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Pearl Pass Part Two

Posted on September 15, 2014 by Bill 2 comments

North Side to Summit

In Part 1 I discussed the history of Pearl Pass and my family connection. I also covered the four wheel drive experience travelers have on the pass. I have been rambling around the Rocky Mountains most of my life. There is a lot of good country here. I am fortunate to have spent time in some of the Rockies from New Mexico to Alberta.

Some of the best pieces of mountain country are the Elk Mountains. I have not spent much time there because of Aspen. A Western Colorado native, for many years I harbored a prejudice against ski area development. Aspen is the ski town that started the Twentieth Century Gold Rush, this time mining tourist pockets. The place is just too rich for a small town boy. Over time I lost my bias, but still tended to avoid the Aspen area. I have never been to the Maroon Bells.

Living along the Front Range influenced not visiting the Roaring Fork Valley as it is a four hour drive to Aspen from Denver. Rocky Mountain National Park and the Collegiate Peaks are a lot closer. Recapturing my interest in my family history has drawn me to Pearl Pass. If Grandmother Pearl could drive a wagon over the pass in 1887, I should do it as well.

Pearl Pass has seen no change in the last 130 years. Between Aspen and Ashcroft the road is paved and there is development, but once on the four wheel drive road it is as it was. It goes between the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness and the Maroon Bells Snowmass Wilderness. Together, they harbor the largest cluster of 14,000 foot high peaks in North America.

Sandstone

That huge area of high mountain wilderness means wild. Pearl Pass is one of the wildest places I have ever visited. Up high, what you see is almost all above timberline. To the east, the mountains are granite, what I am familiar with in Colorado. To the west is sandstone. Layered sandstone, capped with basalt.

To me, that layered rock seems wild, out of place. It is gray, with a hint of red. When I see sandstone I expect red or tan. The view is so striking and beautiful I am at a loss for words. I have been trying for days to come up with a description that matches what I saw. The pictures will give you an idea, but cannot portray the impact of so much wild space with little human influence.

One reason for the view is because the Elk Mountains are west of the central Colorado Mountains and get more moisture. The glacial cirques are huge, creating a series of basins surrounded by many high peaks 13,000- feet or higher. The pass itself is 12,700 feet high, surpassed by Mosquito Pass for example, but unsurpassed in sheer majesty.

I am now committed to more exploration of the Elk Mountains. There are Taylor and Schofield Passes that are four wheel drive accessible. A winter drive to the Maroon Bells is on my list. I may even break down and get out and walk. My backpacking days are over, but there are lots of day hikes. Lots of people on the trails, but most of them are nice people. The high passes are for solitude.

Posted in Colorado Mountains, Family History, Four Wheeling, My Story, Stories

Pearl Pass Part One

Posted on September 8, 2014 by Bill Leave a comment

Road to Ashcroft

On Wednesday, September 3, I drove over Pearl Pass. Pearl is one of those four wheeling trips that have been on my list for a long time. My grandmother, Pearl Willits Shanks, drove a team and wagon over the pass when the Willits family moved from north Texas to Colorado in 1887. Pearl was 12 when she drove over the pass. She may have been a Texas girl before Pearl Pass, but she was a mountain girl after that.

The road was built as a toll road in the early 1880’s from the railhead in Crested Butte to the newly discovered silver mining area in Aspen. It was in use until the railroads came to Aspen in the late 1880’s. The main use was hauling coal from mines at Crested Butte to Aspen.

Today the road is much like it was in the nineteenth century. From the start of the four wheel drive portion until it drops into the valley on the Crested Butte side it has no dirt, just rock.

The Bad Ledge

Fist sized rocks, baby head sized rocks, rock ledges, big rocks in narrow places, and big rocks in the middle of the road. One can grow tired of rock.

It is also narrow, made for wagons a long time ago. There is no room for error. In reading about the pass, most of the reports involving trouble were where a vehicle got too far to the side. When that happens, there better be good help available, because it is a long way to the bottom if the vehicle rolls over.

I was able to drive over all those rocks with no real damage to my Toyota Tacoma other than losing a mudflap. The forest ranger had suggested a Jeep Rubicon. I find my Toyota does just fine, although I may add a limited slip differential someday.

The Road and a View

At the Summit

This is probably the most difficult road I have driven. Steep, narrow, and did I mention rocky? I will do it again. The history is important to me, the story of my family. I spent the afternoon on that road marveling that a 12 year old girl from flat Texas could marshal the courage to drive a wagon over that hill.

I don’t know how long the entire trip from Crested Butte to Ashcroft, 10 miles from Aspen, took the Willits family. I do know that they misjudged the time it would take to get over the highest part and did not get off the hill into Ashcroft until 11:00 PM.

That road is scary enough in daylight. At night? It is good that horses are better at seeing at night than we are. Once I got down into the timber on the Crested Butte side, the alternating sunlight and shadow made it hard to see any serious obstacles. I can just imagine what Pearl was feeling.

I have given you some history and road condition information about Pearl Pass. My next piece will be about the other big attractions. The Elk Mountains that the pass traverses are some of the most spectacular and geologically unique mountains in Colorado. Next time.

Posted in Colorado History, Colorado Mountains, Family History, Four Wheeling, Memoirs, My Story

Pearl Comes To Colorado

Posted on February 7, 2014 by Bill One comment

Horse Drawn Wagon

Pearl Pass

It is 1887 in North Texas and Lee Willits’ ranch is not doing well. Lee applied and got a job as a ranch foreman in Colorado. The next thing was to make the move. With all the ranch equipment and a horse herd, he decided to travel with wagons. His daughter Pearl drove one of the wagons.

They travelled from Texas into New Mexico, then north into Southern Colorado and Taylor Park, where Crested Butte is located. The task then was to get over the Elk Mountains to Aspen and down the Roaring Fork River to El Jebel Ranch north of Basalt.

The wagon road from Taylor Park to Aspen went over Pearl Pass. At 12,700 feet high, it was steep, narrow, and rocky. They traveled the road with more than one wagon, the horse herd, and probably with Lee on his horse. It is a shelf road, with the mountain rising on one side of the road and a steep drop-off into a canyon on the other. The road sloped to the outside, and was only wide enough for one wagon. The Willits family was not familiar with mountain roads and misjudged how long it would take to get over the pass to Ashcroft, today a ghost town outside Aspen. They got in at 11:00 PM.

Pearl drove her wagon down that mountain road in the dark. She was a tough kid, though, at twelve years old. She must have been terrified, as she told that story the rest of her life. The family settled down and Lee did well, acquiring land of his own and working it as well as the big El Jebel ranch. Pearl, her two sisters and a brother went to Basalt schools.

As Basalt was near Aspen, an important mining town, it was served by two railroads. A spur of the Denver and Rio Grande Western came up the Roaring Fork from Glenwood Springs; and the Colorado Midland came over the Continental Divide from Leadville via Hagerman Pass, again over 12,000 feet high. One of the railroaders on the Midland was William Shanks, my grandfather.

Will was a conductor on the Midland, assigned his own red caboose, and in charge of the train. He lived in Leadville, a division point on the Midland. In the morning his train went west past Turquoise Lake, over the pass, and down the scenic Frying Pan River Valley to Basalt. At that point, another crew took the train on to Grand Junction. Will laid over in Basalt and took another train to Leadville the next day.

There he was in Basalt two or three nights a week, and he met Pearl, by that time a mountain girl in her own right. After a courtship they married and she lived in Leadville with Will. They had three children; all born at the ranch in Basalt, as it was much safer having babies at 6500 feet in Basalt rather than over 10,000 feet elevation in Leadville in the days before antibiotics. The middle of the three children was Rollin, my father.

Posted in Family History, Stories