I came down to the San Luis Valley thinking my journey would then move onto Lake City, Silverton. But time unfolded its bedspread here so I stayed. The Orient Land Trust Hot Springs , filled up over the weekend...they keep their human carrying capacity low so that people do not get in the way of the natural surroundings.
So I headed cross the valley floor and up a side canyon to Creede, former mining town….the largest silver mine going when the silver market collapsed in 1893. In ’93, the Federal Government decided to no longer use a silver standard. Washington would no longer buy the metal at a fixed price. Ahhh…government intervention in the market place…my, my…sometimes we forget that the current recession/depression is simply part of a cycle of capitalism. Towns and lives often twist in the wind. When it was going strong, Creede had over 10,000 residents. Today it is just a tad above 350.
Steep cliffs, remnants of an ancient caldera, rise up at the end of Creede’s main street. A 17 mile loop road goes past some of the main mines but the regrowth forests cover many a forgotten entrance to the smaller sites. The road made for a good morning bike ride. The main business in town during the summer, though, is the repertory theatre…they put on a very funny production of the “Putnam County Spelling Bee” on Saturday night. And tourism. And tourists sunbath beneath the cliffs that hold inside dark abandoned tunnels in which so many thousands of miners labored to make other men rich (as long as it lasted).
