The Scenic Highway of Legends

The Apishapa Road was incorporated into the Scenic Highway of Legends, a National and Colorado Scenic Byway, on September 29, 2001. The road begins in Aguilar and heads west out of town through Gulnare and up along the Apishapa River Valley to the San Isabel National Forest.

Aguilar was first named San Antonio Plaza and the Jules-Denver stage line made a stop just east of the houses. When incorporated in 1894, the town was renamed Aguilar, after Jose Ramon Aguilar who had served as a stae representative and county commissioner. The opening and closing of the area's coal mines, the Great Depression, the post World War II boom, and the exodus to the cities for jobs - all have contributed to the rise and fall of Aguilar's population, but never to its demise, earning it the name: "the town that refused to die."

Bighorn Sheep in Mauricio Canyon

The Scenic Byway follows Main Street in Aguilar west to the end of the business district and then turns left. Stick with the pavement and in 8 miles you'll be in Gulnare. Along the way to Gulnare, you'll pass the roads leading northwesterly into Mauricio Canyon and Trujillo Creek Canyon.

As you approach Gulnare you'll notice that the trees are changing: as the elevation rises the pinons and cedars give way to Ponderosa pines. You'll also begin to see more wildlife. (Gulnare got its' name from a champion Hereford imported from Europe for breeding stock: many of Lady Gulnare's offspring are still in the area as testaments to her stamina and quality.)

Gulnare was a farming and ranching community for many years, selling their meat and produce to the coal miners around Aguilar, and points north and south. But when the mines were all closed, that market fell out and most of the folks headed for jobs in the cities. Gulnare today is almost a ghost town, although a couple of 35-acre subdivisions have brought more people back into the area. The old Gulnare Public School is still standing but these days, school children are bused to the schools in Aguilar.

Along the way westward, there are many vistas that include the Spanish Peaks. This one is from just north of Gulnare. As you travel further west, the terrain gets more rugged with deep canyons cut in the layers of sandstone and with many spectacular rock formations on display, formations carved by wind and water over the millenia. Also, as you get closer to the Peaks, you come across more and more of the granite dikes.

And there are more and more critters along the way. Between Gulnare and Twin Peaks Ranch, the road is only a couple miles north of the Spanish Peaks State Wildlife Areas. While there's usually lots of elk and mule deer and the occasional black bear to see, the real thing to look out for is the fork in the road just west of Gulnare. If you go left you'll be traveling up Jarosa Canyon and crossing the ridge as the road goes south onto Wet Canyon Road, about 18 miles north of Weston and the Scenic Byway between Trinidad and Stonewall. It's a beautiful drive but it's not part of the Scenic Byway. If you go right at the fork, you'll stay on the Scenic Byway and eventually reach Cordova Pass and the paved portion of the Scenic Byway at the summit of Cuchara Pass. Watch for the signs.

Traveling west you'll soon see signs letting you know that you are crossing Twin Peaks Ranch. They are a large cattle and hunting ranch directly abutting the south side of San Isabel National Forest near the East Spanish Peak. The views here just get bigger and bigger. You also cross that 8,000-foot threshold and come into aspen and spruce territory. At one point you'll pass through a large dike wall and find yourself in a gorgeous valley. Looking back (to the east) you'll see the Twin Peaks Dike, with the ranch headquarters just below it. This dike is exposed for miles, sticking out above the surrounding countryside.

CR 21.7, at its' intersection with the Apishapa Road
at the top of this hill is an incredible view of the Spanish Peaks

Shortly after passing Twin Peaks Ranch you'll see a sign on the right saying "Entering God's Country." That signals the beginning of the Spanish Peaks Ranch. The next sign of the ranch is a white, concrete arch over one lane of the road proclaiming "Spanish Peaks Ranch." A little further is a set of mailboxes for the ranch and then the road heads straight into San Isabel National Forest. In the winter, the county only plows the road to just past those mailboxes. From that piled-up snowbank on, the road may not be open again until the end of next May.

A view back to the southeast

After Spanish Peaks Ranch, the road begins to get steeper, with more rock than gravel. There's an area along the Apishapa River here where the fishing is good and there are a couple of undeveloped campsites in the trees. As the road climbs, there are several switchbacks as the road meanders back and forth across private and federal boundaries several times. The views just get bigger as you go up the hill.

The Apishapa Arch, cut through one of the Dikes, east of the Pass

When the Civilian Conservation Corps was building this road in 1933-34, they tunneled through one of the dikes and built a rock masonry arch to support the dike as it passed over the road. Several slow miles further on, the road finally reaches Cordova Pass, 11,248 feet. This is the center of the largest stand of Bristlecone Pines in the world. This is also where the primary climbing trail on the West Spanish Peak begins.

The Spanish Peaks are not extinct volcanoes. Rather, they are stocks: large masses of magma that rose to fill cavities underground but never forced it's way to the surface before cooling.

Radiating outwardly from the Spanish Peaks in all directions are large granite dikes. These are the result of the Earth splitting open and magma welling up thru the cracks. However, at the time they were formed, the cracks were several miles underground (as were the stocks that we now call the Spanish Peaks.) As the ground was pushed up, erosion washed away all the overlying layers of sedimentary rock until the much harder granite stocks and dikes were exposed.

The photo to the above-right was taken near the handicapped-accessible overlook, about 1/2 mile east of Cordova Pass. It shows the primary climbing route up the West Spanish Peak: up that cleft in the middle of the photo. The cliff bands are shale and basalt while the fuzzy stuff is loose talus. When climbing, all the trails seem to lead into the talus but if you stick with the stable surfaces and don't follow the "trail," the climb is pretty easy.

The structure to the left is at the summit of the pass. Also at the summit are several picnic areas with tables and fire pits, and a couple of campsites and a pit toilet. The site is maintained and is a fee area.

There are several hiking trails leaving the Pass area and going in different directions. Almost none of these trails are "loop" trails, meaning they dead-end against a private property boundary and you return by retracing your steps. Also, less than 1/2 mile south of the Pass is a fence against private land. The gated 4x4 trail leading south from the Pass passes a couple of pioneer-type cabins on the Forest before reaching this fence. This is an excellent hunting area but that landowner patrols his property in season. And usually, for six months of the year, the only way into this place is by helicopter, snowmobile or snowshoe: the US Forest Service allows no snow plowing.

Before the road was made part of the scenic byway, a lot of money was poured into it to make it more user friendly. The road we have now is far better than it was just five years ago. I don't want to think about the condition it was in within a few years of its construction by the CCC in the mid-1930's.

Usually, the road is snowed closed by early November and doesn't open up again until mid-to-late May. Even then, before most traffic can cross the Pass, the deadfall has to be cleaned up: a normal winter leaves a number of tall trees downed across the road. And west of Cordova Pass, the road is mostly on steep northern slopes until well past Cuchara Pass Ranch.

The views here are gorgeous, too, with vistas of the near Sangre de Cristo's through the trees and shots of the Blanca Massif in the distance. And there are many places where you can look down and see the great dikes running cross-country below. About three miles west of the Pass is an area where you can see the Dakota Wall below and make out some of the folds in the Earth created when the Ancestral Rockies and the Sangre de Cristo's were pushed up. The road is less steep here and winds back and forth across big meadows surrounded with aspens and views. About 1/2 mile east of Cuchara Pass you will come to the Farley Wildflower Overlook. Make the stop and enjoy the view. There are several storyboards here that go into the flowers, history and geology of the area and some of what you are looking at. In the distance, you can just make out the site of Cuchara Mountain Resort. From here to the summit of Cuchara Pass is a very gentle drive, as you come below 10,000 feet in elevation for the first time in 12 miles.