Let's see, where was I? (Don't answer that...or, if you do, please don't tell me what you say).
Passes...
Fremont Pass is the one to take if you're going in to Leadville from the East (i.e., from the Breckenridge area, sort of). It's another Continental Divide Pass, as well.
The pass itself is pretty gentle, although this shot, looking down the road from the summit, might cause you to think otherwise:
Heh...
The picture below shows the road up Fremont Pass as seen from Mt. Democrat (no laughing. Remember, the 10th of the Ten Mile Peaks in Breckenridge is Quandry Peak, and there are other interesting mountain names as well). I like the panorama - it's hard to take a bad picture of this area, believe me...I can DO it (of course. I'm awful at pics, hence borrowing others').
Leadville lies at 10,152 feet, which makes it the highest incorporated city in the United States (I can pretty fairly say that that includes both AK and HW). It was a silver mining town in the 19th century, then a lead and zinc mining town and, finally, a molybdenum mining town: the Climax mine is currently inactive, although it's still usable. The price of molybdenum is too low to support opening the mine. Leadville's California Gulch, which, in the 70s was full of mine tailings and dead trees, is now part of the EPA superfund. There have been major efforts to clean up the tailings and to enhance the area. (Thank goodness!!!)
Here are a couple of pictures:
This is an historic building at the corner of E6th street. There are a lot of Victorian homes in Leadville, which was, until his death, the home of Doc Holliday (of fight at the OK corral notoriety).
Here's Leadville's town sign:
The last pass I'm talking about, over, upon? Is Guanella Pass. It is literally right behind Georgetown, CO. It's very steep and hair pinny, but you'll be going to slowly that there's no real danger going up to the summit.
Here are a couple of pictures, first of an 1890s house in , as well as Cripple Creek in / near Georgetown:
This is autumn on the pass.
This is a spring-ish picture. It you look at the horizon, you can get a sense of just how much of a grade there is to this field.
Here is the Summit Area of Guanella Pass.
I could do tons more with passes and pictures, but I'm just giving you a flavor of what they look like. Remember, every season is different, every day is new, so you can spend ages just going through the passes and taking excellent shots to help you store memories. Towns like Leadville and Georgetown are historic and have historic homes as well as modern economies...visit them, if you ever can.
And, before we turn back to the interstate, I'm going to leave you with two signs. One is fairly common in the back country. The other one I have only seen once, and it was at the top of Guanella Pass (on the old road, I think).
Here goes!
I'm very fond of the Do not Overestimate Road Width one...it says it ALL about Colorado snow!!!
George and Martha Driver - no relation to Minnie Driver or any living creature out there.
George and Martha Driver came into existence when I lived in Colorado and have followed me down the road for years. They are the folks who are driving along on Hghy 9 in late August and, above Blue River, where I lived, see a single snowflake genty dancing toward the ground from a little puffy cloud far, far above them.
Horrified, because they don't have their winter radials on, they look at each other in shock and immediately slam on the brakes and, after working their courage up, creep slowly down the (dry) road at 10 mph. Because it's snowing. Of course, they don't look behind them to see people trickling along equally slowly in their wake and wondering what the heck happened.
George and Martha, on the other hand, quickly develop their courage, to the point that it becomes er...something of a liability? Uh, yeah, that might be it...
It's January, and G and M are hauling their camper (or, better yet, driving their gargantuan motor "coach") through the Eishenhower Tunnel from East to West because they're dead set on going skiing. No matter what. George decided that he'd check his brakes a few thousand miles earlier when they'd left Texas or Florida or North Carolina, and that he didn't need to check them again. He and Martha had stopped for coffee in Georgetown and had been advised to drive cautiously down the west approach, if indeed they made it up the east approach.
George figures that 45 is a decent speed and, if he has to, he can ride the brakes to the bottom which is only a few miles away (he can see those leeeetle white dots that are houses, don't you know?)
And off he goes.
Burning brakes smell pretty ghastly. And 45 mph is way too fast for a motocoach or a truck hauling a camper down the West slope ANY time, much less January. And I'm not even pretending the snow's falling! Which it would be.
Careening wildly down the mountain, going all alone because other saner drivers have stepped waay back to keep out of his way, brakes cherry red from the heat, G manhandles his truck/motor coach as it gathers momentum.
He sees the safety ramp designed to stop semis in the same situation as he is and aims toward it (this isn't steering by this time). The safety ramp is piled feet deep in gravel that acts as a shock absorber and glue to injured wheels and brakes. George is lucky. All he has to do is appease Martha. And get the vehicle(s) he's damaged repaired. Don't worry, though, he'll be back again, not a whole lot smarter, and probably with something bigger to drive.
And what G &M do on ice is...well, sad. I stay clear of them wherever I go, dropping back 10 car lengths if that's what it takes to STAY clear of them.
Now, their great Aunt Tessie is ...er...something else. Indeed. We're in Arizona. Got yourself comfortable. We're going to be climbing the switchbacks from Oak Creek Canyon to outside of Flagstaff. So is Great Aunt Tessie, who is driving her barge...er...large sedan up to visit someone or attend an affair (or, from what I know, to HAVE an affair. Stranger (but not much stranger) things have happened.l..).
Driving behind her (immediately behind her, unfortunately) all I can see is a wide brimmed sunhat and two hands clutched around the steering wheel as if it's a lifeline. The speed limit in the canyon is about 35, but, since we're going something slow enough that a snail could jog by, I'm not worried about a speeding ticket. The road is one lane each way, by the bye. So, pretty much, where you start is where you'll end up for the trip.
I was, thank the gods, driving my metro or my Neon - I don't remember which. They both had standard transmissions, and that was what saved me from just running the barge...large sedan down.
The switchbacks (or hairpins) are, as I have said previously, very steeply inclined. Aunt Tessie, head immoblie under that blasted sun hat, begins the ascent. And sloooooowly (I'm saying the word much too quickly) we trekked toward the top. Never once did the sunhat move, never once did Aunt Tessie pick up speed enough for me to get out of second gear (or the automatics behind me to switch into drive from low, if they knew enough to find low and stay there). Climbed those hairpins one at a time, she did. Had no idea that there was a line of traffic behind her, either. All she could ssee was straight ahead and alll I could see was the hat and the hands...
At the top, there's a pull out. Aunt Tessie pulled over (I'd have been worn out, too) and the look on her face when she saw how many of us were behind her was priceless. Absolutely priceless.
As far as I'm concerned, for every Aunt T. or G and M. there are 2000 excellent drivers at least. Which is what makes Gand M or Aunt Tessie (or both) stand out so much...to my last day I will remember Aunt T. as I named her...(snicker).
Tomorrow? The Grand Canyon. Because I can.!!!!!
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