PICKET WIRE CANYONLANDS
April 17, 2003
By Tim Briese
Colorado is undoubtedly a land of many scenic treasures, from its lofty mountain summits to its beautiful valleys and plains. The Picket Wire Canyonlands is one of its more obscure wonders, though, lying in the sparsely inhabited plains south of La Junta in the southeast corner of the state. Here one may take a walk back in time, observing the ruins of an adobe mission built in the late 1800’s, Indian rock art dating back nearly 5000 years, and the canyon’s most impressive feature of all, the largest dinosaur tracksite in North America.
I left home at 4:30 a.m. with my two labs Allie and Jorie and drove to La Junta, a town which I had not visited in over ten years. I headed south of town on Highway 109 and soon entered the expansive and barren Comanche National Grassland. I followed county roads fifteen miles further across uninhabited gently rolling plains to a junction where there was a bulletin board for the Picket Wire Canyonlands. The trailhead was three and a half miles beyond this junction at the end of a high clearance two wheel drive dirt road. Puddles of muddy water stood nearby from a rainstorm the day before. A sign warned that the road ahead was impassable when wet, but being a veteran of numerous gnarly four wheel drive roads in the mountains, I scoffed at the warning and wondered just how bad this level and generally smooth road could be. I quickly found out why the warning sign was placed there, though, as my truck slid around and fishtailed on slippery wet clay, but I soon arrived at the trailhead without incident.
I parked in a semi-wooded area dotted with juniper trees on the rim of the canyon and struck off down the trail at 7:30. The trailhead register showed that about a dozen other hikers had been here in previous days, mostly on the weekend before, but I was the only one here today. The trail rapidly descended about 300 feet to the floor of Withers Canyon, a tributary of the Picket Wire. I clipped on down the trail amidst stands of beautiful flowers and bright green fields of grass, all adorned in a shimmering coat of dew that glistened in the early morning sunlight. After about a mile I entered the main body of Picket Wire Canyon and turned to the right and continued on the trail. I was surprised that this drainage was even called a canyon, since I was used to hiking in the dramatic sheer-walled gorges of Utah’s Canyonlands. This was a broad and flat valley about a half mile across bordered on each side by rocky bluffs and occasional cliffs. The Purgatoire River meanders down through the valley, and the name “Picket Wire” originated from the peculiar pronunciation of the river’s name by French trappers of long ago.
There were numerous muddy places on the trail resulting from the recent rain where sticky clay gummed up on my boots and on the dog’s paws. Presently I came to the ruins of some old ranch buildings that I paused to inspect. Shortly after this I reached a place where the river ran adjacent to the north wall of the valley, which forced the trail up into the bluffs about 100 feet above, affording me some nice views down into the valley and a perfect excuse to stop for a break.
About three and a half miles from the trailhead I reached the ruins of the old Dolores Mission, built in the late 1800’s. Some crumbling adobe walls stood in silent watch over the valley, remnants of a structure that appeared to be about 70 feet square. I studied the construction detail of the ruins, and noted that a foundation of large flat stones from the nearby cliffs had been placed on the ground, with a wall of adobe bricks made of clay and straw built on top. Most of the walls had eroded away and were gone, but I thought it quite amazing that some still survived after more than a century of weathering. Nearby was a stone cistern that had been dug into the ground. A short distance further up the trail I came to an old cemetery that held the ruins of an old stone chapel with a wooden cross, and a few headstones from the 1890’s that bore Hispanic names. A modern informational sign nearby told of Indian rock art on the cliffs above, and said that evidence indicates that this valley has been inhabited by humans for nearly 5000 years! I began to feel very much like a newcomer!
There was not a single other soul to be seen in the valley, but I observed a lone set of footprints in the mud from the day before. Curiously, they went in only one direction, and I wondered how that could be so, for there is only one trailhead that provides access to this place.
Further up the valley I left the main trail and followed signs to the dinosaur tracksite on a rocky shelf beside the Purgatoire River a short distance away. This site is most impressive, featuring over 1300 tracks in an area about a quarter of a mile long. The tracks were made in the mud on the shore of an ancient lake by plant-eating brontosaurs and smaller meat-eating allosaurs. Many of the tracks are two to three feet long, and some are sunk a foot or more into what was once soft mud, but which is now solid rock. The recent rain had filled many of them with water, which made them stand out in bold relief. Parallel pairs of tracks are said to be evidence that these ancient animals traveled together in herds. I pondered the incredibly precise string of geological events that had to occur for these 160 million year old tracks to be visible on the surface of the earth today! These tracks are even older than the Rocky Mountains, which jut into the sky a hundred miles to the west. The best tracks were on the other side of the river, so in spite of the fact that the water was running high from spring runoff, I waded across the swift chilly torrent to see them. It felt incredible to set foot beside tracks of living beings so ancient! I keenly felt the transient nature of life. Even if I should live to be 100, my lifetime will be nothing more than a mere moment in the vast span of time!
I was nearly six miles from the trailhead at the dinosaur tracksite, and I continued a mile further up the valley to explore a little more of it before turning back. The only public access into the canyon is by way of the route from the trailhead I took, except that limited four wheel drive tours are sometimes permitted from the upper end of the canyon to the tracksite. No overnight stays are permitted in the canyon, either, so one must be prepared for a long dayhike.
A brisk breeze blew from the southwest under the deep blue sky, which felt refreshingly pleasant in the 65 degree air. As I retraced my steps back along the trail, I stopped for a brief rest and happened to cast a glance back toward the cemetery site a half mile behind me, and was shocked to see a person walking there. I pulled out my binoculars and trained them upon him, and watched him slowly walk down toward the river. I wondered where he had come from, for the only footprints besides my own that I had seen all day were the ones made in the mud the day before. Perhaps he had stayed in the canyon illegally overnight, I thought. Where he came from and why he was there remained a mystery to me.
I rapidly hiked down the trail and reclimbed the sharp grade up out of the valley to the trailhead, where I arrived at 1:40. In all, I covered about fourteen miles on this hike. It turned out to be an interesting adventure that gave me a glimpse at several periods of life that have gone before.
