Story by Del Smith
Photographs © Don Porter

Western Colorado

THERE ARE TIMES I WISH I had been here when the wagon roads we now call “jeep” roads were being built and used for their original intent. When I’m driving these roads with a group who has never been to this country, I try to get them to imagine the wagons, stagecoaches, mule trains and tramp miners using these roads in the same way we use our modern highways.

Some of today’s back roads are the old railroad grades where the steam trains ran. It’s hard to imagine the amount of activity that was going on during the late 1800s and early 1900s when several thousand people lived in this area.

Today, tourists come here primarily for the scenery. I’ve always felt that the early traveler may have actually cursed the scenery because of its ruggedness, and for the hardships it brought. Traveling these routes in our comfortable four-wheel drive vehicles, feeling agitated when an afternoon thundershower “ruins” the day, we need to remember the early traveler.

One of the most popular roads these days was also one of the most popular early routes. It has recently been designated the “Alpine Loop,” and was originally a stagecoach route built to connect Silverton, Ouray and Lake City, and the many other mines and small towns along its path. Des Ouray, Animas Forks, Middleton, Howardsville, Eureka, the Silver Wing, the Toltec, Mineral Point, Denver Pass, the Polar Star, Frank Hough’s mine, Rose’s Cabin, Capitol City and Ute Ulay were some of the stops along this route where people lived and dreamed, worked and died, trying to tame their little piece of these mountains.

Today, we look at these relics of the past without giving much thought to the time and energy, money and hope invested in them by a dreamer of yesterday. With our advanced technology has come a certain softness that would have meant certain failure in the lives of our predecessors. As we travel these roads, provided for us at the expense of more toil than we can imagine, we need to pause, remember, and appreciate.

There are times I wish I could have been here when the wagon roads were being built. Those wishes are short lived. 

Western Colorado natives Del and Laura Smith live in Silverton, Colo., where they own and operate San Juan Backcountry.