Cuchara Canyon was a lucky find for me. I’ve driven past it a number of times on the way to other places and have always found the country interesting. Interesting but not really worth a stop, not with the plethora of outdoor opportunities and some of my favorite places in the state, just a little further to the west. There are no signs and you aren’t going to find this place unless you’re searching. I’m always searching and noticed a large block of BLM administered land, centered over the canyon on my GIS map and started doing a little research. I found this intriguing write up by Wild Connections, titled “Lands With Wilderness Characteristics” and a plan was hatched.
Cuchara Canyon cuts through the sandstones of the Apishapa anticline, like Apishapa Canyon a short distance to the southeast. Apishapa is better known, there is a State Wildlife Area there and a sign on the highway. Cuchara is just west of the Apishapa anticline crest, at Rattlesnake Buttes. Highway 10, runs right between the two Buttes, which are currently being exploited by a massive wind farm project. There are a half dozen giant cranes putting up turbine after turbine across the anticline on both sides of the highway. The last few times I have driven through, there were about a hundred cars in the staging yard. There is not much else as far as natural resources in this country to exploit beyond the wind, perhaps that is why it interested me, nobody lives here except a few cattle ranchers.
The BLM acquired the parcel in 1998 due to its unique natural values and cultural resources. The BLM has recognized Cucharas Canyon itself, 1,660 acres of public land, as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) due to its cultural heritage of Native Americans, settlers, and ranchers. It’s not completely off the radar. Boondocker’s have it listed on a number of free camping sites on the web. I was checking that aspect out as well, thinking there might be good access to some free camping sites for the RV. I came in on the east side which is about 10 miles of gravel, the last half unimproved. There was a converted school bus at the old Kenner Ranch, where the road dead ends, when I came in, gone when I left. It is definitely possible to get the coach in there in good weather but all the jostling and bouncing are not worth the return on investment as far as I’m concerned, much better to come in with a high clearance vehicle and pack into the rim. I could see two RV’s parked across the canyon from where I camped for my stay and that access looks to be a graded access road into Turkey Ridge Ranch, with less than a half mile or so of cobbled road into the unit. I never drove around to the west side though, maybe next time I am in the neighborhood.
I was here looking for solitude and I found it. I had second thoughts on posting anything about it on the blog. Kind of keep it as my own little secret but I thought about it and realized nobody reads the blog anyway and those who do find it are searching, just like me, kindred spirits. There are no services, campgrounds or improvements of any sort in the unit, bring what you need. I camped right on the rim of the canyon in a group of old growth Ponderosa, there were no signs that anyone had camped there in a long time. The east side has a lot of remnant old growth Ponderosa pine, the west side mostly cedar, pinion and juniper. It looks like the most popular recreation is trail riding, (horses, no motorized vehicles allowed). There is a trail into the canyon bottom, north of Kenner Ranch, which I never checked out. I found an access notch in the the rim near where I was camping but it was steep and gnarly, not for the faint of heart.
The ridge I followed into the bottom was covered in sandstone hoodoos, downed trees and cactus. Nature teaching me the valuable lesson, that the first choice you make may not always be the best choice and sometimes you just need to backtrack a bit and keep looking for that path of least resistance, instead of stubbornly committing to your first choice. It’s difficult to give up all the progress you have made, especially when the terrain is so steep and requires so much energy to navigate. Breathe, slow down, take advantage of the higher perspective when you have it, the path will become clear, life is not a race, it’s a journey.
The weather forecast was for much cooler weather this week which was what prompted me to come in August. This country is no place for short sleeved trousers, everything bites, pokes, rips, shreds and scratches. It wasn’t as cool as the forecast suggested, though it wasn’t insufferable either, the mornings and nights were cool and comfortable, except for the gnats that kept trying to gain access into every orifice on my head. The canyon would be beautiful after a good snow. I would definitely recommend early spring and late fall over summer, for a visit.
I hiked into the bottom in the morning and it was still cool enough that I wore a sweater but coming out in the afternoon, up the steeps, sweating my ass off, being attacked by all variety of winged insects, no see ‘um bugs and cacti was tough for this old man. Ah but what’s life without a little pain and suffering, right? I spent the rest of my time on the canyon rim, looking for any signs of Native American use but didn’t see any, all the artifacts I noticed were from the early ranching days. I brought binoculars and a spotting scope but never took them out, this is good sheep country and reports of both lions and bears in the neighborhood but the only big mammals I seen were cows.
I was here on a new moon and the stars were incredible, the Milky Way cleaving the sky, there is no real light pollution to get in the way of the stars, if you are a star gazer, this is your kind of place. I thought about having a go at some astrophotography but it felt like too much work. I brought an axe and a saw too but never made a fire. A fire is something that needs to be shared I think and I was solo this trip and right in the middle of a really good book, so I spent plenty of hammock and tent time reading.
If you read only one book this year, read this one. Charles even gives it away free for all you cheapskates, it’s that important; here’s a summary and a link.
The Ascent of Humanity is about the history and future of civilization from a unique perspective: the evolution of the human sense of self. This book describes how all the expressions of our civilization—its miraculous technology as well as the pillage of earth, culture, goodness, and beauty—arise from our identity, our way of being, “the discrete and separate self”. The gathering crises of our age demonstrate that this way of being is on the verge of collapse. And this collapse is setting the stage for a revolution in human beingness whose stirrings we already begin to feel. The Ascent of Humanity is about Separation: its origins, its evolution, its ideology, its effects, its consummation and resolution, and its cosmic purpose. What is the purpose of the grandeur and the ruin we have wrought? If civilization is to collapse, Why? and What for? Will we then go back to the Stone Age, or will we be born into something entirely new? This book draws from mythological sources, as well as natural processes of birth and transformation, to offer a narrative framework for the majesty and madness of human civilization. More than anything, The Ascent of Humanity is about how to create the more beautiful world our hearts tell us is possible. I have long found most prescriptions for “what you can do” to reverse humanity’s trajectory of ruin quite empty. Recycle your bottles and turn off the faucet when you brush your teeth. Write your Congressman. What are these tiny individual actions against the juggernaut of destruction that consumes oceans, trees, soil, and culture? This book offers an entirely different approach that begins with the reconception of our very selves. It invalidates the logic of despair that so many activists have felt, that arises inescapably from the conception of ourselves as discrete and separate subjects in a world of other. This is the ideology of separation. The ideology that has created the human realm we know is the same ideology that has us despair we can ever change it. Wait, did I say “we”? I mean actually “you” and “I”. “We” is often disempowering too, because it leads us to wish, “Oh if only everyone would get it, then we would have a better government, better laws, and stop being so greedy.” But they don’t—how could I make them?—and the despair comes back. Helplessness. Frustration. This may be the only book you have ever read that fully gets the enormity of the crises facing us, yet responds neither with despair nor with fantasy suggestions about what “we” should do about it.
Back to my adventure. There were plenty of birds; hummers and finches kept me company in camp and numerous prairie falcons zipping along the canyon rim, kind of cool looking down on flying birds instead of looking up. I heard turkeys coming off the roost one morning but I never seen them. On the last morning, after breakfast I was playing my flute out on the edge of the canyon, listening to the echo and a Peregrine Falcon paid a visit, what a beautiful bird, it is always special to see these birds, the terror of the skies, perhaps the most efficient hunter in the animal kingdom and possibly the fastest animal in the world. No acrobatics from him or any speed records but just seeing one is always special.
Cuchara Canyon is definitely a beautiful, interesting and special place that is undeniably worth a visit, if you are in the neighborhood. Will I go back? I don’t know, perhaps after a snow but with so many possibilities out there, it is unlikely from my current home base. Another half hour and I can be in some of the most beautiful country in the state but I’ll keep that a secret for now. Life is Short – Never Stop Exploring; get out more and find your own special places.