Category Archives: Colorado

Mesa Verde National Park — Colorado; September 2-3, 2014

Barb and I spent a fascinating day exploring the ruins in the Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado.  We arrived at the campground the night before and got oriented at the Visitor Center.  We learned that some 4500 archeological sites have been discovered, of which about 600 are the iconic cliff dwellings.  “Mesa Verde” means “green table” in Spanish.  The name derives from the vegetation that thrives on the top of the plateau or mesa of the region.  Actually, the words should be plural, since the original prehistoric solid mesa was already carved into a large number of mesas separated by deep canyons by the time the ancestors of the current native peoples settled there about AD 550.  Archeological research has revealed much about the ancestors, originally called Anasazi – a Navaho word roughly translated as “the ancient foreigners” – but now called Ancestral Pueblo people to reflect their modern descendants.  The archeological evidence reveals the gradual development of increasingly sophisticated lifestyles.  From the beginning they farmed corn, beans and squash on the mesa tops and hunted wild animals and built pit houses on mesas and in cliff alcoves. They gradually became prolific potters and advanced from using the atlatl to throw spears to using the bow and arrow.  By about AD 750 they began building houses above ground with upright walls fashioned from poles and mud, often with a pit house or two in front.  Later the pit houses evolved into kivas.  Kiva is a Hopi word and refers to round chambers built in a fairly standardized fashion that features a separate ventilation shaft that opens into the kiva and delivers fresh air to a fire pit located centrally on the floor.  Between the shaft opening and the fire pit there was an air deflector that protected the fire and increased circulation and encouraged the smoke to rise up through the hole in the roof that was also used for access into the kiva by way of a ladder.  Another standard feature was the existence of a sipapu – a hole in the floor that related to the belief that people had entered the world through such a hole in the beginning.  In modern Pueblo communities the kiva is still an important ceremonial structure.

By AD 1000, architectural skills had advanced from pole-and-adobe construction to stone masonry.  Double-coursed walls of stone often rose two or three stories high and were joined as units of 50 or more.  Pottery evolved with better techniques and decoration.  Farming became more important and extensive on the mesa tops.  And then, in the late 1100’s, for unknown reasons, the population moved back into the cliff alcoves, which they accessed by chipping hand and toe steps that permitted movement between their homes and the fields in the mesas above.  But now the cliff dwelling were no longer pit houses, but were the masonry structures that endure until this day.

On our first full day of the visit, Barb and I joined a ranger-led tour of the “Cliff Palace” that required climbing four ladders.  We also visited “Spruce Tree House”, the best-preserved dwelling and one that permitted self-guiding.  There, we climbed down into a kiva whose roof had been restored.  We also took our car on the Mesa Top Loop Drive that took us to a number of early pit house sites and also to a number of canyon overlooks from which we could look across to other cliff dwellings.  Near the end of that loop was Sun Point View from which a dozen cliff dwellings are visible, as well as the mesa-top building called Sun Temple across the canyon.  A short ride later, we were at the intriguing Temple itself, a large D-shaped structure whose four-foot-thick walls feature stones onto almost all of which texture has been carefully pecked.  Neither household goods nor roof beams have been found, indicating that the structure of nearly 30 rooms was probably never finished.  Why was it abandoned?  Indeed, why were the cliff dwellings in the alcoves below also abandoned?  No one knows for sure.

After another night in the campground, we continued on our voyage south and west toward our friends Bill & Colleen (Dolce Vita), who live near Parks, Arizona.  But the account of that visit deserves its own blog entry. 

 

Bishop Castle — Wet Mountains, CO; August 29, 2014

We had not been long at the mountain home of Barb’s sister Audrey when she suggested that we jump into the car and go see Bishop Castle.  We had no idea what we were going to see, and were totally amazed.  We climbed up into the Castle, reaching up so high that we were above the stone and instead onto a shaky peak constructed of steel rebar.  After a few quick photos we retreated to the lower rock portion of the tower.

Here is a description of Bishop Castle culled from several web sources:

Bishop Castle started as a family construction project and is named after its constructor, Jim Bishop.

The Castle is located in south central Colorado along a paved public road, State Highway 165, a part of the Frontier Pathways Scenic and Historic Byway, and Bishop Castle is shown on the official map.

Construction of the castle began in 1969, when Bishop began construction on a family cottage, which he decided to surround with rocks. Several neighbors noted that the structure looked something like a castle. Bishop took this into consideration and soon began building his castle. He had bought the land when he was fifteen for a price of $450. In 1996, he was challenged by the local and state government over unsanctioned road signs that pointed to the site. They settled the dispute by issuing official road signs.

For nearly 45 years, Jim Bishop has been building the castle on a mountainside in central Colorado. “Did it all myself, don’t want any help,” he says.

Every year since 1969, Bishop has single-handedly gathered and and worked at setting over 1000 tons of rock to create this stone and iron fortress in the middle of nowhere. It hasn’t been easy. For most of those 45 years Bishop was engaged in a running battle with Washington bureaucrats over the rocks that he used, which came from the San Isabel National Forest that surrounds the castle property. Bishop felt that they were his for the taking, the government wanted to charge him per truckload.

Another bone of contention that stuck in Bishop’s craw belonged to the Colorado state Chamber of Commerce, which refused to list Bishop Castle as an attraction in its official tourism guides.

Happily, those angry years are in the past. Both Uncle Sam and the Colorado Chamber now recognize that Bishop’s Castle is marketable, and that he’s transformed some heavy, unwanted rocks into pure tourism gold.

Bishop’s goal is to complete his castle before he dies. He has no thought of slowing down. Although the castle is mostly a hollow shell of cemented rocks and ornamental ironwork (Jim Bishop’s regular line of business), his future plans include completion of a moat and a drawbridge, a roller coaster mounted on the castle’s outer wall, and a balcony big enough to hold an orchestra. He also wanted to build a second castle for Phoebe, his wife, but she passed before he could even start on that one.

To a great extent, the construction of Bishop Castle has been fueled by creator Jim Bishop’s inveterate hatred of authority and his contempt for anyone willing to submit to that authority. He has spent years battling zoning, health, noise, and sales tax regulations in his ongoing quest to single-handedly expand and modify “the largest one-man construction project in the country, quite possibly the world,” all the while arguing that the government has “pulled a fast one on the american SHEEPLE” by chiseling away at our constitutional rights through a monolithic global conspiracy. Along the way, certain neighbors have accused Jim of being a satanic presence for allowing rave parties in the castle, and at one point several years ago, he and his son even had to overcome fifteen felony charges in court for dispersing a large group of unruly wedding party guests with a shotgun.

A visit to the Castle is always free and open to the public. Donations and purchases from a gift shop the Bishop family built on castle grounds have paid for construction of the castle and for a charity to give treatment for children in need.

The drive to Bishop Castle is a steadily curving incline along Highway 165, a road just southwest of Pueblo, Colorado that leads through dense stands of Ponderosa pine, broad meadows, and sharp ledges that open below to sweeping vistas of uncultivated ranch land. After several miles of steep road surrounded by thickening forest, visitors finally reach their destination at 9,000 feet above sea level in the thin Colorado air. Dozens of cars line the road, and scores of people stroll toward a thick barricade of trees penetrated by a dirt trail that passes a moat and a bridge Jim has been working on for the last several years.

Just a few hundred feet farther up the trail sits Bishop Castle. Jutting above the trees, a dragon’s head of charred silver cranes over the castle’s face. The castle itself, a throwback to the Middle Ages and a testament to human endurance, sprawls in unapologetic splendor across a wide expanse of gradually sloping open ground. Every stone and every inch of mortar seem to have been hurled into a conflation of ordered chaos on a massive scale by a man who has never once used a blueprint or floor plan, only his sheer force of will and self-described “God-given genius.”

Flying buttresses on every side of the structure anchor three floors, lending the castle an appearance of stability and Old World elegance. On the southeast corner, a column of 42 outer steps dropping from the third floor to the ground juts out at 60 degrees.

If you are ever anywhere near this part of Colorado, be sure to stop and see this incredible construction.

Visit to Audrey’s — Beulah, CO; August 29 – September 2, 2014

On August 29 we arrived at the mountain home of Barb’s sister Audrey and her husband Mike Englert.  We had a great time filled with catching up and local sightseeing, including dinner one night in the unincorporated town of Beulah, trips to Pueblo and Colorado City and Florence and the Great Sand Dunes, walks on Englert’s property and around a nearby lake, and a quick visit to the amazing Bishop Castle, a place so unique and surprising that I will save its description for the next blog entry.  Audrey & Mike live in a delightful multilevel A-frame dwelling with a wrought iron staircase.  We stayed in the guest room they have added above their commodious garage that houses, among other things, Mike’s Viper automobile.  We had a lovely time during our visit, with the bonus of getting to see one of Audrey’s daughters, Michelle, and her boyfriend Tim,  on our last evening.

The Great Sand Dunes merit a few more words, adapted from the Wikipedia description:

The park contains the tallest sand dunes in North America, rising about 750 feet from the floor of the San Luis Valley on the western base of the Sangre de Cristo Range, covering about 19,000 acres.

The dunes were formed from sand and soil deposits of the Rio Grande and its tributaries, flowing through the San Luis Valley. Over the ages, westerly winds picked up sand particles from the river

There are several streams flowing on the perimeter of the dunes. The streams erode the edge of the dune field, and sand is carried downstream. The water disappears into the ground, depositing sand on the surface. Winds pick up the deposits of sand, and blow them up onto the dune field once again. The direction of the wind greatly affects the dune type. The winds normally go from southwest to northeast, however during the late summer months, the wind direction reverses causing reversing dunes. This wind regime is part of the reason why the dunes are so tall.

Hiking (and sledding, etc.) on the Dunes is permitted, with the warning that the sand can get very hot in the summer, up to 140 °F. The area gets snow in the winter.

Getting to the dunes requires walking across the wide and shallow Medano Creek, which normally flows only from spring to early summer.  Due to the unusual amount of rain the entire region has received this year, we found water in the creek.

 

Garden of the Gods — Colorado Springs, August 28-29, 2014

We met Barb’s sister Kathleen and her husband David for a nice lunch in a restaurant on the edge of Colorado Springs.  It was good to see them, but they had work-related commitments and so we were soon back on the road.  We stopped at the Garden of the Gods Visitor Center for a quick orientation before retiring to a motel — rain was predicted — from which we walked to a 20-plex movie theatre where we saw “Boyhood”.   Next morning we returned to the Garden and spent a leisurely time enjoying the fantastic formations.

Here is what Wikipedia says about the geology:

The outstanding geologic features of the park are the ancient sedimentary beds of deep-red, pink, and white sandstones, conglomerates and limestone that were deposited horizontally, but have now been tilted vertically and faulted by the immense mountain building forces caused by the uplift of the Rocky Mountains and the Pikes Peak massif. The following Pleistocene Ice Age  resulted in erosion and glaciation of the rock, creating the present rock formations. Evidence of past ages can be read in the rocks: ancient seas, eroded remains of ancestral mountain ranges, alluvial fans, sandy beaches, and great sand dune fields.

The resulting rocks had different shapes: toppled, overturned, stood-up, pushed around and slanted. Balanced Rock, a Fountain formation, is a combination of coarse sand, gravel, silica and hematite. It is hematite that gives the large balancing rock rock its red hue. It toppled off of a ledge, first resting on sand that was gradually worn away at the base. Gateway Rock and Three Graces are stood-up rocks that had been pushed up vertically. The Tower of Babel is Lyons Formation, a stone made of fine sand from an ancient beach.

When we left the Gardens we moved on to visit Barb’s sister Audrey and her husband Mike, who live in the Wet Mountains near the unincorporated community of Beulah, Colorado, near Pueblo.  Stay tuned for an account of that visit.

Visit to Kraskey’s — near Black Hawk, Colorado, August 26-28, 2014

Delayed by a visit to a suburb of Boulder in order to get a “ping” fixed on the windshield of our newly beloved Camry, we did not get to the Kraskey’s spacious mountain homestead until noon on August 26.  The cabin is really impressive, so spacious and elegantly appointed, and Steve has done an incredible job of landscaping.  Mutual cruising friend John (Sojourn) arrived shortly before us, and after lunch we had all settled into a game of Mexican Train during which Linda demonstrated that she has not lost her touch.

Next day we all went for a walk over some of the 114 wooded acres of the property.  Afterwards Barb & I on one 4-wheeler and John on another explored additional paths through their forest.  Cruisers Kenny and Kathy (No Zip Code) joined us later that day, as did Dave (formerly Daniel Story), so we had quite the reunion.  Late in the afternoon of August 27 we all piled into vehicles and took pictures at the surprising “Yacht Club” sign, after which we went to a stretch of highway from where the profile of a “sleeping giant” could be seen on a distant mountain.  Then another gourmet meal prepared by Linda.  She is teased about her place being called Linda’s Bistro.  

Great fun to see old friends; we would have stayed longer and made ourselves pests, but we had commitments further down the road and had to leave on the morning of August 28.  Stay tuned for more about that.