California Coast Ride

This drive follows California Highway 1 and twists along the spectacular Big Sur Coast between Carmel and Morro Bay along central California's Pacific shoreline. The road is simply one of the world's most breathtaking drives, a must-do adventure for any California traveler. Here, the steep ridges of the remote Santa Lucia Range plunge down to a rocky, wave-battered coast, making an abrupt transition from wild peak to wild ocean. The roadway follows this transition zone, snaking along precipitous headlands, crossing grassy meadows above ragged coves, and traversing thirty-three bridges that span deep canyons and gorges. It's a superb landscape that serves as a fitting boundary between North America and the Pacific Ocean.

The climate along the Big Sur Coast is mild year-round. Around Monterey Bay on the drive's north end, the weather varies little between winter and summer. Only ten degrees difference separates the mean temperatures for August and January making the climate here the most uniform of anywhere in the United States. Summer brings thick fog banks that wrap the coast in gray shrouds. The fog usually burns off by mid-day, but temperatures are often cool. Bring a sweater for those days. Inland temperatures on the mountains and valleys above the coast can be hot with daily highs reaching into the nineties. Autumn brings warm, clear days until winter storms sweep off the Pacific in December. Heavy rains lead to frequent landslides along the road. Forty-two land slides blocked the highway during the wet winter of 1982-83. One took over a year to clear away. The greenery in spring adorns the coastal meadows and forests, and the days are clear and breezy with occasional showers.

Monterey is considered the birthplace of California. Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, a Portuguese sailor exploring for Spain, discovered Monterey Bay in 1542. California Highway 1 is called the Cabrillo Highway in honor of California's first European explorer. In 1602, Sebastian Vizcaino celebrated mass under Monterey's own "Plymouth Rock," an old spreading oak tree. Almost two centuries later, explorer Gaspar de Potola and Father Junipero Serra established a presidio and mission on the bay's fertile south shore; and the town, called Monterey, grew into a lively port and the provincial capital of Alta California, and later a major fishing port and fish cannery. There are more 18th and 19th century buildings here than any other California town. The drive begins in the arts town of Carmel just south of Monterey on California Highway 1. The drive drops down from the picturesque town, crosses the Carmel River, and passes Carmel River State Beach, a generally uncrowded stretch of sand bordered by windswept cypress and eucalyptus trees. Good birding is found in the river's marsh delta. A mile past the state beach lies Point Lobos State Reserve, perhaps California's most beautiful coastal park land. This 1,276-acre nature preserve of rocky headlands, wave-carved coves, narrow shell-strewn beaches, and sea stacks, juts into south Carmel Bay. Its six-mile coast is a wonderful place of relentless surf and wind. Tide pools teeming with life -- sea urchins, hermit crabs, starfish, anemones -- are exposed on the rough shore at low tide. Numerous birds including sea gulls, comorants, brown pelicans, and herons soar overhead. Colonies of barking sea lions populate the quiet coves. The reserve is also well known for its diverse flora, with more than 300 plant species inhabiting its terrain. It's a good place to see the elegant Monterey cypress, a rare tree that grows only on Point Lobos and nearby Cypress Point. These gnarled, twisted trees, buffeted by fierce coastal winds, line the park's rocky cliffs and headlands. To preserve the park's beauty, only 450 visitors are allowed into the park at any one time. Plan to come early or wait in line along the highway on weekends.

The drive runs through Carmel Highlands and enters Big Sur Country past Point Lobos. This is a spectacular stretch of coast where the Santa Lucia Range plunges into the blue Pacific Ocean. The Santa Lucias, also called the Big Sur Hills, spread southward from the Carmel River to the Cuyama River. Much of the range is administered by Los Padres National Forest, part of which is the remote 250,000-acre Ventana Wilderness Area. The range high point is 5,862-foot Junipero Serra Peak.

The drive's next thirty miles clings to the seaward face of the Santa Lucias above the crash of the Pacific surf. The road is narrow with numerous pullouts. Use them to enjoy the scenery or allow traffic to safely pass. The first stop is 2,800-acre Garrapata State Park along the coast just north of Soberanes Point. This day-use park land, named by the Spanish for the lowly wood tick, boasts gleaming white beaches flanked by granite buttresses, arches, and grottos. Some good trails lace the bluffs above the water and the coves offer fishing for greenling and surf perch. A good trail climbs east from the highway 1.5 miles up Soberanes Creek to a verdant grove of redwoods nestled in the chaparral-covered hills.

The highway twists south from Garrapata past Kaiser and Rocky points to the Bixby Creek Bridge, a dramatic concrete span that arches over Bixby Creek's deep gorge. The famed bridge measures 718 feet long and 260 feet high and consumed some 6,600 cubic yards of concrete poured into forms supported by 300,000 board feet of Douglas fir. The bridge, also called Rainbow Bridge, was completed in 1932. The highway itself was finished in 1937, hacked out of the remote coast by convict labor who battled violent weather and tough engineering problems for nine years. The road cost more than $10 million or $71,000 per mile.

The drive hugs the coast and then climbs away from a bridge to a lofty viewpoint above Hurricane Point. Good views of the ocean and the north coast are found here. Look to the south to see shipwrecks near Point Sur at low tide. The road drops southward, crosses the Little Sur River, and edges around Little River Hill to Point Sur. This rocky point was once nicknamed "the graveyard of the Pacific" for its numerous offshore shipwrecks including the S.S. Los Angeles in 1873. The automated Point Sur Lighthouse that now graces the site is operated by the Coast Guard. This 34-acre spit of land is also a state park. Regular ranger-led tours visit the lighthouse. The point also makes a great spot for winter whale watching. Massive fifty-ton California gray whales, California's state mammal, make an annual 12,000-mile round-trip migration south to Baja California from Alaska in autumn to breeding and birthing grounds in Mexican waters before heading north with the spring. Bring a pair of binoculars to look for these gentle giants surfacing off-shore.

The highway bends southeast after Point Sur and traverses a wide bench between the mountains and the sea. After a few miles, it passes 2,088-acre Andrew Molera State Park along the lower section of the Big Sur River. The usually uncrowded park offers several trails, a two-mile-long beach, and a primitive fifty-site-walk-in campground a quarter mile from the highway parking lot. This area, bounded on the north by the Little Sur River and the south by the Big Sur River, was part of an 8,949-acre Mexican land grant called Rancho El Sur granted in 1839. The coast here was called by the early Spanish "El Pais Grande del Sur" or the Great Land of the South. Americans shortened it to Big Sur.

It's past Point Sur that Big Sur aficionados consider the "true" Big Sur to begin. A town called Big Sur stretches the six-mile-length of the Big Sur River Valley with scattered houses and a few stores along Highway 1. This backwater, picturesque valley has long been an artist's colony, attracting those who felt that even Carmel was too civilized. Novelist Henry Miller lived here from 1947 to 1964. He wrote of Big Sur: "That same prehistoric look. The look of always. Nature smiling at herself in the mirror of eternity."

Past Molera State Park, the highway swings inland and follows the Big Sur River valley southeast through abrupt wooded mountains. Pfeiffer-Big Sur State Park, one of California's most popular state parks, is soon encountered. This small 821-acre park abuts the Ventana Wilderness Area and is flanked by Pfeiffer Ridge and Cabezo Prieto. A thick woodland of oak, sycamore, big-leaf maples, willows, cottonwoods, and redwoods crowd the river valley, while trees that prefer drier climes, oak, chaparral, and the endemic Santa Lucia fir scatter across the higher ridges. The spectacular coastal redwoods grow in isolated groves here. Their thick, fire-resistant trunks lift skyward, casting a canopy of sun-dappled shade over the moist, fern-covered forest floor. An excellent trail wanders through the redwoods to Pfeiffer Falls. Other trails climb into the nearby wilderness area. The park offers 217 wooded campsites. But reservations are advised through MISTIX.

A mile past the state park Forest Road 19S05 drops down narrow Sycamore Canyon to scenic Pfeiffer Beach. This ragged coast is lined with rocky, wave-battered crags, and narrow sand beaches. It was the first place settled on the Big Sur coast when the Pfeiffers, for whom the beach and state park are named, homesteaded here in 1869. Another excellent side-trip begins at Andrew Molera State Park and follows the old Coast Road for eleven miles to Bixby Bridge. This dirt road offers spectacular views of Big Sur Country as it corkscrews up and over lofty ridges and peaks, but it may be impassable when wet.

The Cabrillo Highway hugs the coast for the next sixty miles, occasionally venturing down near the pounding surf but usually edging along precipitous, chaparral-shrouded mountain sides high above the rocky strand. Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, about seven miles south of Nepenthe, is another great park on the coast. Excellent hiking trails thread across the steep hillsides, dropping down to two miles of rocky coastline, and walking up trickling creeks lined with redwoods near the southern end of their range. One hike passes Saddle Rock to the cliffs above Waterfall Cove where a waterfall drops into the surf far below. The park has some walk-in and group camping, picnic facilities, as well as winter whale-watching programs.

The drive continues south, swings around Lopez Point, and enters the northern section of Los Padres National Forest. A couple miles later, the road passes thirty-three site Kirk Creek Campground and tiny Mill Creek Picnic Area. The Nacimiento-Ferguson Road, the only road over the Santa Lucia Range, twists east over the range crest to U.S. 101. A side-road climbs to the summit of 5,755-foot Cone Peak and overlooks the vast Ventana Wilderness to the north. Inquire at a national forest office for road conditions.

The small community of Pacific Valley sits on a wide marine terrace below the mountain escarpment. A national forest ranger station here dispenses information, maps, and wilderness permits. A short hike east from the station climbs to seventy-five-foot-high Salmon Creek Falls. This area offers some good coastal access on public lands. Sand Dollar Picnic Area and forty-four site Plaskett Creek Campground sit along this road section. Jade Cove south of Plaskett Point boasts excellent jade hunting along the cobbled beaches. The beaches and cove are unseen from the highway; look for signs and pullouts. A path drops down a stairway on a cliff to the cove. Two jade types are found here -- rare Nephrite jade and common green Monterey jade. Over a period of months in 1971, three divers excavated an eight-foot-long, 9,000-pound boulder of nephrite jade valued at $180,000. At Willow Creek is a picnic area above the rocky beach. Higher is Willow Creek Vista on the highway with scenic views of the coast receding to the southeast horizon.

Past Willow Creek, the highway uncoils across precipitous ridges high above the ocean. Numerous pullouts allow scenic views. Drive carefully and slowly through this section; maximum speeds are less than thirty miles an hour. The road passes several rugged headlands -- Ragged Point, Breaker Point, Point Sierra Nevada, and Point Piedras Blancas -- that jut into the heaving water. Piedras Blancas, named for its white, guano-covered rocks, has a 145-foot-high lighthouse.

The landscape changes dramatically after Piedras Blancas as the road crosses grassy marine terraces above the low, rocky coastline. The chaparral-covered mountains rise beyond the bench. William Randolph Hearst Memorial State Beach lies near San Simeon. It offers good sunbathing, picnicking, and fishing. High above San Simeon atop the rounded hills sits California's second busiest tourist attraction -- the Hearst San Simeon State Historic Monument. This extravagant castle was built by publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst beginning in 1919. The Hearst Castle, with 100 rooms including thirty-one bathrooms, two libraries, and a billiards parlor, is adorned with art treasures from around the world. The mansion cost more than ten million dollars, or as much as the total cost of Highway 1. The estate, donated to California by the Hearst Corporation in memory of its maker, can be toured daily. It takes almost two days to see the entire place.

A few miles past the turn to the Hearst estate lies San Simeon State Beach. This great beach, accessed by several roadside parking areas, spreads along the shore beneath low, broken cliffs topped by windswept grass. The state park land also offers two excellent campgrounds on the east side of the highway. San Simeon Creek Campground has 134 sites and Washburn Campground offers seventy sites on the rolling grassland.

The drive runs southeast up broad Perry Creek valley and down Ellysly Creek and reaches the north end of scallop-shaped Estero Bay. The road heads east and then south through Cayucos, past Cayucos and Morro Strand state beaches to the town of Morro Bay on the tiny inlet of Morro Bay. The town is dominated by 576-foot-high Morro Rock, named by early Spanish explorers for its bold headland. The rock is also called the "Gibraltar of the Pacific." It is the interior remains of an ancient volcano that once lifted its cone here. The bay and its fertile estuary is considered one of the nation's top bird watching spots. The town offers an excellent Museum of Natural History that explores the surrounding hills and ocean habitats.

While the scenic drive ends at Morro Bay, Highway 1 bends inland at Morro Bay and runs as a four-lane highway another twelve miles to U.S. 101 and the historic town of San Luis Obispo.

California Redwoods Ride

The Redwood Empire stretches almost 500 miles from south of Monterey to a small pocket in southwestern Oregon along California's coastal ranges. This immense span of land, wreathed in summer fog and pounded by winter storms, is home to Sequoia sempervirens, the coast redwood. The Redwood Highway, U.S. 101, traverses seventy-eight miles of the empire's best redwood country between Eureka and Crescent City in northwestern California. This long strip of land is northern California's frontier with the ocean and boasts an almost unsurpassed natural beauty with craggy headlands jutting boldly into frothy surf, majestic stands of pristine redwood trees, broad bays and estuaries that teem with wildlife, and glistening sweeps of sand that form the tenuous boundary between land and sea. The land along the drive is truly unique, one of California's greatest and most memorable scenic attractions.

California's north coast is a land of heavy rain. As much as 100 inches falls on parts of the Redwood Coast, making lush forests and thick meadowlands. Most of the rain falls in winter when Pacific storms lash against the coastal mountains. Temperatures are also cool. January's average high in both Eureka and Crescent City is 53 degrees. Summer hardly warms up, with average July temperatures in Eureka only a paltry 60 degrees; and temperatures in Crescent City climb to a 69 degree average. Eureka is the usual winner of the coolest city year-round in the continental United States, with little variation between summer and winter. Expect thick fog in summer along the coast and in the redwood forests. Sometimes it burns off by mid-day, but the mist usually hangs around all day. Biologists estimate as much as 12 percent of the moisture redwoods need is derived from the moist summer fogs. A good raincoat and hat are needed for both hikers and beachcombers.

The drive begins in Eureka, the largest city on California's northern coast. Eureka is now a charming, historic town that started as a prosperous seaport for the Trinity mining boom to the east. San Francisco land speculators and merchants saw beckoning opportunity on the north coast in 1850, and several different companies raced northward to grab land and potential profits. Irishman James Ryan's group claimed the east shore of Humboldt Bay, a long inland bay named for famed naturalist Baron Alexander von Humboldt, and established a new town dubbed Eureka. Eureka is a Greek phrase meaning "I have found it!" Within three years, Eureka housed a population of 3,000. After the mining boom busted, the port became a major logging center. The harvested wood was, of course, redwood. By 1855, nine mills operated around Humboldt Bay.

The city today has a population of 27,000 and offers many restored houses, including the elegant Gothic Carson Mansion, an Old Town area, and numerous sights and services. Eureka also has several fine museums such as the Humboldt Bay Maritime Museum and the Clarke Museum with its excellent collection of North American Indian basketry. Fort Humboldt State Historic Park preserves the site of an 1850s military garrison that established order between settlers and Indians. Captain Ulysses S. Grant, later Civil War hero and President, was stationed here before being drummed out of the service for drunkenness in 1854. On leaving Eureka, Grant prophesied to his friend Post Surgeon Jonathon Clark, "My day will come, they will hear from me yet." Eureka's Old Town is worth a stroll. This "skid row" collection of brothels, sailor's taverns, card houses, and flophouses have been renovated into a trendy area with art galleries, cafes, and shops. Skid row itself is a North Coast logging expression. Logs were laid crossways on steep slopes or marshes and logs pulled by oxen teams were skidded along the improvised road to railheads and mills.

The scenic drive, following four-lane U.S. Highway 101, leaves Eureka and swings around broad Humboldt Bay. The bay is California's second largest and is enclosed on the west by long sand spits with a narrow, treacherous channel that has grounded many ships. The bay was first discovered by Russian-American Fur Company traders in 1806. The bay's east part, called Arcata Bay, is part of Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge. This fertile wetland of tidal flats and marsh is a resting stopover for birds on the Pacific Flyway. The bay supports more than 250 bird species and seventy-five fish species. Arcata lies eight miles north of Eureka on the Arcata Bottoms floodplain. The town, second largest in Humboldt County, is home to Humboldt State University and the Humboldt Crabs baseball team. Arcata offers a pleasant downtown plaza, 20-acre Redwood Park, and the nearby 213-acre Lanphere-Christensen Dunes Preserve on the Samoa Peninsula. Here, dune plant communities from both the south and north coasts overlap in a unique transition zone.

From Arcata the highway runs north across low farmland and through McKinleyville, a small town renamed in 1901 for assassinated President William McKinley. The area's industry includes bulb and tree farms, cheese, dairies, and truck farming. The thirty-acre Azalea State Reserve lies east of the road on the Mad River. The site is spectacular in May when the aromatic pink western azaleas bloom. Beyond McKinleyville, the highway hugs the coast, passing Clam Beach County Park and Little River State Beach. The state beach offers picnicking, surf fishing, and clamming; the county park has a campground.

Trinidad sits a few miles north at Trinidad Head, a large promontory that juts into the ocean. This headland was discovered and christened Trinidad by Spanish explorer Don Bruno Hecata on June 11, 1775. A large pine cross erected on the site marked the territory as a Spanish possession. The wooden cross was replaced by a stone one in 1913. Trinidad, like Eureka, grew out of the mining boom in the nearby mountains, serving as a supply and whaling port and later as a shipping center for lumber bound for world markets. Trinidad State Beach, just north of town, offers good beachcombing for driftwood and moonstones.

Patrick's Point State Park is another headland north of Trinidad. The 630-acre park is covered with grassy meadows sprinkled by spring wildflowers and a fringe of forest that includes Sitka spruce, Port Orford cedar, red alder, and hemlock. Sand beaches and abrupt cliffs and promontories chiseled by the relentless surf compose the park's landscape. The area's rich game, vegetation, and sea life attracted the Yurok Indians who lived here seasonally. They ate sea lions as well as plentiful mussels, leaving huge shell middens at their campsites. Three park campgrounds -- Agate Beach, Abalone, and Penn Creek -- offer 123 sites with water, restrooms, and showers. Several good hiking trails lace the promontory. Two-mile Rim Trail, following an old Indian path from Agate Beach to Palmer's Point, is one of the best. The park is also one of the best whale-watching spots on the Redwood Coast. The gray whales follow a 12,000-mile, eight-month migration from Arctic feeding grounds to winter calving lagoons off Baja California. From November to January and from March through May are the best times for whale watching. Binoculars are helpful in spotting the whales. Past Patrick's Point, the highway curves around several huge inland lagoons -- Big, Stone, and Freshwater lagoons. These comprise Humboldt Lagoons State Park, a large area of both salt and freshwater marshes and dense woods that shelter numerous migrating birds on the Pacific Flyway such as ducks, herons, egrets, and pelicans. Long sand spits front the ocean on the west, and densely forested mountains rise steeply over the wetlands. The park offers boating, fishing for trout, salmon, and steelhead, and primitive camping.

At the north end of Freshwater Lagoon, the highway bends inland along Redwood Creek. Here among the sand dunes sits the Redwood Information Center. It is the southern gateway to Redwood National Park, a unique 106,000-acre national park jointly managed by the National Park Service and California State Parks. The park scatters along the coast from here to Crescent City like a string of pearls. Eastward stretches the Redwood Creek section with its tall trees, and northward lies Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park, and Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. Logging over the last century decimated 85 percent of California's coastal old-growth redwoods, leaving huge stumps where massive giants once stood. Redwood National Park, incorporating the three state parks, preserves some of the best forest left, including the world's tallest living thing. The park was declared a World Heritage Site for its unique forests in 1982. Redwood Information Center is a good place to stop for information on camping and hiking, and to view exhibits detailing the park's unusual natural history, coastline, and history.

Past the center, the road enters Orick. This small town nestles in a broad pastoral valley flanked by redwood-studded mountains. Dairy farms and small ranches are scattered along the highway. The Yurok Indians inhabited the area seasonally, and the town's name is derived from their word "Ore'q" meaning "mouth of the river." The town offers all services to travelers including gas, lodging, restaurants, and RV parks.

The Bald Hills Road takes off east from the highway just north of Orick. This narrow road, with grades as steep as fifteen percent, twists into the Bald Hills above Redwood Creek. Just up the road is the one-mile Lady Bird Johnson Grove self-guided nature trail. Ten miles up the road, the Tall Trees Trail, which is accessible from the road by shuttle bus, drops steeply down to Redwood Creek and the world's tallest tree. This spire-like redwood towers 367.8 feet above its massive base. It was discovered by National Geographic naturalist Paul Zahl in 1964. The tree, along with many other 300-footers, grows on a moist gravel bench above a Redwood Creek meander. The discovery of the tree on privately owned timberland helped ensure the establishment of the national park in 1968. Prior to that, environmental organizations including the Sierra Club and Save-the-Redwoods League had urged the protection of California's remaining big trees. But much of the land that was purchased for the park was already clear-cut and in dire need of rehabilitation.

The drive runs north up Prairie Creek from Orick and quickly reaches Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, a spectacular 14,000-acre sanctuary of pristine redwood forests. Eight miles of U.S. 101 wend through the park, past silent groves that reach skyward. A four-lane, 12-mile-long bypass skirts the east boundary of the park for those in a hurry. The park features several dirt side roads that make fabulous excursions. Cal Barrel Road runs three miles through mature redwood forest. The Coastal Drive turns west at the north end of the park and runs down through redwoods to an unimpeded view of Gold Bluff Beach and the Pacific Ocean, before turning north to Highway 101 on the south side of the Klamath River. The Davison Road is a favorite; it begins three miles south of the park boundary and uncoils four miles through second-growth forest to Gold Bluff Beach. It then runs north below the bluff alongside the crashing surf for another four miles to the secluded trailhead for Fern Canyon.

Fern Canyon is simply one of the most beautiful spots imaginable. A short trail leaves the parking lot, crisscrosses Home Creek, and enters Fern Canyon, a 50-foot deep gorge etched into soft sandstone. Above the pebbled canyon floor, five-finger ferns and other species blanket the walls with a verdant, hanging garden. Quiet reigns in this green kingdom, broken only by occasional bird songs, wind rippling the lofty treetops, and the distant roar of waves breaking on the strand. Redwoods, Sitka spruce, and Douglas fir loom over the canyon, blocking sunlight on rare clear days. An excellent 25-site campground sits on the dunes a couple miles south of Fern Canyon.

The park's other campground, Elk Prairie, offers 75 sites and sits among giant redwoods just off U.S. 101 six miles north of Orick. Nearby is the park's "prairie," a large open meadow. Elk Prairie and Gold Bluffs Beach are home to the park's two herds of endangered Roosevelt elk. These elk are members of the deer family and are larger than their Rocky Mountain cousins. An adult Roosevelt bull weighs 1,000 pounds and boasts a spectacular rack of antlers 3 feet high. Despite their docile appearance, remember these are wild animals and are particularly aggressive during the fall rut. A long pull-off lane on the drive allows visitors to safely park off the highway and view the grazing elk. Other animals found in the redwood forest include black bear, rabbit, squirrel, mountain lion, bobcat, coyote, and fox. More than 250 species of birds have been identified in the park's wide variety of habitats. Notable birds are the infamous spotted owl and marbled murrelet, both dependent on old-growth forests.

More than seventy-five miles of hiking trails thread the park, making it a walker's paradise. Stop along the drive in either Prairie Creek or Del Norte Coast state parks and hike into the redwood forest. It's an unforgettable experience. Standing there among the silent trees is to stand in the forest primeval. The redwoods soar overhead. These impressive trees, growing on California's coastal ranges within thirty miles of the Pacific shore, tower over 350 feet, weigh more than 2 million pounds, live as long as 2,000 years, and supply enough wood to build several houses. Yet these gentle forest titans grow from seeds hardly larger than a pinhead; the seeds come from a cone that is smaller than most western evergreens produce, less than an inch long. The coast redwood once spread over much of the Northern Hemisphere, growing in diverse locales including Alaska, Siberia, Greenland, Europe, and North Dakota. Subsequent changes in climate and topography reduced those great redwood forests to their present small range on California's foggy coast. Their closest relatives are the giant sequoia atop the crest of the Sierra Nevada and the rare dawn redwood found only in a secluded Chinese valley and a transplanted stand in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park.

The highway drops down from Prairie Creek and crosses the mouth of the 263-mile-long Klamath River, the state's second largest river. The Klamath is famed for its huge runs of Chinook salmon and steelhead that migrate upriver in autumn to spawn and die. The town of Klamath, built on the river's north shore, was erased on the terrifying night of December 22, 1964, when the river rose to unprecedented levels after weeks of heavy rain and snow saturated the coastal ranges. Klamath is now a popular stop for fishermen and offers all services; be sure and sample its famous smoked salmon jerky. Nearby sits the Trees of Mystery, a hokey tourist attraction made famous by Ripley's Believe It Or Not! Farther north lies Requa, a small town that was once a thriving mining and lumber camp and earlier a Yurok Indian village. A county road runs west from the scenic drive through Requa to Klamath Overlook with a great view of the mighty river emptying into the ocean. The Coastal Trail travels north along the coast from here to Crescent City.

The highway continues north from Klamath and after a few more miles reemerges on the coast at False Klamath Cove. It then enters 6,400-acre Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park, another division of Redwood National Park. This road section is lined with towering redwoods, butting against the asphalt like wooden pillars. An excellent hike travels two miles along Damnation Creek Trail, an old Yurok Indian trail, from the highway to the seashore, losing 1,000 feet along the way. Splendid old redwoods loom over the path, their spire-like tops hidden by swirling mist. Lush undergrowth of sword ferns and rhododendrons carpet the forest floor. The park's 145-site campground, in second-growth redwood forest logged in the 1920s, sits east of the drive on Mill Creek.

At the north end of the state park, U.S. 101 curves northwest and enters Crescent City, another old seaport founded in 1853. The town was almost destroyed by a huge tidal wave or tsunami from a 1964 Alaska earthquake. Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, another gorgeous part of Redwoods National Park, lies just east of town on U.S. 199.

Utah's Alpine Loop Ride

To reach the Alpine Scenic Loop, take Highway 189 from  Provo and turn left onto State Route 92 at the Sundance turnoff .The Alpine Loop Scenic Backway skirts Mount Timpanogos wilderness area through the Provo Canyon, climbs over a mountain pass, travels past Robert Redford's Sundance Resort, and descends into picturesque American Fork Canyon. This drive is a favorite during autumn when the reds and golds of maple, oak, and aspen contrast sharply with a backdrop of evergreens. Depending on the time of year you may want to take a coat with you because it can get a little chilly up on top, this ride has lots of twisties that you will love and alot of great views.Timpanogos Cave National Monument is a worthwhile stop along the route and Cascade Springs makes a great side trip. The Alpine Loop is 24 miles of paved highway and the road to Cascade Springs is 7.5 miles one-way, also paved. You will normally see quite alot of wildlife so keep your eyes open, the Alpine Loop is closed during winter months, although Sundance Resort is still accessible. Several campgrounds and picnic areas with restrooms and parking are provided along the highway.

 One of the best motorcycle rides in Utah is Highway 12

Making home base in Panguitch at the Purple Sage Motel which I must they treated us great and at $55 a night what a deal.....riding out through Red Canyon  the constant succession of towering redrock, remote slickrock canyons, heavily-forested alpine mountains, small towns contribute to the uniqueness and diversity of the drive.

The entire length of this road has been designated a Utah Scenic Byway, and they got that right. Red Canyon, Bryce's pink sandstone, Kodachrome Basin,  this first 62-mile section of UT 12 is a colorful drive indeed and the people along the way are some of the nicest you will find anywhere. Also make sure you keep one eye on the rode and the other eye looking out for the wildlife in this area which includes lots of deer some elk and quite a few small furry things that dash acoss the rode at time.

The road to be well maintained throughout with moderate traffic, sometimes heavy from the Bryce Canyon turnoff and all through the park which I must say you can find anything a tired bikers would need at the stores around Bryce Canyon from motels,dining, camping...heck you can even rent a tee-pee to camp in.  South of Panguitch, UT 12 immediately cuts through the awesome redrock formations of the Red Canyon in brilliant vermilion-colored formations and stands of ponderosa pines make the canyon a true gem of roadside beauty. Red Canyon is nature's original painted desert. You will find  the best scenery from your bike in the entire country.

Bryce Canyon National Park the most awesome sandstone scenery in Utah, looking out over its pink and orange spires and hoodoos. there are, campgrounds, scenic overlooks, hiking trails, and the most extraordinarily sculpted landscape on earth are a short drive south of the highway.

Continuing east on UT 12, it is 7 miles to the town of Tropic,  it is a pleasant place with a surprising abundance of flowers and fruit orchards. Then at Cannonville, you may want to drop over to see Kodachrome Basin State Park, with its fascinating multi-colored formations.

Back on UT 12, you pass through the quaint little town of Henrieville, after which the road climbs past colored clay cliffs and the the rugged sandstone and shale country of Escalante. There is nothing for the next 30 miles except for some of the finest, most unspoiled high desert scenery you will ever see from a paved road.

Escalante is a classic little town that retains the aura of the pioneer West. Settled until 1875-76, Escalante was most prosperous right around the turn of the century, as confirmed by the number of larger brick buildings from this period. Limited farmland made this primarily a ranching community. You may still see livestock grazing on town lots and you may find some great diners to rest you rump and cool off at.

My wife and I rode this trip in June when the temptures were aroung 102...but when your on a bike who cares how warm it is...besides in Utah the heat is very dry so you hardly notice it at all. Finish up the ride over Boulder Mountain and stay in Torrey at http://www.capitolreefwonderland.com as they are very motorcycle a friendly Inn.

Utah's Skyline Loop Ride

The Skyline Drive can be accessed by several different canyons. Coming from Provo by way of Highway 6  you may enter Skyline Drive at Tucker Rest Stop. The road from Tucker south to Fairview Canyon is dirt/gravel. Road condition is generally good. One can access this section of Skyline Drive in late May to early June until late September to early October. For a paved good road keep going on Hwy 6 a few more miles past Soldier Summit and take the Scofield turn off on Hwy 96...keep an eye out around here for Deer and Elk along side of the roads as there are alot of them depending on what time of year your riding you may see up to 50-75 in one herd.

On Hwy 96 you will ride around Scofield Lake...make a note there is great camping at the lake and the fishing is good also...so rest that motorcycle and take a break and enjoy. Once around the lake and past the small town of Scofield ( there is a gas station) turn on Hwy 264 on over to Skyline and Hwy 31.

Skyline Drive is one of the highest roads in the United States, winds along the broad summit of the Wasatch Plateau, affording magnificent views of Sanpete Valley, mile-deep canyons, lakefilled basins and delightful alpine meadows and forests. The highest point on Skyline Drive is at an elevation of 10,904 feet. It gives visitors views of Wasatch Plateau, adjacent mountain ranges, and Sanpete Valley, Sanpete Valley Overlook is a scenic view of Sanpete Valley. Located on Highway 31 one can get a breathtaking look at the valley below.

If you like at the top of  Fairview Canyon  you can head on down to the town of Fairview on Highway 31 West , it is a small town but has diners and gas stations or you can take the Hwy 31 South over the top and hit the twisties past some awesome lakes , alpine meadows, pine forests and then dropping down to the town of Huntington Utah.

What ever way you decide to go on this ride...you won't be sorry you took it , but keep in mind the weather changes quickly in Utah depending on the time of year.  

Zion Park Ride

This route follows UT 9 from its western terminus at exit 16 on Interstate 15 to its eastern junction with U.S. Highway 89 at Mt. Carmel Junction. The most important scenic features of this drive center on the dramatic landscape within the confines of Zion National Park, although the scenery along the length of UT 9 is consistently of a high standard.

In addition to the 6.2-mile Zion Park Scenic Drive, there are two other notable scenic backways departing from UT 9: Smithsonian Butte Scenic Backway and Kolob Reservoir Scenic Backway. Both are highly recommended sidetrips.

You reach the twin towns of Hurricane and LaVerkin 9 miles from the interstate along UT 9. (An alternate approach for this drive, if coming from the north, is via Utah Highway 17 from I-15 exit 27.) Follow UT 9 right through Hurricane, cross the Virgin River, and you are in LaVerkin (Hurricane and LaVerkin are sort of like the Hungarian towns of Buda and Pest, except they are considerably smaller and the food is definitely not as good.)

Just beneath the Virgin River bridge is the small commercial spa called Pah Tempe Hot Springs. There are seven hot mineral pools (100 degrees F), a swimming pool, a campground, and a bed-and-breakfast. East of LaVerkin, the scenery along the drive becomes increasingly more attractive. The highway climbs to the top of the Hurricane Cliffs, with a fine view back to the west of the Pine Valley Mountains. At the wide spot in the road called Virgin, watch for the well-marked turnoff on the left for the Kolob Reservoir Road. This 45-mile backway drive links UT 9 with Utah Highway 14, east of Cedar City, and provides exceptional views of the west side of Zion Park. The road is paved and suitable for all vehicles as far as Lava Point (22 miles from UT 9) at the northern tip of the park.

The backway runs in and out of the park through forests and lovely meadows. There is a beautiful primitive campground (free) at Lava Point, with tables, toilets, and fire grates, but no water. This makes a good place to overnight if you want to spend a full day in Zion Park. If you arrive at Lava Point in the early evening, you will more than likely see large numbers of deer in the open areas near the turnoff to the campground.

It is 9 miles from Virgin to the tidy little community of Rockville. At Rockville, you might want to take half an hour to visit the site of old Grafton or an hour or so to drive the 9-mile Smithsonian Butte Scenic Backway.

The peaceful little ghost town of Grafton, first settled in 1859, is semi-famous as the filming location for many of the scenes in the classic Newman/Redford film, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Today it makes a nice picnic spot. There is no sign for Grafton, so watch for Bridge Road on the right. Cross the narrow bridge over the Virgin River. The road takes a jog to the right and runs 3.5 miles to the old townsite. Note the interesting old cemetery, about 0.5 mile before the town, where people keep swiping the grave markers for the colorfully named Indians in the back row.

This same road, across the Virgin River bridge, is the start to the Smithsonian Butte Scenic Backway. This drive offers spectacular panoramas of Zion Park, a short distance to the north, as well as closer encounters with Smithsonian Butte and Canaan Mountain. It is recommended that you drive the 9-mile-long backway in both directions, as the views change from either direction. The entire drive should take an hour. The well-marked, well-maintained, two-lane dirt road is suitable for most vehicles, although one short, steep section might pose problems for larger vehicles. Inquire in Virgin or Rockville about current road conditions.

One mile east of Rockville is the start of 3 miles of fairly hideous commercial development at Springdale, the west entrance to Zion. Just outside of the park entrance, at the Cinemax Theater in Springdale, is an hourly show about Zion called Treasure of the Gods on a six-story screen. At the Obert Tanner Amphitheater, The Grand Circle gives a nice overview to the dramatic grandeur of Southern Utah. Springdale has an abundance of bed-and-breakfasts and motels, all of which fill up early during the tourist season.

At Springdale you enter Zion, and the world begins to look a little different. The evocative names of some of the more famous landmarks -- the Great White Throne, Angels Landing, Temple of Sinawava, Mountain of the Sun -- suggest something of the grandeur of the place. But Zion really must be seen to be believed.

Anasazi and Paiute Indians probably used the canyon as a year-round refuge, as did some of the early white settlers. Among the first homesteaders here was Isaac Behunin, in 1861, who remarked: "A man can worship God among these great cathedrals as well as in any manmade church -- this is Zion."

The park was established in 1909 by President William Howard Taft, though it took roughly 250 million years to create. After millions of years of tilting, cracking, and layering, the little Virgin River did most of the fine finish-work in carving the rocky canyon -- but it did take her a little while. What you see today is the product of more than 13 million years of persistent erosion.

On calm, blue-sky days it is hard to imagine how this peaceful stream could have had such a profound effect on the rocky landscape. But if you have the opportunity to see the Virgin in a wilder mood, swollen to flash-flood by thunderstorm and spring snowmelt, sweeping full-grown trees and massive boulders along in its torrent, the geology here begins to make sense.

The weather is almost always moderate in Zion Park, with warm days and pleasantly cool nights in summer. Afternoon thunderstorms are common in July and August. There is little winter snow in the canyon itself, though the higher plateaus usually receive a fair accumulation, making winter an especially scenic (and crowd-free) time to visit.

Summer crowds are, in fact, the only drawback to a Zion visit. This is one of the single greatest tourist attractions in the American West, on everyone's must-see list. Park traffic can be very busy, sometimes to the point of intensity and irritation. Take your time, observe the 35 mph speed limit and DO NOT STOP ON THE ROAD, except at designated pullouts. A new plan for managing the park's congestion and overuse awaits enactment in the near future. Among the several strategies considered is to completely close Zion Canyon Road to private vehicles; visitors would board shuttle buses to tour the canyon.

One other note on driving in Zion Park: Many recreational vehicles and trailers are too big to pass safely in two-way traffic through the mile-long Zion-Mt. Carmel Tunnel. For vehicles wider than 94 inches (including mirrors) or higher than 11 feet 4 inches, an escort (required) is provided for a small fee ($10 in 1995). You must arrange for the escort in advance at a park entrance or at the visitor center. During the height of the summer tourist season, large vehicles may face parking restrictions within the park. Be sure to check on this at the visitor center.

The visitor center is just under 1 mile from the Springdale entrance. Close to the visitor center are the two park campgrounds (no hookups and no showers), one of which is open year-round. Campsites are available on a first-come, first-served basis; they will generally all be taken well before noon in the summer season, so check in early if you want to camp in the park. For those with overnight backpacking gear, a free backcountry permit, obtainable at the visitor center, allows you to camp in primitive campsites along the many trails in the park as long as you are at least 1 mile from the road.

Just east of the visitor center is the turnoff (on the left) for Zion Canyon. Sheer cliffs of brilliant hue tower 2,000 to 3,000 feet above the canyon floor, giving this remarkable 6.2-mile tour along the North Fork of the Virgin River its well-deserved reputation as perhaps the most dramatic of all National Park drives. Along the river, stands of cottonwood, willow, and ash provide shady spots to stretch your legs and picnic. Where the water runs, Zion is a fairly lush place, with almost eight hundred native plant species and a tremendous variety of fauna.

The park has an abundance of hiking paths of varying lengths and degrees of difficulty. Inquire for detailed trail information at the visitor center. Two highly recommended (easy) hikes are the Middle Emerald Pool Loop and Canyon Overlook. Remote primitive campsites allow for several fine overnight backpacking trips in the park, and technical rock climbing has increased in popularity here. From late March until November, there are regularly-scheduled hikes with park naturalists as well as especially-informative evening programs. There are also commercially-run horsepacking tours and an excellent open-air bus tour (inquire at Zion Lodge for both). Zion Lodge provides motel units, cabins, a restaurant, and other amenities and is open year-round. Room reservations are highly advised; call 801-772-3967.

The road east from Zion to Mt. Carmel Junction was completed in 1930 and was considered one of the great road-building accomplishments of its time. As you climb from the canyon floor to the two high plateaus to the east, passing through two narrow tunnels blasted through the cliffs, you will probably understand why it created such a sensation. When you exit the second of these tunnels, you will find yourself in a very different sort of landscape. No longer amidst towering sandstone cliffs, you are now in classic Utah "slickrock" country -- a strange moonscape of rounded, molded, weather-sculpted rock. This multi-colored sandstone, eroded and etched with grooves and cracks, presents a fantastic aspect of geologic complexity. Checkerboard Mesa, near the east entrance to the park, is particularly impressive, with its almost surreal cross-bedding of grooves. Happily, nothing like the commercial development at Springdale awaits you outside the park's east entrance. Thirteen miles east of Zion, at Mt. Carmel Junction, is a small cluster of travelers' facilities, including a well-maintained golf course.

From Mt. Carmel Junction you have several options: turn right, left, or back to Hurricane and I-15. The end of this drive leaves you in the heart of some very scenic country. A left at the intersection with US 89 takes you north into scenic Long Valley. Right takes you south to Kanab.

Bitterroot Montana Ride

The drive: This drive begins in Missoula, one of Montana's largest cities. There is some discrepancy about where the name Missoula comes from, but the most commonly accepted story says it comes from the Salish word for "river of awe" or "by the chilling waters." Whatever the origin, there is no doubt that the river passing through Missoula, the Clark Fork, is both awesome and chilly.

Missoula is home to the University of Montana, which hosts a variety of events and activities for visitors and locals, year-round. Theater performances, art shows, concerts, and sports competitions will keep you busy in town. During summers, many special music and entertainment events take place in downtown parks and on the university campus. A farmers' market in Circle Square runs Saturday mornings and Tuesday evenings from about June until the end of the growing season. On Wednesdays during summer, Out to Lunch features a food fair in Caras Park, with entertainment starting at noon.

The historical museum at Fort Missoula has a permanent exhibit detailing Missoula's more than one hundred-year-old past. Changing exhibits document various trades in which Missoulians have thrived. Visit the USDA Forest Service's Aerial Fire Depot and Smokejumper Visitor Center near the airport and learn about the history of jumping out of airplanes into forest fires. It might help you understand why these brave men and women do what they do. Hundreds of miles of trails both in and out of town will keep you busy on foot or bike. Fishermen, floaters, skiers, and wildlife watchers find plenty of water, snow, and landscape to ply their hobbies. If you are visiting in early April, the week-long International Wildlife Film Festival shows the best wildlife films of the year from all over the world and features film workshops and demonstrations. If you enjoy walking or biking, Missoula has several unique urban trails where you can watch for birds, watch people, or picnic. For those wanting more solitude, three major mountain national recreation areas just minutes from town -- Rattlesnake, Pattee Canyon, and Blue Mountain -- might have what you are looking for.

Begin the scenic drive by heading south from town on US 93. As you follow the road toward Lolo, you will pass Blue Mountain Recreation Area, in the Bitterroot Mountains. To access its hiking, biking, and motorbiking trails, turn right at the Montana Athletic Club, a bluish building that looks like a round spacecraft. The road turns to gravel shortly after the turn. There are three different places along Blue Mountain Road to park your car and enjoy the outdoors; all are adequately marked. You can sled at Blue Mountain in winter or visit a fire lookout in summer. A small observatory near the lookout opens its telescope to the public for star- and planet-gazing on certain Fridays during summer.

South of Missoula, the road skirts the flanks of the Bitterroot Mountains, affording nice views of the Sapphire Mountains to the east. The low, grassy hills of the Sapphires provide a stark contrast to the higher, forested arBtes of the Bitterroots. Composed of sedimentary rocks that in places oozed granite, the Sapphires were never molded by glaciers like their valley neighbors, which were heavily glaciated. The route between Missoula and Lolo is the windiest section of road until you get to Darby. A word of caution: Even though much of this route is straight, US 93 has a lot of traffic, and many deer cross the road. These factors make driving hazardous at night and during winter.

The town of Lolo is about 8 miles south of Missoula on US 93. The origin of the name Lolo is disputed. Some think it was an Indian corruption of the word for Lewis, as in Lewis and Clark, or for Lawrence, a French trapper. Others say there is a Nez Perce word lolo meaning "muddy water." At the south end of town, U.S. Highway 12 heads west into Idaho. Traveler's Rest, near here, is where Lewis and Clark camped September 9-10, 1805, and again on their return from the West Coast June 30-July 3, 1806. This spot was so named because it was an ideal spot for the explorers to rest up before continuing on their journey. It was here, too, that the Lewis and Clark party split on their return trip, Clark going southeast to explore Yellowstone country and Lewis heading northeast to the Sun and Marias rivers.

The expedition's passage through Lolo Creek proved to be the most difficult portion of their entire journey. Today US 12 seems like an easy route for the team to have negotiated, but much of the canyon had to be blasted to build the highway, and the route was much narrower then. Instead, the expeditionary group took the high road, crossing ridge after ridge after ridge. The weather was cold, the mountain travel strenuous, and the food scarce. To get an idea of the approximate trail Lewis and Clark took through the Lolo Creek drainage, look for the red dotted line on a Lolo National Forest map.

About 5 miles west of Lolo on US 12 is another historic site. Fort Fizzle, as it was later dubbed, was a blockade built by Captain Charles Rawn of the U.S. Army infantry from Fort Shaw. It was built in 1877, and was intended to stop advancing non-treaty Nez Perce Indians from entering the Bitterroot Valley as they fled toward Canada. But the blockade did not work. The Nez Perce were camped near the hot springs 20 miles upstream and got wind of plans to stop them. They sent a small delegation to negotiate with the soldiers, and while they parleyed, Nez Perce scouts led the main band of eight hundred people up and over a hill past the army. A fire burned what remained of the "fort" in the 1930s. Lolo Hot Springs is a small resort now, with a hot pool for soaking, a warm pool for swimming, a restaurant, a bar, and lodging. It makes a nice stop for cross-country skiers coming back from a day at Lolo Pass. South of Lolo, the Bitterroot Valley opens wide. As the chain of Sapphire Mountains continues south, the mountaintops become more fully dressed in Douglas-firs and ponderosa pines. The Bitterroot's fertile farmlands are quickly being subdivided, but the valley still comprises large private ranches. At the turn of the century, apple orchards blossomed across the valley; at one time Montana become a leading producer of this fruit. Apples were shipped to the East by rail, and some of the orchards were so productive they filled more than five hundred rail cars a season. But the apple boom was short-lived. Better fruits could easily be produced in other parts of the country, sending many of the Bitterroot orchards out of business. Remnants of these orchards can still be found on the benches above the valley floor, and some orchards still produce commercially.

Florence is the next town you'll pass through, one of several tiny burgs in the valley. The town was named for Florence Hammond, the wife of prominent Missoula businessman A. B. Hammond. He also named a hotel for her in Missoula, now used as an office building. At one time the town of Florence sported a cheese factory, a creamery, and a greenhouse. From here you can take the East Side Highway, clearly marked by signs and directly across from the town's northernmost gas stations on US 93; if you are driving from Missoula and heading back there, the East Side Highway makes a nice return route.

The Bitterroot River flows east of the highway, carving a winding path to Missoula where it joins the Clark Fork. Floaters enjoy the gentle Bitterroot, although spring thaw often brings down large cottonwoods along its bank, making some spots a bit hard to maneuver around. There are many fishing access sites along the Bitterroot, most marked clearly with signs on US 93. One interesting spot 2.5 miles south of Florence is called the Ccar pool,C because for a short stretch of river the banks are lined with rusted car bodies. Several other rivers in Montana also have "car pools," which started as a plan promoted by Lady Bird Johnson to prevent stream bank erosion. Fortunately, the plan is no longer practiced, but its legacy remains in steel. Today the cars provide pools and hiding cover for fish. Pull off the highway where you see a Forest Service sign indicating the Charles Waters Campground, just 0.25 mile farther. The "car pool" is a short walk down the dirt road beyond the closed gate.

For hikers there are trails up just about every drainage in the Bitterroots, and all are easily accessible. Most lead directly to mountain lakes, and many feature waterfalls in the creeks along the trails. I recommend using a Bitterroot National Forest map, or reading about trails here in Hiking Montana, also published by Falcon. The 9,351-foot Saint Mary's Peak, often covered in snow, is a popular spot. You can hike to the fire lookout on top of the peak via a 4-mile, at times steep, trail. From the top of Saint Mary's, or any other peak in the Bitterroots, you can appreciate the vast mountain wilderness to the west into Idaho. There are no settlements for hundreds of square miles, so if you want to get lost, this is the place to do it.

Stevensville is the next town along this route, but you'll have to drive east off the highway to see it. Stevensville is said to be the oldest community in Montana, having been established in 1841 with the founding of Saint Mary's Mission. (It was actually authorized as a town in 1864 and called Stevensville after its founding father, Isaac Stevens.) Father Pierre Jean de Smet was a Jesuit priest who was sent to the valley to bring Christianity to the Flathead Indians. Saint Mary's Mission is believed to be Montana's first church, and it may be where the first oats and wheat were harvested in Montana. You can tour the tiny mission and some of the outbuildings. To get there from Stevensville, turn west on Fourth Street and go to the end of the block. At the south end of town you will find the newly reopened Stevensville Museum, which houses artifacts and displays of the valley's history. In 1850 Saint Mary's Mission was sold to John Owen, who eventually opened a trading post just north of the mission grounds. Fort Owen is said to be the first territorial capital of Montana, although Bannack is recognized as such. Flathead Indians, miners, settlers, and fur traders all did business here. Some remains of the original fort lie northwest of Stevensville and are well marked with signs. They are on part of a private ranch, so it may seem as if you are driving up a private road to get to the fort.

Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Refuge is just northeast of town. From Stevensville, turn east on the East Side Highway. The turnoff for the refuge is just past the ranger station on the left. Large signs clearly point the way to the refuge. There are several wonderful walking trails through the cottonwood forest and along the Bitterroot River. You can expect to see white-tailed deer, muskrats, and many species of waterfowl most of the year. Other species common on the refuge include pileated, hairy, and downy woodpeckers, common flickers, great horned owls, bald eagles, ospreys, wood ducks, ruddy ducks, and teal, in addition to many other ducks and geese during spring and fall migration. In summer you may see a tireless beaver, a turtle basking on a fallen log in the water, or a porcupine napping on a ponderosa pine limb.

South of the turnoff to Stevensville, US 93 continues to make a straight course through ranchland and growing subdivisions. The view of the Bitterroots becomes more spectacular. The peaks farther south seem to be more sharply carved and defined, with chiseled ridgelines covered in snow at least nine months of the year. The north end of the Bitterroots is largely composed of metamorphic rocks, while the end south of Stevensville is granite. The granite makes for some nice rock climbing in some of the drainages. If you are interested in watching climbers, a good spot is just a short way up the North Kootenai Creek trail. Watch for climbers on the low bluffs just off the trail to the right. Next along the drive route is the little town of Victor, which has a small museum and a few antique shops. If you're hungry at this point, you might try the Mexican restaurant right on the highway. A few miles north of Hamilton, and east of US 93, lies the tiny town of Corvallis. This community was named for the town with the same name in Oregon, from which people had come to settle in Montana. The word originated from two French words, coeur, meaning "heart," and valle, meaning "valley." Hamilton is the biggest town in the Bitterroot Valley, fast becoming a popular retirement place because of its small-town atmosphere, low crime, and scenery. The town was named for J. W. Hamilton, from whom the Northern Pacific Railroad got its right-of-way here. Marcus Daly, one of the Ccopper kings,C built a summer mansion here among his thousands of acres of ranchland for cattle and horses. Daly's wealth came from his copper mines and smelter in Anaconda. The Daly Mansion has twenty-four bedrooms, fifteen bathrooms, and a sprawling lawn shaded with maples and cottonwoods. You can tour the mansion for a fee; you might find it entertaining to do so during special events that take place throughout the summer on the mansion grounds. Daly's horses had it posh too. Their barn (across the East Side Highway from the mansion) resembled a large, fancy house more than a stable and was called Tammany Castle, for one of Daly's prized racing horses.

Hamilton is home to the Ravalli County Museum, run by the Bitter Root Valley Historical Society. It is housed in the old county courthouse and has interesting exhibits in many rooms. On Sundays during winter, the museum hosts special programs, ranging from musical performances to slide shows. In October its grounds are the site of the annual Apple Festival, with music, arts, crafts, baked goods, and, of course, apple stuff for sale. To get to the museum, turn west off of US 93 onto Bedford Street. The museum is on the second block on the left, just behind the new county government building.

South of Hamilton the road begins to wind more on its way to Darby, and the valley narrows. To the southwest lie the tallest and most pointed peaks of Montana's Bitterroots: El Capitan, Como, North Trapper, and Trapper peaks. Only Trapper Peak breaks the 10,000-foot level, by just over 150 feet. The rest fall from 7 to a few hundred feet short. Hiking to the tops of these peaks is usually reserved for the hardy.

About 9 miles south of Hamilton is the turnoff for Como Lake Recreation Area. Just before the turnoff, the road curves along the Bitterroot River, becoming narrow and hazardous under less-than-ideal conditions. From this point south it is much the same in many spots, so use caution as you drive. Como Lake is a popular spot for locals because of its scenery and proximity. It has a boat ramp and three campgrounds. You can fish and swim in this manmade lake also. There is a hiking trail around the lake and two additional trails that lead to higher mountain lakes after several miles. Just south of Como Lake, the town of Darby springs up in a narrow passage between the mountains. Darby grew up out of the mining and fur trade, then saw a minor boom from the timber industry.

Today it relies more and more on agriculture and cattle ranching, but timber is still a viable industry here. Tourism has recently come into its own in Darby, as evidenced by the many hunting outfitters, fishing guides, and numerous guest ranches. Its new one-block stretch with gift shops, a cafe, and a coffeehouse seems strangely out of place, but attests to the town's willingness to cash in on Montana's tourism boom. A small museum next to the Darby Ranger District has exhibits about the lives of early foresters here. A couple other tiny museums in Darby exhibit wildlife mounts and tell local history.

You may have noticed that west of Darby the mountain vegetation appears more moist, and that there are more trees and shrubs. East of the Bitterroot River the scrubby hillsides are covered with sagebrush and scattered with dryland ponderosa pine. You can travel up both the East and West forks of the Bitterroot River, and the difference in vegetation is much the same. This is because storms moving from west to east usually dump their wet loads on the Bitterroots, leaving little for the drier, and lower, Sapphires.

Three miles south of Darby is the turnoff to the West Fork of the Bitterroot River. About 20 miles southwest on this road, you will enjoy Painted Rocks Reservoir, a flooded, narrow canyon where you can boat, and in places where it is warm enough, swim. About 10 miles south of Darby you may notice a ponderosa pine on the east side of the highway with colorful ribbons hanging from its branches. Called the Medicine Tree, it is estimated to be more than four hundred years old. The tree is sacred to the Salish Indians and was recently spared the axe in plans to widen US 93. Supposedly it has a bighorn ram's horn imbedded in its trunk. Others say the horn has been removed. Today, people leave offerings of cloth and beads, as well as other objects at the tree for "good medicine," good luck. South of Darby lies Sula, named for Ursula Thompson, the first white child born there. This area, also called Ross Hole, is depicted in the Charles M. Russell painting in the state capitol in Helena, depicting Lewis and Clark meeting with Flathead Indians. From here you can take the East Fork Road to view bighorn sheep near the Broad Axe Lodge and Restaurant. The road takes off east just before you cross the bridge. Follow the wildlife viewing signs (depicting binoculars) 5.5 miles to the viewing site. A few interpretive signs along the road discuss sheep and where to look for them. The best time to see sheep is during winter. You may even see them grazing along US 93 -- another good reason to take blind curves slowly.

South of Sula, Indian Tree Campground is laid out among large ponderosa pines. The area was used for camping by Native Americans as recently as this century and as long ago as several hundred years. Turn west and follow the gravel road to the campground near the Lost Trail Hot Springs Resort. Look for the giant ponderosa pines with long, wide scars in their bark. Indians would peel the bark and eat the inner portion, called the cambium. The sweet sap and soft cambium of ponderosa were delicacies. Although quite large and visible, the scars do not appear to have harmed the trees. Just south of the campground, a stop at Lost Trail Hot Springs is a great, cozy way to finish off a day of downhill skiing at Lost Trail Pass, on the Montana-Idaho border, or a day of cross-country skiing on trails at Chief Joseph Pass. From this point you can go back up the valley by way of the East Side Highway, or take Montana Highway 43 (Chief Joseph Pass) at Lost Trail Pass to the Big Hole Valley.

If you are heading back to Missoula, the East Side Highway makes a nice alternate route. It is much narrower than US 93 in places, with several elbow curves, and it makes you feel like you are really in the country as you pass cow pastures, Victorian-styled farm houses, and rundown barns and homesteads. If you take the East Side Highway north from Hamilton, you will go through the towns of Stevensville and Corvallis, coming out at Florence. To find this route from Hamilton, follow the signs east on County Road 269 by the Safeway grocery store from US 93. You will pass the Daly Mansion, if you have not already seen it.

Million Dollar Highway Colorado

The San Juan Mountains, an immense 12,000-square-mile slice of high country, encompasses almost all of southwestern Colorado. The San Juans, with a mean elevation of 10,000 feet, boasts over one hundred peaks topping 13,000 feet and fourteen of Colorado's fifty-four 14,000-foot peaks. This huge range, dissected by sharp canyons and spiked with sky-scraping peaks, is divided into numerous sub-ranges including the San Miguel Range, Rico Mountains, La Plata Mountains, Sneffels Range, West Needle and Needle Mountains, Grenadier Range, La Garita Mountains, and Cochetopa Hills. The heart of the San Juans, however, is the San Juan Range itself, towering above the historic mining towns of Ouray, Silverton, and Lake City. The Million Dollar Highway, following US 550, traverses this rugged, rocky heartland for eighty-seven miles from Durango over 10,910-foot Molas Divide to Silverton and 11,008-foot Red Mountain Pass to Ouray and Ridgway.

The highway, open year-round, is best driven in summer and fall. The wide variation in elevation along the drive from 6,512 feet at Durango to 11,018 feet atop Red Mountain Pass gives a wide diversity of both temperature and precipitation. Summer temperatures in the lower elevations at both ends of the road are typically warm, with highs ranging from 70 to 90 degrees. The mountain heights are cooler. Highs range from 50 to 70 degrees. Afternoon thunderstorms are an almost daily occurrance somewhere along the highway. Watch for slippery roads. Autumn is delightful, with cool, crisp days and spectacular aspen colors.

The first snow falls sometime in October on the high peaks, and winter begins in November with heavy snowfall. As much as four feet of snow can fall in a day, leading to extreme avalanche danger. The highway regularly closes due to avalanches. The steep Uncompahgre Gorge highway section between Ironton Park and Ouray is the most dangerous, with the Riverside and Mother Cline slides. The Riverside Slide, dropping 3,200 vertical feet down abrupt chutes, makes this highway Colorado's deadliest avalanche crossing. Today a snowshed protects the road from the slide's wrath, but not before six highway travelers perished in avalanches. Chains are often required to drive the highway in winter. Watch for the omnipresent snowplows clearing the highway and bring extra clothes and sleeping bags in case of a breakdown. Spring comes slowly to the high country, with the snow cover slowly retreating on warm April and May days. Expect cool, breezy days with occasional snow and rain storms.

The Million Dollar Highway begins in Durango at the junction of U.S. highways 160 and 550. Turn north on US 550 on the town's south side. The road bypasses downtown Durango and heads up Main Avenue. Durango, straddling the broad Animas Valley, was established in 1880 as a Denver & Rio Grande Railroad town. Now the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, a National Historic and National Engineering Landmark, begins at the train station on the town's south side and runs north up the old Denver & Rio Grande railbed forty-five miles to Silverton. This spectacular train ride, threading through the steep Animas River gorge, is a living history exhibit that takes the traveler back in time to the railroad's mining heyday. Reservations and advance ticket purchases are advised, particularly during the busy summer months. Durango is also a wonderful outdoor sports town, with nearby mountain bike trails, excellent fly-fishing streams, numerous four-wheel-drive tracks, kayaking and rafting on the Animas River, and a wealth of hiking paths including the terminus of the 469-mile Colorado Trail between Durango and Denver. Durango also offers all visitor services, including hotels, dining, groceries, and service stations.

The highway leaves Durango after three miles and runs north on the western edge of the broad Animas Valley for fifteen miles. The Animas River, a 110-mile-long river originally called Rio de las Animas Perdidas, or River of Lost Souls, by early Spanish explorers, meanders in long graceful loops across the wide-bottomed valley past green pastures grazed by horses and cattle. Dense willows and tall narrow-leafed cottonwoods hug the river's rocky banks. The river did little to excavate this deep valley. Thick glaciers, spilling down from the high mountains, scoured the valley floor, chiseled its steep side-walls, and left a characteristic U-shaped valley behind. Sandstone cliffs abruptly lift from the valley, striping the slopes with diagonal bands.

As the highway runs north from Durango it passes Trimble Springs at six miles. This hot springs, located just west of the road, was named for 1874 settler Frank Trimble. He developed two springs, spewing water as hot as 126 degrees, and built a hotel for visitors wanting to sample the spring's "curative value." A new forty-room brick hotel, the Hermosa House, was erected in the late 1890s and offered stables, a gym, bowling alley, golf, and a saloon. After fire destroyed it in 1938, it was replaced by another hotel that burned in 1957. The springs now offers a bathhouse, Olympic-sized outdoor pool, and a smaller hot pool. Hermosa, an old stage and railroad stop, sits just north of Trimble. The town, settled in 1873 as a ranching center for the Animas Valley, now serves as a Durango bedroom community. The highway continues north, skirting the valley's steep wall, and reaches another historic site near the valley head. Baker's Bridge, designated by a state historical society bronze marker, crossed the Animas River here. Charles Baker and several men prospected through the San Juans in 1860, and, after working their way down from Baker's Park at today's Silverton, resolved to spend the winter in the northern Animas Valley. The party laid out a townsite, built rustic log cabins, and suffered through the cold winter. With news of the Civil War, they abandoned the site and returned East. Baker fought in the Confederate Army before Indians killed him while prospecting in 1868.

The flat valley abruptly ends, replaced by forested hills. The Animas River takes leave of the valley and bends northeast into a steep, cliffed gorge. The Million Dollar Highway also leaves the valley, bumping across the narrow gauge railroad tracks and climbing onto wooded slopes below the Hermosa Cliffs. A pullout sits just past the tracks and makes a good stop to watch the train pass by. A side road, La Plata County 75, drops east to a secluded glen and the remains of the old town Rockwood. This town served as the jumping-off point for miners and freighters heading north to Silverton and Rico. An old wagon toll road, now a National Historic Landmark, twisted north from here, with one branch following today's highway up to Purgatory and over Scotch Creek Pass to Rico and the other branch to Silverton.

The highway runs north below the cliffed escarpment and enters San Juan National Forest. Dense scrub oak thickets line the asphalt and beyond tower ponderosa pines and Douglas-firs. Tamarron, a year-round resort, offers golf on a stunning eighteen-hole course, tennis, swimming, and night skiing on a beginner hill. The road swings past Haviland Lake, a small lake tucked below in thick forest. Haviland Lake Campground, with forty-five sites, sits on its east shore. Three-mile-long Electra Lake, created for electric power, lies to the north. The highway sweeps across a high bench through dense aspen groves. Engineer Mountain, its talus flanks broken by cliff bands, looms to the north and the West Needle Mountains rise roughly to the northeast. Castle Rock, a castellated promontory, juts from the Hermosa Cliffs at twenty-five miles. The road becomes four-lane and reaches Purgatory Ski Area. This popular destination ski resort boasts over three hundred inches of dry powder and thirty-five miles of runs spread over 630 acres. Fifteen miles of groomed cross-country ski trails thread the surrounding woodlands. Purgatory Campground, with fourteen sites, sits just east of the drive.

The highway drops back to two-lanes, crosses Cascade Creek below 12,968-foot Engineer Mountain, and begins steeply ascending above Mill Creek. The blacktop switchbacks through a spruce forest sprinkled with aspen. Potato Hill rises to the east and beyond towers 13,158-foot Twilight Peak in the West Needle Mountains, its rocky flanks chiseled by glaciers into deep cirques, sharp aretes, and flying buttresses. After eight miles the highway emerges on Coal Bank Summit, a 10,640-foot saddle between Engineer Mountain and Potato Hill. The pass name is a misnomer; the apparent coal seams are actually thin shale layers.

The drive winds down from the summit, crosses Deer Creek, and swings up aspen-covered slopes. Most of the rolling country adjoining the highway was consumed in a 26,000-acre forest fire in 1879. Civic groups later replanted much of the Lime Creek Burn. After bending over West Lime Creek, the highway turns east and climbs alongside East Lime Creek. The creek trickles in a shallow valley, with aspens coating the warm south-facing slopes and dense spruce woods blanketing the cooler north-facing hillsides. East Lime Creek Rest Site sits on the east side of the highway. Park here to hike south to Andrews Lake, a popular trout lake. The road continues up East Lime Creek and a mile and a half later reaches 10,910-foot Molas Pass.

Molas Pass yields one of Colorado's most stunning mountain panoramas. Sharp peaks spike the horizon in a wide circle from the summit. The Needle and Grenadier mountains tower to the east, their ragged flanks are strewn with glacier-carved buttresses and cirques, and their pointed summits rip passing clouds. The Animas River gorge, an abrupt forested chasm, hides between the pass and the peaks. Molas Lake, its placid waters reflecting the sky, tucks into a hollow on a broad bench above the canyon. Spruce forest and open willow meadows surround the lake. Snowdon Peak, the 13,077-foot northern outpost of the West Needle Range, looms to the south. Rounded ridges, green with above-timberline tundra grass and broken by rocky crags on the skyline, stairstep up west from the pass. Molas Lake, owned by Silverton and operated by a private concessionaire, offers camping, picnicking, and fishing. Good day hikes are found on the Colorado Trail at Molas Pass.

The highway descends sharply for five miles from Molas Lake to Silverton, clinging to steep mountainsides above the Animas River. Thick spruce forest hems in the road, with open slopes offering glimpses north into broad Baker's Park. Finally the road makes a couple hairpin turns, reaches the valley floor, and bends west up Mineral Creek. A right turn here leads to the picturesque mining camp of Silverton. A visitor center, housed in an ornate building, sits on the south edge of town. Silverton, at an elevation of 9,320 feet, stretches along the Animas River in Baker's Park, a flat two thousand-acre glacial valley encircled by a wall of mountains. Winter blankets the town, one of Colorado's most isolated settlements, with over three hundred inches of annual snowfall. Before modern snow-removal equipment, Silverton was often cut off from the outside world for weeks at a time; even now the Million Dollar Highway shuts down for a few days each winter. The town is undeniably a tough place to live -- the year-round average temperature is a mere 35.6 degrees and summer's frost-free growing season may be as short as twelve days. Towering peaks ring Baker's Park, with 13,370-foot Sultan Mountain to the south, 13,068-foot Kendall Mountain on the east, and 13,487-foot Storm Peak to the north.

At its peak Silverton boasted over thirty mills, two smelters, thirty-seven saloons, and numerous card houses, opium dens, and "pleasure palaces" on its infamous Blair Street.

Silverton today is a quaint village that wears its colorful history well. Most of the town, preserved as a National Historic District, still reflects the mining heyday of a century ago. It appears at first glance like a movie set with false-fronted buildings, opulent Victorian homes, the gold-domed county courthouse, the 1903 brick jail that houses the San Juan County Historical Society Museum, and rustic miners' cabins. The town is also the northern terminus of the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, the last vestige of Silverton's railway glories. Several hotels dot the town, including the landmark Grand Imperial Hotel.

The drive bends west from Silverton on US 550 and heads up Mineral Creek Valley. The North Star Mine and Mill, surrounded by quaking aspens, sits across the creek just west of town. Forest Road 585 turns off the highway and heads west up Mineral Creek's South Fork in a broad, glaciated valley for five miles to twenty-three-site South Mineral Campground. This 9,800-foot campground makes a good base camp for exploring the surrounding high peaks and basins. Ice Lake Basin, three miles to the west, sits amid sheer cliffed peaks including 13,894-foot Vermillion Peak and 13,738-foot Pilot Knob. The highway scales the valley's gentle north flank through mixed aspen and spruce forest and after a couple miles swerves into a valley carved by glaciers and the Middle Fork of Mineral Creek. Numerous avalanche chutes slice through the forest on the steep valley sides.

The Ophir Pass Road, beginning about five miles west of Silverton, takes off from US 550, crosses Burro Bridge, and climbs steeply for four miles to the 11,750-foot summit. The track, one of the area's easier four-wheel-drive routes, continues down the old stage and wagon road six miles to Ophir and Colorado Highway 145. The drive heads up the valley to the foot of Red Mountain Pass and the old 1883 townsite of Chattanooga. While almost nothing remains now, the town once housed three hundred residents and seventy-five buildings. A fire and disastrous snow slides wrecked the town.

The highway, traversing the old Silverton Railway's right-of-way, turns west onto the Chattanooga Loop and begins the final three-mile ascent to the summit of Red Mountain Pass. The blacktop, with no guardrail, edges shelf-like along precipitous slopes. Look down the valley for great views of Bear Mountain. Note the forest shape on its flank that appears to be a giant bear licking a honeycomb. The highway bends into a steep gorge, passes the remains of the Silver Ledge Mine, and climbs atop 11,018-foot Red Mountain Pass. Abandoned buildings of the Longfellow Mine and a small, willow-lined tarn sit on the summit. The dangerous, one-way Black Bear Road climbs west from here to Ingram Pass and down to Telluride.

The Million Dollar Highway between Silverton and Ouray follows an old toll road that was started in 1880 and finished in 1884 by road builder and transportation magnate Otto Mears. The road operated as a mail, stage, and freight line until Mears opened his Rainbow Route railway from Silverton to the rich mines at the summit of Red Mountain Pass. The Million Dollar Highway, traversing the old rail and wagon route, was completed in 1924. The road section from Ouray to Red Mountain Pass cost about a million dollars to build, which gave the highway its name.

The highway plunges down from the pass summit twelve miles to Ouray. The first section, a maze of switchbacks and hairpin turns, twists down steep slopes to Ironton Park. Just north of the summit the highway passes the mostly abandoned Idarado Mine, one of this century's largest producers.

Red Mountain Creek meanders through broad Ironton Park. Aspens blanket the mountainsides above, creating a stunning display of color in late September. The old mining town of Ironton sat near the valley head. After a couple miles the highway leaves the valley and drops into the Uncompahgre Gorge, a deep canyon sliced by the Uncompahgre River. The gorge is simply spectacular. The road angles across steeply tilted cliffs of quartzite, slate, and schist, and scree slopes.

The highway edges north and passes Forest Road 878, the start of the four-wheel-drive Alpine Loop Back Country Byway. Further north the road, clinging to cliffs, crosses Bear Creek Falls. The creek cascades 227 feet down to the river below. The tollgate for Otto Mears' road sat at this narrow site so wagon trains couldn't avoid paying the $3.75 toll for a vehicle with two animals. A nearby monument remembers Mears and his contribution to Colorado history. The drive runs through a short tunnel and emerges at Lookout Point above Ouray. A vast amphitheater of cliffs, formed by volcanic San Juan Tuff, soars above the town to lofty peaks and sharp ridges. Amphitheater Campground, with thirty-three sites, is reached from a side-road past the viewpoint. The highway snakes down into Ouray.

Mountains dominate Ouray. The town, named for a famed Ute chief, sits cupped in a deep canyon. Three waterfalls thunder within shouting distance of Ouray and five creeks dash through town to the Uncompahgre River. Box Canyon, on the southwest edge, is most impressive with Canyon Creek roaring through a narrow gorge. Geothermal hot springs dot the Ouray, filling pools and bathhouses. The springs, named Uncompahgre or hot water springs by the Utes, still attracts visitors to Ouray, which locals call the "Switzerland of America." A legacy of old mining roads lace the mountains and canyons, making Ouray the jeep capitol of America. Some of the best roads are the Corkscrew Road, Poughkeepsie Gulch, Engineer Pass, Yankee Boy Basin, and Imogene Pass. Jeep rentals are available in town. Numerous trails also thread the backcountry, climbing to waterfalls, alpine basins, and sheer peaks. The Ouray Hot Springs Pool, on the north end of town, gives a relaxing soak at day's end. The town, a National Historic District, offers neat streets lined with restored Victorian homes, brick buildings, the haunted Beaumont Hotel, the Ouray County Historical Museum, and a designated walking tour.

The drive's last ten miles connect Ouray to Ridgway, an old railroad hub. The highway runs through a narrow gap lined with towering sandstone walls and takes leave of the San Juan Mountains. The broad glacier-carved valley ahead, flanked by forested slopes, is lush with green pastures, grazing cattle, and immense narrow-leaf cottonwoods. Herds of elk and deer graze in roadside meadows, particularly from late fall to spring. The drive yields great vistas of the ragged Sneffels Range to the west, low-browed Grand Mesa to the north, and Chimney and Courthouse peaks on the east. The drive ends in Ridgway at the intersection of US 550 and Colorado Highway 62.

Santa Fe New Mexico Ride

This national forest scenic byway is very popular because of its close proximity to Santa Fe. The drive starts at the old plaza in the center of town and climbs high into the lush forests of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Although Santa Fe has only about 50,000 residents, its fame stretches far and wide. A number of books have been written solely on the city. This brief description will serve only as an introduction.

Santa Fe was founded in 1610 by the Spaniards and is the oldest state capital in the United States. At an elevation of 7,000 feet in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, it is the highest state capital. The Palace of the Governors, built between 1610 and 1612, is the oldest government building in the United States. Artists have been attracted to Santa Fe and northern New Mexico for decades. Today, Santa Fe has one of largest numbers of art galleries in America. The city's adobe-style architecture gives Santa Fe a distinctive look.

Juan de Onate arrived at a small Indian pueblo north of Santa Fe on July 11, 1598, with an expedition of settlers. They built a village called San Gabriel at the confluence of the Rio Grande and Chama Rivers. The settlement was not very successful, so a new capital was established in 1610 by Don Pedro de Peralta at the site of an abandoned Indian village. It was built along a mountain stream at the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and christened La Villa Real de la Santa Fe. He constructed the Palace of the Governors, a walled fortress much larger then than it is today.

Spaniards settled the area around Santa Fe, but abuses by the settlers led to the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Many were killed and the Spaniards were driven out and forced to retreat to El Paso. In 1692, Don Diego de Vargas retook Santa Fe after a bloodless standoff. The date, September 14, is still celebrated every year as the Santa Fe Fiesta.

In 1821, Mexico gained its independence from Spain, and trade began with the United States along the Santa Fe Trail. The American presence increased steadily in Santa Fe. Finally, after the United States annexed Texas, the two countries went to war. By August 18, 1846, General Stephen Watts Kearny had marched into New Mexico and raised the American flag over the Palace of the Governors without firing a shot.

In 1862, Santa Fe was invaded yet again, this time by the Confederate Army during the Civil War. After a defeat in a battle at nearby Glorieta Pass, the Confederates abandoned Santa Fe. Their occupation lasted less than a month.

The railroad arrived in Santa Fe in 1880, accelerating settlement and growth in New Mexico. Statehood was applied for numerous times and finally granted in 1912. Almost 400 years after Santa Fe was established, it still is the center of state government.

Plan to spend several days in Santa Fe and the surrounding area. In summer try to make hotel reservations ahead of time. The town is swamped with tourists and rooms are scarce and expensive. Santa Fe has an incredible number of galleries, museums, historic buildings and churches, shops, and restaurants to occupy your time. When you tire of the city, head up the mountain on the scenic byway. The drive starts in the Plaza downtown and can be a bit confusing at first. Work your way north of the Plaza, keeping an eye out for the ski area, NM 475, and scenic byway signs. Eventually, the route climbs uphill through an expensive residential area toward the mountains. The forest soon turns from pinon and juniper to ponderosa. The road follows Little Tesuque Creek past Black Canyon Campground to Hyde Memorial State Park.

Above Hyde Park, the forest changes to Douglas-fir, aspen, and other high-elevation trees. Views of the Rio Grande Valley open to the west. At night, the lights of Los Alamos are visible on the slopes of the Jemez Mountains. Several marked hiking trails start along the road. Big Tesuque Campground lies in the middle of a vast mountainside of aspens. Just a bit farther up the highway, Aspen Vista provides a broad view of the trees. A popular trail, actually a closed dirt road, starts at Aspen Vista and winds for several miles through the colorful trees. In early October, the trees usually peak and cover the mountain with gold, making this drive one of the premier autumn spots in New Mexico. The aspens probably mark the site of an old forest fire that burned off the conifers.

The highway ends a short distance farther at the Santa Fe Ski Area. The medium-sized area attracts many downhill skiers on day trips from Santa Fe. The ski slopes look out over the Rio Grande Valley and beyond, providing spectacular views. The top of the ski area peaks at 12,000 feet, making it the highest in New Mexico and the second highest in the United States.

The Winsor trailhead lies at the base of the ski area parking lot by the tiny Aspen Basin Campground. The trail leads to popular destinations in the huge Pecos Wilderness. Hikers can pick from pristine alpine lakes (Nambe Lake and Lake Katherine), trout streams (the Rio Nambe), and high peaks (12,622-foot Santa Fe Baldy). After a good hike in the wilderness, drive back down NM 475, relax with dinner in one of Santa Fe's two hundred restaurants, and spend the evening at the famous outdoor Santa Fe Opera.