06 Wednesday Dec 2017
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25 Sunday Dec 2016
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Independence Pass, originally known as Hunter Pass, is a high mountain pass in the Rocky Mountains of central Colorado in the United States. It is at elevation 12,095 ft on the Continental Divide in the Sawatch Range. The pass is midway between Aspen and Twin Lakes, on the border between Pitkin and Lake counties.
29 Tuesday Nov 2016
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South-east corner of Utah (Four Corners)
Utah, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico
26 Saturday Nov 2016
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Hoosier Pass elevation 11,542 ft is a high mountain pass in the Rocky Mountains of central Colorado in the United States. A share of the pioneer settlers being natives of Indiana, the “Hoosier State” caused the name to be selected.
The pass is located on the Continental Divide at the northern end of the Mosquito Range, in a gap between Mount Lincoln (west) and Hoosier Ridge (east). It sits on the boundary between Park (south) and Summit (north) counties.
08 Tuesday Nov 2016
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To the Utes, the piping-hot currents of Glenwood Canyon were sacred fountains of physical and spiritual healing. Chief Ouray and his wife, Chipeta, came often to ease the pain of rheumatism. The tribe took the waters in a vapor cave on the south bank of the Colorado, opposite today’s hot springs pool, and jealously guarded their treasured resource from Arapahos, Cheyennes, and white men. Even after being moved to distant reservations in 1881, the Utes made annual trips here; Chief Colorow liked to while away the time with white visitors in just-settled Glenwood Springs. But in 1887 new investors, protective of the town’s tourist appeal, had the tribe banned. The following year the Utes’ beloved cave was sealed off under the railroad tracks.
“Englishmen of every variety abound. Here, fresh from the Columbian Exposition come a German count and countess, followed by their body physician and body surgeon and a numerous retinue armed with rifles and other weapons of war. There goes a bright-eyed professor of world-wide reputation from New York. And, yes, it is he, the prince of scientists, von Helmhotz himself, who is promenading up and down the long corridor.” — Dr. Henry Lyman, December 1893, Medical Record
Rather than compete with the silver kings of Leadville and Aspen, Isaac Cooper opted to build them a hot-springs playground. Cooper envisioned a resort rivaling Europe’s famous spas; kindred spirit Walter Devereux had the money and connections to make it happen. After buying Cooper out in 1887, Devereux rechanneled the Colorado River to expose the springs on the north bank, raised the magnificent Hotel Colorado, and got his friends at the Denver & Rio Grande and Colorado Midland to offer special excursion runs. In the mid-1890s, as the rest of the state reeled from the Silver Panic, Glenwood Springs staged polo matches and formal balls for barons and lords. Long Colorado’s glamour capital, it remains one of the state’s most popular tourist attractions.
04 Friday Nov 2016
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Folk Figure, Actor. A former scout, Confederate soldier, newspaper correspondent and pop figure of his day, “Texas Jack” Omohundro was a friend of William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody and James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok. In 1872, Texas Jack and Buffalo Bill, both famous figures from dozens of dime novels, created a stage show featuring the well-known scouts as live actors. Popular dime novel writer Ned Buntline wrote the first script for “Scouts of The Prairie” in about four hours; Wild Bill Hickok later joined the show. Just a month before his 34th birthday, Texas Jack got pneumonia and died in the thriving mining town of Leadville, Colorado. “Texas Jack” was posthumously elected to the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, and received the Wrangler Award in the Hall of Great Western Performers for his career as both a working cowboy and actor.
29 Saturday Oct 2016
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The City of Steamboat Springs, often shortened as Steamboat, is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Routt County, Colorado, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 12,088.
See also, Steamboat Spring and Black Sulphur Spring.
The area surrounding Steamboat Springs was originally inhabited by the Yampatikas Utes, who hunted in the valley during the summer. Trappers began to move through the area during the first decades of the 19th century. James Harvey Crawford, the founder of Steamboat Springs, first arrived in the spring of 1874. The Crawford family moved there in 1876, and for the first five years were the sole permanent residents of the town. The native Utes were forcibly removed from the area to a reservation in Utah by the U.S. Army starting in 1879. Milestones in the development of the pioneer town included the first sawmill in 1873, incorporation of the town in 1900, and the arrival of the railroad in 1909. The economy of the region was originally based on ranching and mining, which still have a large presence in the county.
Steamboat is home to natural hot springs that are located throughout the area (see Geography). Upon first hearing a chugging sound, early trappers believed that a steamboat was coming down the river. When the trappers saw that there was no steamboat, and that the sound was coming from a hot spring, they decided to name the spring Steamboat Springs.
Originally, skiing was the only method of transportation during harsh and snowy Rocky Mountain winters. In turn, the popularity of skiing as a winter pastime catalyzed development of the town and other communities all over the Rocky Mountains. In 1913, Carl Howelsen, a Norwegian, moved to town and introduced ski jumping. Howelsen built the first jump on Howelsen Hill, now part of the Howelsen Ski Area. He also founded the annual Winter Carnival, a celebration still held each winter. The festival includes ski racing and jumping, dog sledding, and chariot events down Lincoln Avenue, the city’s main street. Light shows on both Mount Werner and Howelsen Hill are highlights.
29 Saturday Oct 2016
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29 Saturday Oct 2016
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Steamboat Spring is located in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
Legend has it that three French trappers first noted this unusual spring in the Yampa Valley. The spouting spring, accompanied by a “chugging” sound, reminded them of a steamboat. Henceforth, since the early 1870’s, the trappers, guides, and miners came to recognize and know this future townsite as “Steamboat Springs.”
11 Thursday Dec 2014
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Underground fires? I didn’t think it was possible, but I as earthcaches are supposed to help us do, I learned a lot about it after visiting this site.
A coal seam fire or mine fire is the underground smoldering of a coal deposit, often a coal mine. Such fires have economic, social and ecological impact.
Coal fires can burn for very long periods of time (from months to centuries), until the seam in which they smoulder is exhausted. They propagate in a creeping fashion along mines shafts and cracks. Because they are underground, they are extremely difficult and costly to reach and extinguish. There is a strong similarity between coal fires and peat fires.
Mine fires may begin as a result of an industrial accident, generally involving a gas explosion. Historically, some mine fires were started when bootleg mining was stopped by authorities, usually by blowing the mine up. Many recent mine fires have started from people burning trash in a landfill that was in proximity to abandoned coal mines, including the much publicized Centralia, Pennsylvania fire, which has been burning since 1962. Of the hundreds of mine fires in the United States burning today, most are found in the state of Pennsylvania.
Some fires along coal seams are natural occurrences. Some coals may self-ignite at temperatures as low as 104°F in the right conditions of moisture and grain size. Wildfires (lightning-caused or others) can ignite the coal closer to the surface or entrance, and the smouldering fire can spread through the seam, creating subsidence that may open further seams to oxygen and spawn future wildfires when the fire breaks to the surface. Prehistoric clinker outcrops in the American West are the result of prehistoric coal fires that left a residue that resists erosion better than the matrix, leaving buttes and mesa. It is estimated that Australia’s Burning Mountain, the oldest known coal fire, has burned for 6,000 years.
Globally, thousands of inextinguishable mine fires are burning, especially in China and India, where poverty, lack of government regulations and runaway development combine to create an environmental disaster. Modern strip mining exposes smoldering coal seams to the air, revitalizing the flames.
