San Juan Skyway - earth and sky

From Ouray the road switchbacks up into the mountains past waterfalls and creeks that spill into the Uncompahgre Gorge.

I walked a short way into these mountains and sat for a while to look out at the world unfolding all around me. I felt very small up there, a tiny speck among giant forces in an indifferent universe. Puny as I am, I felt perfectly loved, because I am a necessary part of this great whole. Of course, the air was pretty thin up there.

At the crest of the ridge, three bright red mountain peaks are suddenly visible. Bold coloured gravel smears down the slopes into evergreen trees like a clumsy giant's finger painting. Despite their dramatic appearance, the peaks have the humdrum names of Red Mountain No 1, No 2, and No 3. Never let an engineer name your mountains.

The road loops around the mountains across this broad meadow. The area is littered with mining remnants: shacks, mills and piles of gravel.

I don't know what it is about traces of old mining efforts that is so picturesque. Perhaps its the romantic fantasy of living up here, doing simple, practical work in a place and time where isolation really meant something. Perhaps it's just that the traces of human activity look so small, our efforts dwarfed against the scale of the mountains we plundered.

Imagine how hard it must have been to build the scaffolding above in such difficult circumstances. All that human effort and ingenuity, and yet it looks so small and spindly.

I pretended for a little while that the Cream Puff was a mule and I was riding back to this shack to dig precious metals out of the earth until the snow comes. I was doing okay on the mining dream, but I kept getting distracted by the image of the Cream Puff with long furry ears.