It was the last week of September and there was snow on the mountains. At ten thousand feet above sea level, South Park was not a place where I wanted to spend the winter in a motorhome. I planned to leave in a couple of weeks, just as the rent was coming due.
In the RV park, the camp hosts had put out some sunflower seeds to feed the chipmunks. I got out my camera.
I’d been doing most of my shooting south of Fairplay. In my last few days, I headed up north for a few shots. Here’s a view of the Front Range from Michigan Creek:
That mountain has a name: Guyot Mountain. The Continental Divide crosses it. Paid subscribers received a full-sized, suitable for printing and framing, copy of this image a month or two ago.
Here’s another view of the rich grasslands of South Park and why there are so many cattle there:
As I mentioned in a previous post, crops don’t grow above about 6500 feet. South Park is ten thousand feet. The only thing that grows up there is grass. Which grows very well. So once the gold petered out, South Park residents turned to raising beef cattle.
And here’s a shot of an inexplicable ridge running right down the middle of an otherwise almost perfectly flat plain, 10,000 feet above sea level:
I have not found a good explanation from geologists as to why this ridge is there. Some say it’s volcanic (doesn’t look like it to me) and others claim that it’s two crustal plates grinding against each other (even less plausible). So I’m left wondering, and contemplating what life would be like in such a quiet, out-of-the-way place.
My final photo foray in South Park was up to Boreas Pass. It’s a mountain pass that goes northwestward out of South Park to Breckenridge. A nice gravel road - you can do it in a car - that doesn’t go very high: only to 11,500 feet or so. It never gets above treeline.
There was once a narrow-gauge railroad over that pass, into Breckenridge. The rails and track have long since been torn up, but they left a little piece of it in place for historical preservation:
The historians say that this was the highest railroad in the United States at the time. That is Hoosier Ridge in the distance.
It was my last day of shooting in South Park. Yes, I miss it. I spent two months there, which doesn’t sound like much but it was more time than I’d be spending in most places for the next five years.
To be continued… for the next five years…
I wish I had thought about putting this in the story but I shan't change a post after it has published.
Chipmunks are SOOOO cute. Why are they cute, but mice are disgusting? Is it really all about the furry tail? Or is there more to it?
Pookie liked them too. I chewed her out after the first one, and then realized she probably couldn't differentiate them from mice. She only did it two more times, and they aren't exactly endangered or anything. Besides, she didn't waste anything: she always ate the entire chipmunk, except for guts and tail.
You mentioned above, "So I’m left wondering, and contemplating what life would be like in such a quiet, out-of-the-way place."
Well, every photo in this post gives me the exact same sensation - what would it be like to just stay there for a long, long time? All of these trigger that longing, but the one that engaged me the most is of the railroad tracks going around the bend. THAT picture is special. Like may of your photographs, they all make me want to "walk into" them. But the RR is a memory from my childhood in Ohio where trains run all throughout the rural areas. I stood on many a track like this, and I can still smell the creosote that fumes on a hot day.
Well done! I admire every post, every time, but this one is special. Thank you for doing what you do, it brought to me a wonderful reverie.