were two stream crossings as well. I felt like Julie freakin' Andrews crossing the Alps, even though I hate that movie. It was perfect, and I hated to leave, but I knew that since it took us so long to get there, we really needed to be heading back. We had told Elantu we'd be back by 7.
On our way down, we had to pull over to allow a full-sized pickup to pass, and we thought we might have to back up the road to find a wider spot. Mike teased me for the rest of my visit because I kept telling him he had more space to pull closer to the edge of the cliff. However, the pickup's driver was extremely bold--you should have seen how he pulled to the very edge of that scary road to let a bunch of four-wheelers drive past him. Mike moved some rocks down from the cliff onto the road so that the pickup could drive at an angle with his right tires on the cliff, and he cruised right past us. After that we hurried down the road with no further incidents.
We thought about bagging another pass, but Mike decided to spare my back by returning over modern, paved Monarch Pass, and it was a good thing we did that, because we got back at 10 minutes of 7. Elantu was about to roust Harold and come out after us!
The four of us had dinner and a movie at the house, and retired for the night.
Labels: travel
posted by Margo at 1:21 PM
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