....with Two College Boys from MIT and a Cowboy Guide

I had come across a library book "Stampede to Timberline" by the Prof. of the CU Art Dept. - Muriel Sibel Wolle, and I became particularly interested in the ghost towns she described and sketched in Chalk Creek. I was particularly interested in the old 3 story hotel at the base of Mt. Princeton. So I talked my husband into coming up to take a look on our next vacation.

That summer,we drove up from Pueblo with son, Robert,14, and dau. Alyce, 9. We pulled our little yellow 15 ft. Santa Fe trailer with our Chevvie station wagon. It was the year the county was first paving CR 162 to Chalk Creek. The trailer and the wagon were soon covered with fresh tar. My husband said, "Boy, there better be some good fishing lakes up here for all this!" We got to St. Elmo and stopped at the Miller grocery where Martha instructed us to park our trailer at the end of Main St. - s fairly flat spot before the road suddenly takes a rocky, rugged turn up to the road above. It took my husband several hard hours to clean off that tar the next day! 

The following day, we followed Tom Miller's instructions and hiked up that terrible steep road to Grizzly Lake. Stopping often to get our breath, and wipe the sweat from our brows, we heard my husband make a prophetic statement, " I bet the next time we come up here, I will have a 4 wh. drive! (and he did.) But this day, the beauty and the happy fishing luck made everyone happy.

My husband finally returned to work and left us there for the next week. One day Alyce and I were hiking up the road toward Romley with the Wolle book in hand. We had stopped at the store to tell Tom Miller where we were headed for the day. Son, Bob, had met two Indian boys named Tom and Andy Baconrind, so he didn't want to go with us. We had walked in the hot sun on the rough former railroad bed for about an hour, when a little black truck with four college age boys drew up beside us, and invited us to ride. I held up the Wolle book and explained that we were going to see some of the areas that she had sketched. They, too, had the SAME BOOK that I was carrying, and were going up to see the ghost towns of Romley and Hancock, and so invited Alyce and I to go along! The driver said he was Mary Patterson's nephew. (Mary had built a 2-story cabin beside Grouse Creek in the 1930s, that is still being used as a mountain get-a-way. At a later time, my nephew, Rick Brandenburg once owned it.) Alyce and I were given seats in the cab and 3 boys rode in the back.

After we looked over the old buildings in Romley and Hancock, I was surprised to see that we were not returning to St. Elmo. The boys had planned to go over Hancock. Cumberland, and Tincup Passes and hadn't told us! This was a great opportunity for us to see some spectacular scenery, so we decided to continue with them. I was sure glad that I had told Tom where we were going as I knew we would get back possibly after dark.

We first went over Hancock Pass and on down over the high narrow road and then .... lost track of the indistinct road to Pitkin, and were driving in a dry creek bed. The driver would step on the gas to get the vehicle over piles of large rocks. We were thrown violently around in the cab, and I worried that the three boys in the back would be thrown out. I began to suspect that the driver had never driven a 4 wh. drive before, but then, neither had I. We soon heard a loud knocking in the engine.

We finally made it to Pitkin; stopped to buy a can of oil, and poured it into the engine. It stopped knocking, so then we started over Cumberland Pass to Tincup. As we came into Tincup, the knocking began again, and we stopped to buy some more oil. We got about 1/2 mile past Mirror Lake when there was a terrible bang and the truck came to a halt, nearly throwing the three boys in the back over the cab! We had thrown a rod!!

You can't imagine where we all found a place to stay that night, while 2 boys hiked 8 miles over Tincup Pass in the dark in order to tell Tom Miller where we were! 

In the meantime, back in St. Elmo, Tom thought he should go looking for us, as it was getting dark, since no one had told him that we had returned. He drove all the way to Hancock and back, driving once more by the trailer. Some visitors had come to our little Santa Fe trailer, and the lights were on.

My husband, Paul, had told some friends where we were, and invited them to come up early before the weekend, when Candy's husband, Jerry,would come up with Paul after work. Candy had brought her two boys, and they were in the trailer when Tom went by to see if I had returned. Since Candy had dark hair, Tom thought it was me, and went home and to bed.

But over the Continental Divide, the little truck had passed a camp just a short distance above Mirror Lake with many tents, and a man dressed in cowboy hat, jeans & boots, sitting on a rock, tending a fire. When two of the young men started their hike over the pass to St. Elmo and the Grouse House, the rest of us hiked down the road to this camp. We were in luck! The man had set up this camp for a group that was coming in the next day, and he had extra sleeping bags which he offered to the four of us for the night. It was getting pretty chilly, so we accepted gratefully. Unfortunately, he was one short, so I shared one with my daughter. We did manage to keep warm, but it was too crowded to be comfort-able, although Alyce did doze a little. It was a long night for us both.

The next morn, we crawled out with sore muscles into the morning cold, and stayed close to the fire. Soon we heard a roaring, coming from the top of Tincup Pass, and gradually we could see a group of Jeeps coming down the road. It was Tom Miller with many other drivers he had collected to come for the rescue! One of the Jeep driver's is the Osage Indian, George Baconrind, (grandson of the Osage Chief Baconrind), who later, with his wife, Gladys, became two of our closest friends. We hurried up the road to the truck. Tom looked startled when he saw us, as he thought we were back in the trailer. He had not been told that we were waiting over on the other side!

We watched as Tom tried so hard to release the bind caused by the rod. The air was getting a little blue, so I took my daughter and we walked a ways up the road. Soon, we heard a big cheer from the crowd, as the rod was finally extracted.

All the Jeeps lined up, one after the other, connected with chains or tied with nylon rope. Alyce and I got back into the front seats, and had the ride of our lives -  up and over the pass. The jerking, and the violent bumps kept us airborne most of the trip! But we were SO tired, and so both of us managed to grab a few winks on the way down the eastern side, which was not nearly so rough.

I never did hear from the four college young men and I wondered if they managed to get the truck fixed. We were so glad to be back at the trailer with our worried friends and son, Robert. But WHAT A TRIP! WHAT SCENERY!! Never will we forget it!

But then ... there was another great trip for Alyce & I in Utah - but that's another story. MB