How long does it take to get to Marble? Gus Darien told me that when he was a young man he could hop on the train to Carbondale. The train stopped at his Marble ranch to take on water or maybe coal from Camp Genter Mine and cabbages and raspberries from Clotan Moore’s place above Lily Lake.
The ranch address was 2804 Marble Star Route, connotating it was 28 miles from the Carbondale Post Office. The train could make the journey to town in just a few hours. The unpaved, rough and rocky auto road required an entire exhausting day to make the trip in the 1950s. After doing his errands, Gus could catch the train back home in relative luxury. Today, the drive takes 40 minutes.
The Crystal Valley developed later than surrounding valleys on the Western Slope. Access that we all take for granted now was a topographical no man’s land just several generations ago. The earliest mining camps in the upper Crystal Valley were accessed from the Gunnison country to the south. With its broad valleys and accessible passes, the Gunnison Valley developed earlier. That is once the “troublesome” Ute Indians were forcibly removed in 1880, after years of promises and deceit.
That was the year Gunnison and Crested Butte were founded — Crystal City a year later. Of course, the Native Americans had their local perennial routes, as documented by the Hayden Survey Party as early as 1874, but their needs and motives differed greatly from European man.
Some of our earliest history recounts the journey of the entrepreneur D.R.C. Brown (the predecessor of the D.R.C. Brown who founded the Aspen Skiing Company). Brown and his wife pioneered a wagon full of merchandise down Express Creek from the Gunnison Valley via Taylor Pass. Their destination: Ashcroft. Aspen was secondary to Ashcroft, being isolated by Independence Pass until the richest of silver strikes was found. At one point, Brown detached his horse team and belayed his wagon down a cliff band with ropes. His efforts rewarded him as he became one of the earliest Aspen successes.
Crested Butte and Gothic were Gunnison steppingstones to the Schofield and Elko townships in the highest reaches of our watershed. Seeking more mineral opportunities, ambitious miners worked their way down to remote Crystal City. The trail to Crystal was etched through the steep rocky bastion of Schofield Pass and the Devil’s Punchbowl with its perennial snowbridge. The Punchbowl is legendary for its treacherous trail. In July 1970, the Punchbowl was the site of Colorado’s most deadly off-road accident when a family group of 12 people tumbled off the road in their brand new pickup truck. Nine people died.
Surefooted mule trains were the mode of transporting food, tools, fuel and ore. Winters were long(er) and cold and avalanche hazards forced residents into hibernation, rationing their supplies between daring deliveries. Wild and wooly as it was, this was the route to the Upper Crystal Valley. Legendary mailman Al Johnson from Crested Butte braved the Schofield Canyon, when the odds favored him. Al’s modus operandi, “Colorado snowshoes” (10 to 12-feet wooden skis), would challenge any of today’s mountaineers. Al Johnson’s daring earned him the respect, and silver, of many a man.
The descent from Crystal to Marble made travel less frequent, but that did not stop Crystalians from coming down to battle their sister city on the baseball diamond.
Why not come up the Crystal River as we do today? Even getting to Carbondale was very difficult back then. Of course Independence Pass was formidable, but Snowmass Canyon, before the Department of Transportation blasted it into submission, inhibited transportation. Then, let’s try traveling through the Glenwood Canyon with its ancient strata and walls dropping into the whitewater river. Vertical by nature and fraught with rock slides, the canyon was impassable late into the 19th century.
If you could get to the Crystal Valley you’d be hard pressed to pass Hell Gate Cliffs at Penny Hot Springs. This geological choke forbade travel for a millennium and isolated Redstone from the north. Now, much of that obstruction lay as the foundation of South Highway 133. Hays Creek and Placita canyons isolated Redstone equally from the south. Larry Meredith’s book, “This Cursed Valley,” offers a colorful palette for the reader to explore our not so ancient valley pathways. Four generations ago, our ancestors were on horseback looking for the route to a better life, greener pastures and economic opportunity.
Blasting, digging and hydraulically manipulating our environment, man has changed our environment in ways we cannot imagine. Many locales, scarred and raw 75 years ago, have regrown to become pleasant trails today. Other places that have lacked moisture and organic materials remain damaged. Seeking progress or profit, it is an age-old challenge to find the balance between growth and preserving the natural environment that has sustained us these many years.
CVEPA Views is a regular column from the Crystal Valley Environmental Protection Association (CVEPA). To learn more, visit www.cvepa.org or visit its Facebook page.