It's the JOURNEY

Days 51 & 52—September 21 & 22—Platoro, CO

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Pack horses and guides are one of the businesses in Platoro

We’re holed up in Platoro for a couple days reading from the Lodge library, chatting with travelers and hunters, taking naps, making food, etc. Feels kinda luxurious having a metal roof over our heads for a few rainy nights and days. Thinking that on my 1985 bike trip I would have soldiered on through the rain but this trail is different: dirt and gravel roads can become impassable and washed out, not to mention camping at night in the mud. Maybe older, maybe smarter, and maybe just adapting to the conditions presented to us. Taking what the road gives. In this case, “taking" means waiting, even though we’re itching to get going.

Personally dealing with some disappointment in not being able to make the U.S./Mexico border: I have realized this for a while, but the closer I get to 9/30 (when I need to start heading back to Denver) I have to remind myself “it’s the journey, not the destination.” As much as I believe this, I have pangs of wanting to complete the trail: I will have to continue another year, as many people do. Had I left a week or two earlier, if weather and mechanical troubles had been different, it might have been possible.

These pangs are overcome by excitement for the upcoming wedding in Denver, especially after seeing Erickson and Katie in Frisco.  

Dan, Brian, and Brad

Dan and Brian (North Carolina) and Brad (Texas): archers looking for elk but coming up empty and wet. Had a interesting conversation with Brad about “zen and the art of archery,” a book I read some years ago about “letting the arrow shoot itself.”  He agreed that there is some truth to that when hunting.  For those keeping score: Elk 1, Hunters 0…for today. They said they had a great bonding experience getting soaked in the dark. Another example of the “journey" and not the “result" being of primary importance.

Platoro:  a community of about 110 old and new cabins established in the early 1880s sometime after gold was discovered in CO in 1859, and ten years after the Summitville mine opened. It provided much needed housing for the Summitville miners as the town expanded and contracted based on local gold strikes. One discovery was large enough to create expectations that Platoro could grow to 5k-10k people, but the mine played out with little expansion.

Platoro has always been a remote town—guessing that is part of its allure—and the cost of goods (to this day) needs to account for transportation.

  

  

 

Click on any cabin image to enlarge—see if you can spot the bus stop!

The best day in Platoro was July 4, 1913 when miners and travelers came to town to celebrate the holiday. There were boxing matches, ball games, a ladies mail-driving contest, horse races, and $1,000 was paid out in contest prizes. The local newspaper reported,”the mountains resounded with echoes of jollification.” The town buttons up by the end of October and waits for the spring thaw to reopen.

Local artist assembling twisted pieces of pine to resemble (quite well) an elk, hog, horse, heron and swan.

Debbie, proprietor of Platoro Valley Lodge, is a gem who makes everyone comfortable, let us use her laundry, and shared snippets of her life. She lives here for the summer. Dexter enjoying the fire.

Weather looking good for departure tomorrow and hoping the roads start to dry out. In New Mexico the trails can be like peanut butter which is not a surface any of us wants to engage! 

The sun came out for a bit this morning and cast a full rainbow over the town, suggesting that there may yet be a pot of gold around here somewhere.