ANCIENTS AND AFFLUENTS…

Yep… in Colorado

Moving further south in western Colorado we stay at the Priest Gulch Campground on the Dolores River.  The high altitude here means lower temperatures.  Most of the folks here are “seasonals” from Arizona and Texas who return summer after summer to escape the heat.  But there are few spots that can be rented for a shorter term.  Our spot across the river backs up to a mountain forest.  We have full hookups, the WIFI is pretty good, and there’s a nice laundry facility. It is also centrally located between Cortez in the Four Corners area and the ski areas of Mountain Village and Telluride.

Kiva at the Anasazi
Heritage Center

We visit the Anasazi Heritage Center in Dolores.  This is also the visitor center for the Canyon of the Ancients National Monument.  They have a nice little museum with artifacts and theories about the Ancestral Puebloan culture. Up the hill behind the visitor center overlooking the Dolores River Reservoir, are remains of an Ancestral Puebloan Village.  From the top of the hill we have a 360° view of the surrounding area.  We see Sleeping Ute Mountain, the San Juan Peaks, the towns of Dolores and Cortez, the river, high desert and farmland.

Dolores River Reservoir

The Depot in Dolores serves up fast food fare.  They write up your order on a paper bag.  Fill it up and let you decide to eat in or take out. Don’t know how the burgers taste but they look and smell pretty savory.  Both times we eat here its The Green Chile Philly. A killer sandwich with a toasted roll filled with tender chopped beef smothered with cheese and roasted green chilies. (Better than any Philly we’ve had in Philly.)

Great Kiva

Great Kiva

In the Canyon of the Ancients NM we visit the Lowry Pueblo.  This is the site of two exceptional Kivas.  The Painted Kiva still retains traces of the original painted plaster. When first excavated this kiva had a beautiful painted mural on the wall.  Efforts to preserve this mural in place failed.  A small section of the mural was removed and is on display at the Anasazi Heritage Center. A modern steel roof protects what’s left of the mural, but today it is just bits of plaster clinging tenaciously to the rock walls.  The Great Kiva is 47 ft in diameter and one of the largest kiva’s found in the area.  Modern Pueblo people identify the structures in the bottom of the kiva as representing winter people and summer people.

We also drive over to Hovenweep National Monument and stop in the visitor center to watch the informational video and check out the occupancy levels of the campground. (In case we want to head here next.) 

A free public gondola connects the towns of Mountain Village and Telluride.  It runs from 7:00AM to midnight daily.  The system is dog friendly and paw prints mark the cars available for folks traveling with their canine companions. Mountain Village has a large public paid-parking garage near the gondola terminal; it’s convenient and only $7 for all day parking.  This is the green way to travel: paying for fuel and driving for 20 minutes to cover 8 miles vs. parking and riding for 13 minutes on a free solar powered gondola.

Mountain Village and Telluride are bastions of wealth.  The economy is based on high-end tourism. Houses here cost in the millions so it’s no surprise that the towns have their own gondola system to move residents and tourists between the towns and up the mountains to the ski trails that double as hiking and mountain biking trails in the summer.

Telluride still retains the feel of a gold rush mining town with colorful Victorian houses, red brick buildings and clapboard storefronts.  The shops are mostly high end.  Bars, breweries, restaurants, galleries and boutiques fill the business district.  No cheesy plastic bags for customers, even the Ace Hardware provides heavy paper tote bag to haul the few maintenance supplies we pick up. Telluride is also known as a top foodie town. Unfortunately we only have time to make one stop.  We grab a couple of pints on tap and an order of eggplant fries, (panko crusted, fried to perfection and dusted with savory herbs) at the Black Iron Kitchen and Bar. The beer is cold, the fries are tasty the service fast & friendly, and the ambiance welcoming. 

Mountain Village is more of the bedroom community with resorts, vacation homes and condos.  Guests of the Mountain Village Resort can play the Telluride Mountain Village Golf course.  A 18-hole 71-par, 6,739 yard course tucked within the highest concentration of 13,000 and 14,000 foot peaks in the United States.

With the relatively short distances between the Four Corners and the San Juan Mountains, and lots to see and do, this is a great area to escape from the summer heat.