MONDAY, 09/13/2010 - CREEDE

A little over a hundred years ago, Creede, Colorado had a population of some 10,000 hardy souls and was a rip roaring, typical western mining town. When the price of silver went south, so did Creede, ending up with about 500 people. Today the town has become somewhat of an artsy place, with a performing arts theater, lots of fancy little shops, old buildings restored for newer purposes, etc. The main part of town sits just south of a canyon with an enormous wall of stone, the Pillars of Hercules on one side. This spot marks the start of the Bachelor Loop, a seventeen mile long gravel road that runs well up into the mountains and passes the remains of at least 20 mines.

Our adventure here began as we headed up north on Creede’s main street. The opening to the canyon lies straight ahead and the Pillars of Hercules are on the right.

Continuing through Creede and starting on the Loop, we were greeted with this fairly awesome view of the mountains. Unseen, but always present, is the stream running along the right side of the road.

I guess I will always be a flatlander because I never cease to be boggled by the different types of rock formations we run into in various parts of the country

This picture just had to stay in. There were three separate wooden structures (they have a name) on the mountain side to hold the tailings from a mine, somewhere up above the top structure. And then there was this huge monolith, or something, standing guard.

I guess that if you are finding something on one level another guy will come along and try things higher or lower. Which came first, the, well you know. Apparently all three of these headframes were in use at the same time.

This picture saddens me a bit as it brings to mind the situation so many people are going through today. They have been forced to simply walk away from their homes and this is exactly what happened in most of these mining towns. The mine became unprofitable and they simply walked away. Very sad.

We finished up our extended ride on the Bachelor Loop at a spot overlooking Creede. As you can see, there isn’t a whole lot of area in this part of town. Just to the south there is a fairly large, spread out area that has quite a few homes. The black circle in the picture is the back porch of our B & B, the Old Firehouse Inn. The first floor has extremely high ceilings as it was where the fire trucks were garaged. It is now a restaurant and the second floor, where the rooms are located is up a ton of steps.

Tomorrow we are off to Lake City and an exploration of the Alpine Scenic Byway