Travel Date: September 8, 2018
Going east on Highway 50, the ascent over the Rockies is a long drawn out affair. From the small unincorporated community of Cimarron, which is 6,896 feet above sea level, we casually ambled up the slow incline of a slightly slanted plateau towards Blue Mesa Reservoir on the Gunnison River. Now, you might be thinking 6,986 feet above sea level is quite high and could give one a sense of vertigo, and you'd be right if you were in the Olympic Mountains of Washington jutting out into the ocean on a peninsula. But, the West, overall, is a high place. The average elevation of Colorado is 6,800 feet above sea level, and that's including the plains on the far eastern side that touch flat places like Nebraska and Oklahoma. The average elevation of Utah, where we started, isn't that much lower, being 6,100 feet above sea level. The elevation of Grand Junction is 4,583 feet above sea level, so, we'd only climbed 2,217 in 79 miles. That is mild by Western standards. Out here, it's not uncommon to make that ascent on a winding mountain road in 10 miles.
If I was anticipating vertigo, up to this point, I would have been sorely disappointed, but I wasn't. Sure, I was looking forward to it. I knew whatever route you take, there is no route over the Colorado Rockies that doesn't involve getting mind-blowing high. Altitude here is just a way of life. But I come from plateau country. I know just how drawn-out an ascent can be. Experiencing altitude is about more than feeling vertigo. It's a sense of a thin atmosphere and the pure, hard light that comes with it. It is about that narrow range between hot and cold that also comes with elevation. Up here, 66 degrees can have a bite to it, and yet 68 can be almost unbearably warm, depending on the angle of the sun. People can say what they want about John Denver, but he got it right, when he sang "You can talk to God and listen to his casual reply" when voicing his wonder of the Rockies. There is something about the thin atmosphere and accompanying hard light that makes one fragile enough to open up to something greater than the I. Up here, even the air you breath renders you insignificant. That in turn allows you to open to the world around you and see the creator everywhere. For whatever reason, stifling heavy heat and damn lowland mosquitoes just don't have the same effect.
Eventually, we did really start to climb. It was somewhere beyond Gunnison. I liked Gunnison. It was far less touristy than most Colorado mountain towns are these days. I'm not sure why I didn't take any pictures. I think our lack of sleep the night before was beginning to take its toll. I know we stopped for gas and bought drinks and snacks. I should have at least snapped a photo from the pump. I grew up hearing about Gunnison. My stepfather taught school there early in his adult life and loved to tell stories about how cold it was.
According to Wikipedia, "Gunnison is located at the bottom of several valleys... [and] cold air in all the valleys settles into Gunnison at night, making it one of the coldest places in winter in the United States" (Wikipedia). Also, according to the site, the average low in January is -8 degrees Fahrenheit, and the record low is -60 degrees. Even in the summer, it's cool. The average high in July is 82 (Wikipedia). In short, Gunnison is a very cold place. Its motto is "base camp to the Rockies" and it had that feel--a place real mountaineers would stop before making their ascents rather than a holiday destination for Texans wanting to go putput golfing (that's miniature golfing for all you non-Texans) and ride bumper cars in the cool mountain air high above the chiggers. In short, it is not Estes Park. I left pleased.
Leaving Gunnison, we followed a narrow river valley of hay fields. Then we started to climb towards Monarch Pass. It's a steep winding road and mountains are numerous and pine-covered. It teases you. You know there are high bald, wind blown peaks somewhere, but you can't see them. Just ridge after ridge of damn pine-covered slopes. Anywhere else, you'd be thrilled. But not here. Here, it's, "Where are the real mountains? These are nothing but hills."
Still, it was wild and remote. Canyons were significantly deep. Rocks jutted out now and then. We even stopped to take in a tiny bit of vertigo. There wasn't a hawk, but I hear one in my mind because that's what you're suppose to do in such places. The mind just fills in what ought to be present based on past experience.
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| View from Highway 50, winding up towards Monarch Pass |
Eventually we peaked on the Continental Divide at Monarch Pass, which is 11, 312 feet above sea level. That's about as high as you can go in a car on a U.S. designated highway. It's the highest point on Highway 50, which stretches across the country for over 3,000 miles from West Sacramento, California to Ocean City, Maryland. You'd think we'd stop for such a grand occasion, at least get out and snap a couple of selfies together by the brown forest service sign that says Monarch Pass, Elevation 11,312 feet, Continental Divide, and points to the Atlantic (left) and Pacific (right). But we did not. I only know of such sign from looking at Wikipedia. There were a lot of cars, and some days, to put it bluntly, I don't much like people. So we drove on, hoping to find a spot that didn't scream, "Tourists! Stop now for breath-taking view."
And we found one. Down slope. Over the pinnacle of the Rockies, rooftop of the lower 48. It wasn't as Snap Chat worthy. Not notable on Find My Friends. But, it was superbly beautiful. Across the highway, golden aspen climbed up a mountain slope. I hadn't been prepared for that. At home, fall had just begun. There were a few golden aspens along the tops of our mountains, but that was it. Everything else was just a dull, dark gray-green, the trees too tired from the long hot summer to either live or go to sleep. I didn't expect much of a fall, and now, writing this, I can say we didn't get one. Leaves just turned brown and fell off. Life in the West after climate change.
But, I guess at the roof top of the the continent even on a drought year there was enough moisture to produce color. The golden slopes were spectacular. I was in heaven. And only one other car pulled out for the view. There simply was no sign: Stop Ye the Dead in the Head & Soul, and Live!
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| Fall colors taken from the east side of Monarch Pass |
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