The geology is gentler here than in the San Juans, which are harshly volcanic. Hiking boots and dog paws prefer the Arkansas River valley.
Laugh at me if you wish but it pleases me that the Arkansas River is an extension of the Rio Grande rift valley. Some volcanism south of Salida blocks off the Arkansas River valley from the San Luis valley and the Rio Grande near Alamosa. The rift valley finally terminates near the giant molybdenum mine north of Leadville, at Climax.
I'm glad there are plans to reopen it. It's nice to think of high-paying jobs where people do something real for a living besides teaching each other yoga or serving each other $3 cups of coffee.
When I got to Leadville I boondocked in town to experience their Boom Days in a more natural way. My neighbor camped in a standard mini-van. He loved explaining how he massaged it into a camping machine.
I always ask lots of questions when I meet a radical downsizer. At the very least he is likely to be an interesting character, and one or two ideas might be useful.
But my bubble always bursts when learning that they are not self-contained. Essentially they are transitioning or on vacation. They lack a stove, refrigerator, toilet or a shower. The latter seems to be the first thing that gets evicted. I would eliminate the tires before I tried to live without a shower.
Leadville, CO. How do you capture it in one sentence? There is an old country-western song that says "I like my women a little bit trashy." I'm not so sure about that particular case but I do like my old mining towns a little bit weathered and decayed. The world has enough Tellurides and Bisbees.
In a town like Leadville, Granny J would strap on her Keds, grab her digital Brownie camera, and run wild through town like some kind of crazed harvesting machine. I'll do the the best I can.
Did you catch that 10,200 foot high sagebrush?
