Rock, Rail, and Really Good Wine

In God's Country

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Photos taken with a Fuji 1800 by Paul J. Lorona unless otherwise credited.

Corkscrew Pass

Corkscrew Pass is located on the southern slope of Red Mountain Number One, directly north of the sometimes-inhabited mining community of Gladstone. Gladstone is located up Cement Creek, about seven miles north of Silverton.

Gladstone developed with the discovery of the Gold King Mine in 1887, leading to the construction of the American Tunnel. During it's operation the Gold King produced 711,114 tons of ore, finally ceasing operation in 1991. It had it's own rail connection to Silverton and the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad called the Silverton, Gladstone, & Northerly. The SG&N ceased operations in 1915 and was taken up in 1922. The old railroad grade has been heavily modified and widened in some places and is now state highway 110, a maintained gravel roadway capable of handling the heaviest truck traffic.

The Gold King Mine tunnels and the tunnels of the Sunnyside Mine, located above and west of Eureka, met beneath Lake Emma, a small body of snow-melt high up in the Sunnyside Basin at 12,300 feet above sea level. As fate would have it, subterranean erosion allowed Lake Emma to drain into the Sunnyside workings and through connecting tunnels to the American Tunnel, causing a horizontal geyser to issue forth from the mouth of the American Tunnel in Gladstone on the evening of 4 June 1978. This event sounded the death knell for the Gold King Mine and the community of Gladstone. Various parties have attempted to work the mine since then, mostly involved in cleanup of the tunnels and excavation of the old workings. Last I tuned in the tunnels were being filled with concrete and the government was treating the water still issuing from the tunnel, now in the form of a stream. Gladstone, it would seem, should be dead.

Yet every time I go by there, the fence is strong, the gates locked, the few buildings left appear well maintained. This last trip we saw a few men working in the area, and they didn't look to be involved in taking water samples.

The trail to Corkscrew Pass starts at the western limit of Gladstone. It immediately becomes a steep, narrow trail. It's beginning is easily navigable by a two-wheel drive pickup, but the steep grade and sharp corners soon demand four-wheel low. While we stopped several times to allow traffic to pass by us, we never felt inclined to take pictures of the trail up. There were few places to pull off on anything resembling a level area wide enough to be out of the way and suitable for walking around.

Yet at the top of the pass there is a wide, level area capable of having as many as a dozen or more vehicles comfortably parked there. Here is where our picture story starts, 12,217 feet above sea level.

The eastern approach to Corkscrew Pass. The final switchback is just out of sight as the trail curves away over the ridge line. We have just come up from below there... Hurricane Peak rises in the background to 13,447 feet. The road to the left of the peak passes over the ridge line and drops down to Lake Como, from which the adventurer can choose to go down Poughkeepsie Gulch to the Engineer Mountain Road, or up over Hurricane Pass and into California Gulch and thence to Animas Forks. The road to the right of the peak climbs into Ross basin and reaches a locked gate below the Sunnyside Saddle. The remnants of Lake Emma and the Sunnyside Basin lie beyond the ridge line to the right. View looks a bit east of north.

A coyote's church. Two and a half miles high at the summit of Corkscrew Pass (37-54-24N, 107-39-40W, elevation 12,217 feet MSL). This is as close as a guy like me can get to God and still have his heart beating. Nowhere else on the planet can I feel His presence like I can here... Image by Adam C. Lorona using his Canon A95.

At the risk of belaboring the point, I am sincere in this notion. I've been in a lot of churches in my life, some of them quite nice. But I have never felt as close to God as I do standing on the high ridges and peaks of the San Juans, surrounded by some of His best works. Nowhere else can I see His love expressed so clearly, nowhere else do I feel as connected to Him as I do at this point. It takes my breath away. I simply stand and soak it up, trying to gather as much of His essence as I can to carry me through the rest of my days until I can return to Him here once again.

The view from the altar. Part of the Red Mountain group occupies the left foreground. There appear to be three peaks in this view, but in reality this is a complex of peaks and ridges known as Red Mountain Number Two. The actual peak is the furthest of the three visible, at 12,219 feet MSL. This view looks west, the distant skyline is dominated by Chicago Peak just to the right of center at 13,385 feet MSL, the town of Telluride is beyond. Somewhere on the left shoulder of Chicago Peak is Imogene Pass, another famous and fondly remembered trail we didn't get a chance to visit this year as it was still closed, buried in snow. The road visible in the upper end of Corkscrew Gulch is more than a thousand feet below the vantage point.

Turning 180 degrees allows one to take in this view of the mountains to the east. The ghost town of Gladstone is out of site over the ridge behind the small pond in the foreground, fifteen hundred feet down in the canyon beyond. Sporadic mining operations are still ongoing in Gladstone area. Bonita Peak and Emery Peak, each well above 13,000 feet MSL, dominate the skyline above Minnehaha Basin. View looks southeast.

The trail off Corkscrew Pass, descending (steeply!) into Corkscrew Gulch below. Four wheel low, first gear, and we're still touching the brakes in the beast now and again to keep our speed reasonably safe as we approach the first switchback. This is the western slope of Red Mountain Number One. Our trail switchbacked five times (or was it seven?) before reaching the basin at the upper end of Corkscrew Gulch. We're beginning to get a taste for why it is named such. Taken by Gloria I. Lorona using her Canon A95 as she and my father progress downgrade in their Jeep Cherokee, view looks northwest.

Looking up at the pass we've just descended from. Corkscrew Pass is the lowest part of the ridge line visible, the road approaches from the left of the notch. A keen eye will discern dust rising in the upper left part of the image, there are actually two four wheel drives assaulting the pass in this view, another Jeep Cherokee and a Chevy Avalanch. They made it to the top without trouble, although like us with the beast the Chevy needed to take a cut or two at a couple of the sharper switchbacks. View looks east.

Shortly after leaving the upper end of Corkscrew Gulch we entered a narrow, heavily forested canyon that precluded any photography to speak of. After another hour or so of narrow, rocky trail we popped out of the brush and timber at the lower end of the huge tailings dump below the Idarado Mine on US550 above Ouray. We crossed several avalanche runs on the way down, with very fresh evidence indicating that it had been a hard winter of 2004 / 2005. We saw a lot of timber laid over, much of it still mixed with snow and mud, and passed several areas where the trail had been hastily repaired or recreated after an avalanche run had taken it out completely.

From the tailings dump we turned south, up the paved highway, and proceeded over the summit at Red Mountain Pass before once again turning east into the rough to follow the old railroad grades into the ghost mining camps of Red Mountain and Guston on the east side of the canyon just north of Red Mountain Pass. During this bit of travel Mother Nature caught up with us, reminding us of why she is referred to as a mother. The skies got dark, thunder rumbled in the distance, and the hail fell. Yet we persevered, and after a few minutes the skies began to clear again.

Pausing just south of the site of Red Mountain to get my bearings. The slopes here are crisscrossed with trails, it was a bit difficult to figure out which one we wanted. A short hike up the slope behind the photographer solved my dilemma. The rain and hail has just stopped falling here. My father's Jeep is on relatively level trail below. Image by Vicky A. Lorona.

In short order my father and I figured out which trail we wanted, and soon we were at the remains of the mines of Red Mountain. This is the National Belle Mine, the area's largest producer. First settled in 1879, the community of Red Mountain exploded with the discovery of the National Belle in January of 1883. (Who digs for gold under twenty feet of snow?!?) The rails of the Silverton Railroad reached Red Mountain from Silverton in September of 1888, when the town was near it's zenith. The Silver Panic of 1893 kicked the stool out from under the town, never to recover. By the time ore was worth digging again the tunnels had filled with water (a not uncommon occurrence in these parts), and the mines have lain dormant since. By 1895 Red Mountain had become a virtual ghost town. The mountain peak in the background is Red Mountain Number Two, the same peak we saw at the beginning of this section. The view looks southeast, image by Vicky A. Lorona.

Operable mines still exist in the San Juans! This is the Idarado, directly across the canyon from the site of Red Mountain. The Idarado produced lead, copper, zinc, and smaller amounts of silver and gold. The Treasury Tunnel has two portals, the one visible here and the other at Pandora, about two miles above (east) of Telluride. In total there are about one hundred miles of tunnel incorporated in the Idarado complex. Operated until the 1980s, the mine is now involved in remediation activities. US550 switchbacks through the middle of the complex on its southerly climb up to Red Mountain Pass, still a mile or so away. This view looks west, image by Adam C. Lorona using his Canon A95.

This tipple is pretty much all that remains of the Yankee Girl Mine in Guston. It is a very famous structure, pictures of this structure taken from various angles have appeared in many books about the area. The open mine shaft is still visible (and unprotected) at the base of this structure on the far (north) side. Guston had a very short life, it's Post Office was established on 26 January 1892 and closed permanently 16 November 1898. The Silver Panic of '93 hit Guston as hard as any of the others in the area. Image by Gloria I. Lorona using her Canon A95.

There is an amusing story about Guston and Red Mountain, it's neighbor immediately to the south. Red Mountain never had a church. In 1892 an English preacher established a church in Guston after unsuccessfully trying to establish one in the larger town of Red Mountain. The day the church was dedicated in Guston, a fire broke out in Red Mountain and destroyed the town's commercial district. More than one resident of Red Mountain was said to have questioned the effects of divine intervention based on this occurrence.

Another bit of Guston, with a background of another mine across the canyon of the Uncompaghre River. View looks northwest, image by Vicky A. Lorona.

We got back to Ouray a bit late that evening and had dinner in town instead of at camp. We knew that we'd be breaking camp the next day. It was time to head over the passes (Red Mountain, Molas, and Coal Bank) to Durango. There we would meet up with our friends from Kentucky and take a ride on the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad.