Yesterday morning we hit the road early for the drive to Leadville. We were looking forward to experiencing the historic mining town. We were pleasantly surprised to see all the 14ers on the drive by the Sawatch Range - there are 15 peaks over 14,000'. And we hadn't realized we'd be driving beside the Arkansas River - more like a creek up there where it starts.
We crossed the San Luis Valley & then over Poncha Pass. We hit the Collegiate Parkway (so named because you drive past the 14ers named for colleges - Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Oxford, Columbia - & discovered that we were also driving beside the headwaters of the Arkansas River. When the Collegiate Pkwy ended, we hit the Top of the Rockies Scenic Byway for the remainder of the drive to Leadville. We had beautiful views all day long!
We were not disappointed in Leadville. There wasn't a casino in sight! The old buildings have been restored & are full of businesses on the main street & people are still living in the houses. We took a tour of the Tabor Opera House & that was really interesting. They pointed out the super tall ladders backstage & explained that on one side the stagehands climbed the ladder & went thru a door above to get to their sleeping rooms! We were able to go below the stage to see the dressing rooms, etc. down there. The opera house is still used for concerts & programs today. We had lunch in the tavern, of course. It was the quintessential historic bar - & the food was pretty good, too.
When we left Leadville, we drove on up the mountain to see the Climax Molybdenum Mine. It started raining just as we arrived so we didn't get very good pictures & weren't able to walk thru the info center across from the mine. It's a big mine & mill complex. At its highest output, the Climax mine was the largest molybdenum mine in the world & for many years supplied 3/4's of the world's supply of molybdenum. After a long shutdown, the mine has reopened & resumed shipment of molybdenum. David was interested in seeing this mine because he worked in a Union Carbide molybdenum mine outside Bishop, CA, during the summer when he was in college.
We stopped in Buena Vista again on our way home - at a park to walk Callie. Since it was getting close to dinner time & we were a couple of hours from home, we decided to have dinner - at the brew pub, of course. The food was delicious & David enjoyed their beer. Ha!
We enjoyed the ride home as much as the drive up. Everything always looks different going the other direction. The Sangre de Cristo mountains were cloud covered in the morning but the clouds had cleared when we came home so we had great views of the mountains on our way home. We could see rain sheets coming from the clouds as we came into the San Luis Valley & did hit a little rain on the way home but it wasn't bad. The thunderstorms hit South Fork in the middle of the night.
This trip to Leadville just showed us how much we still have to explore in the Buena Vista & Leadville area - & Aspen isn't far from there either. We'll have to spend some more time up there for sure.
More later...