August 31, 2013 – Up and Over Wolf Pass and on to Durango

We headed out early this morning down the edge of the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains

and their highest peak, Sierra Blanca (14,345’)

stopping briefly before heading west on US-160 to glance back at the Great Sand Dunes, not more than 20 miles to the north.

 

We continued to see dozens of billboard advertisements for the Colorado Gator Reptile Park, initially a refuge for unwanted alligators, iguanas, snakes of all sorts and other reptiles. 

The level of signage is interesting as when we passed it three days ago, the facility was FOR SALE.

Passing through Alamosa, we took note of the architecture of buildings built at an earlier time,

Masonic Lodge

 

Original Town Hall

A building wall mural,

some dated and clever commercial  signage,

and a stylized sculpture of an elk overlooking the town from a nearby hilltop.

Continuing on toward Durango, we began to pass some agricultural lands,

the remnants of volcanic mountains,

an abandoned school bus (and other discarded materials which seem to accumulate in people’s yards),

more than a few isolated mobile homesteads,

a church with a most unusual name,

a realistic barn painting,

and more of Debbie’s favorite subject matter, old, abandoned and decaying buildings.

We passed Chimney Rock, the remains of volcanic activity which has mostly eroded over the centuries.

From there we began our climb to the summit of Wolf Creek Pass (10.850’), the highest elevation we will be encountering in our motorhome on this trip.

At one point, we saw a few vehicles ahead of us what looked like an animal jumping across the road.  It wasn’t until we passed a fifth-wheel RV which had just pulled onto the shoulder that we realized that “animal” was the RV’s left rear wheel in its entirety.

Approaching the height-of-land, the road took some unusual and sharp turns.

Finally we reached the Pass’ summit

where we were able to literally straddle the Continental Divide.

Four miles down from the Divide

and 15 miles short of Pagosa Springs we pulled over to hike up to Treasure Falls.  As we started up the multiple switchback trail, we could look down on our coach.

Both the 105 foot falls

and some of the flora we encountered along the way made the hike more than worthwhile.

Rose-Hips Berries

Aspens which, regrettably, unthinking people had used as a wilderness substitute for Facebook in which to display their narcissistic egos

An unusual fungi growing on a decaying tree stump

A single drop of water captured on a thorny leaf

Continuing to loose elevation was a paralleled the San Juan River, we spotted a fly fisherman enjoying his pastime

and a very colorful barn.

Entering

We discovered there was a huge Harley-Davidson rally in town this Labor Day weekend, and they spied a seductive “biker chick” promoting the event.

Oh, yes, pop culture was also alive and well on the major roads of Durango.

 

After arriving at our campground north of Durango, we did very little for the balance of the afternoon.

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