Explorer Blog - Colorado Ghost Towns

A Ghost Story

We drove into the San Juan mountains of Colorado in early May and discovered the inevitable: much of the backcountry remain inaccessible due to the spring avalanche hazard. Determined to make the most of our time here we set off on foot through some of the lower country in search of ghost towns and lost treasures left in abandoned mines.

Just days before our arrival we had purchased some used children's snowshoes from the Goodwill. The plastic 'shoes', many sizes too small for us felt ridiculous, and we sunk several inches into the deep snow with each step. Bemoaning our wasted purchase, we nonetheless trudged on in the bright blue 'shoes'.

We spent several days in the mountains, treasure hunting in the rubble of old mines, and exploring the long abandoned homes of their people. At night we camped below the treeline hoping to find some shelter from the high winds and severe weather; but there was no hiding from the precipitously dropping temperatures each evening. We built large fires to keep burning through the night to provide warmth.

Eventually as our supplies dwindled and our time in the mountains drew closed we began the long trek back. We both discovered early on the way back that our snowshoes had failed us, their flimsy bindings ripping free from the pads. It was then that we discovered the actual utility of our supposedly insufficient 'shoes'. Instead of sinking a few inches with each step, we know sunk up to our knees and occasionally our hips with every third step. After breaking through the snow covering streams and creeks several times and dunking our shoes, we took to crawling on hands and knees at every water crossing.

Our progress back was slow and laborious without the snowshoes and afterwards we could reflect on how much they had actually helped us.