San Juan Skyway - water

Colorado is dry, but there is quite a bit of water in the San Juan Mountains. Much of it is very pretty too.

There was a time that large numbers of miners depended on this water course for their survival. Before the bitter winters thinned their numbers each year, this area was lined with mining camp sites. All other supplies had to be carted slowly and painstakingly up the mountains to this plateau.

Waterfalls trickle down beside the road and drain into the Uncompahgre Gorge.

Visitors still fish in the mountain lakes.

Unfortunately, the story of this water is not all happy and life giving. The massive mining operations in these mountains destabilised the earth, exposed metals in the ground and poisoned several rivers. This yellow boy colouring is the result of acid mine drainage. Now that tourism is such big business in this area there has been a concerted effort to clean up the waterways through a variety of treatment methods. The work is ongoing, but many scars remain on the environment. As puny, quaint and picturesque as the abandoned mines and ghost towns look today, they were not always so innocuous, and their effects have been lasting.