Turns out that Monte Vista is a lot further from the start of my offroading than I’d realized, so I spent several hours snaking my way up, what turns out, are the headwaters of the Rio Grande (like, the Texas Border river) headed to Lake City to pick up part of the infamous Alpine Loop.
But did I mention how far the drive to the start line was? Beautiful though.
I’d planned to do part of the Alpine Loop and continue on to “The Million Dollar Highway” US-550 out the other side and up to Montrose rather than returning back to Lake City. Cinnamon Pass to California Pass to Hurricane Pass to Corkscrew Pass.
Except for what I thought — at the time lol — was a narrow shelf portion, most of Cinnamon Pass didn’t really start until a staging area by an old ghost-house. I didn’t realize today would be ghost town themed, though.
Cinnamon Pass ends along with Engineer Pass, the more technical alternate and Alpine Loop favorite, in what remains of the old mining settlement Animas Forks.
Early prospectors wintered in “Three Forks of the Animas” in 1873 looking for gold and silver. In 1875, the town name was shortened and a road was constructed up from Silverton to link up with the original road from Lake City, now called Cinnamon Pass. By 1885, the summer population was about 450 people, but few remained through the brutal winters of 11,200 feet. The town operated until the 1920s and still holds the record for highest-altitude regular newspaper. But when metal prices fell world-wide, Animas Forks slowly devolved into a ghost town.
I left Animas headed up California Pass. But not even half a mile later, another abandoned building. This one was particularly large, but I didn’t see any signage. Looks like some kind of processing area, but it doesn’t look like it had a furnace like Mariscal did — it was all wood, no brick to speak of. Just about ten thousand OSHA violations.
California, Hurricane, and Corkscrew passes made for a dramatic roller coaster. Nothing particularly difficult, but very narrow shelves and extremely steep grades with loose rock. It was awesome.
Mom used to shriek going around the switchbacks of Berthoud Pass when we headed up to the Rockies for family reunions in the summers. Too bad she wasn’t here today.
Usually I win for “most effective engine braking” but there was actual fighting and shouting to try and keep my speed under 15 on the final descent, as it started raining.
And with that — in 5 hours, I covered about 35 miles. All-in-all, I rate this circuit of four trails as 11 out of 10, would do again to avoid having to take a civilized mountain pass.
PS: I would like to thank Evan and George for the 10-20mm ultrawide gift they got me for the Jeep Float. I barely used anything else all day. At the time, we joked that 15mm-ish with rectilinear distortion is basically “Real Estate Photography” mode. Pretty sure I sold a ghost town today.