Fremont Pass

Fremont Pass, named after the American explorer who traveled over it in the 1840s.

When I first came to Colorado, I was struck by how people, at least some people, described their car trips as going over passes rather than naming a route number.  As in, "went over Kenosha Pass" or "lot of snow on Berthoud Pass when I came back" or "went skiing at Careron Pass."  The term comes from the Latin "passus"...meaning step or pace.   So these passes, some of them paved, are routes for going  from one side of a mountain or mountain range to another....from one river basin to another.  

Fremont Pass forms part of the continental divide....on the north side, water flows downhill as the Blue River into the Colorado, flowing west and south for 1,500 miles to the Gulf of California.  It doesn't flow freely as much is contained in ponds to catch runoff from the huge Climax Mine.  The mine extracts molybdenum, used in making high strength steel alloys, and is still the largest such mine in the world.  It has been closed for decades but it due to begin operations again this summer....providing much needed jobs to the town of Leadville on the other side of the pass.  

Climax Mine

The south side of Fremont Pass contains the headwaters of the Arkansas River which flows 1,500 miles east to the Mississippi, thence to the Gulf of Mexico.  The river follows a rift valley past the towns of Leadville, Buena Vista and Salida before rushing down to the Great Plains through the Royal Gorge, a canyon some1,200 feet deep and only 50 feet wide in places.  The headwaters, though, occupy an wide, open valley, gathering snowmelt from the surrounding hills and moutains.  

Headwaters of the Arkansas

I learned about these river basins largely on week-long bike tours, like Ride the Rockies, when biking up (and then speeding down) Fremont and other passes provides the time to put the pieces of mountain geography together.  A mountain pass is a place to pause, to get off the bike or out of the car and look both ways.  Usually one is heading, stepping as the word implies, one way or the other: west to the coast or east to the Mississippi.  But occasionally the pause is an opportunity to ask, "What's the direction I want to go in?"  "Where do I want to go?"  "Which flow of the water do I want to follow?"

The Arkansas beginning its journey east. 

 

Freya and Family

This February has been about family as much as snow.  Family and friends come to share time skiing, going to the hot springs (Mt. Princeton is particularly popular this year), walking through town, and, well, just hanging out at this townhouse on the upper Arkansas River.

More specifically the hanging out during Ingrid and Geoff's visit was hanging out with Freya, now six months.  She turns up in all the photos of people during the time she was here.  The rest of us simply became adjuncts...attending to her moves, her interests, her interactions and her head cold.

She is almost crawling...doesn't quite have the muscle development to get onto her knees.  So she pushes herself with her legs or arms, rolls over, makes swimming motions, grabs for toys, shoes, people.  Clearly a gifted athlete...ready for skis in a few more years.  She can keep herself amused for long stretches without intervention from adults. 

But with a four or five adults to one baby ratio, there is lots of intervention.  "Here let me pick you up,"  "Maybe she wants something to eat." "Let me wipe your nose." "Here, Freya, grab this toy."  "Here, Freya, let's go outside and listen to the sound of the river." "Let's go for a walk."  "Let's wake up Mormor."

 So hanging out with Freya (and giving her parents a chance to snowboard or go to the hot springs) was a gift this month.  Seeing her develop day-by-day, each day a little more agile, each day moving a bit further off the carpet, each day playing with those round plastic toys...or someone's shoes even better...more precisely....this came to represent much of our time.  Freya is progressing so much faster than I am on the moguls at Monarch...But, then, that is why we hang out...seeing where one another is at and getting to know who we are.  Just being.