The Mount of the Holy Cross (14,004’) became famous in the mid-19th century for the large naturally-occurring cross formation that appeared on its northeast face. The cross was, and to some extent still is, comprised of a 1,500 foot vertical couloir, intersected horizontally by a 750-foot bench. Since both of these features collect more snow than the surrounding rock, the cross appears distinctly white against the dark rock. It emerged from legend when Samuel Bowles reported seeing it from 40 miles away, writing in 1869: "It is as if God has set His sign, His seal, His promise there--a beacon upon the very center and height of the Continent to all its people and all its generations..." Samuel Bowles set a high rhetorical bar.
The legendary explorer Ferdinand Hayden approached the mountain during his 1873 Survey with a party that included photographer William Henry Jackson. While Hayden led one group of men on the first known ascent of the Mount of the Holy Cross, Jackson led a smaller group up to the summit of Notch Mountain - a peak immediately east of the Holy Cross and the only place that provides a good close up view of the cross. There Jackson took the photograph that would help make both him and the mountain famous. Hayden showed Jackson’s photos to epic landscape painter Thomas Moran and Moran made arrangements with Hayden to see the mountain the following summer. Hayden’s Survey was moving on to new locales, but Moran was important enough that Hayden arranged for a special team to escort him up Notch Peak. Moran called the climb “the toughest trial of strength that I have ever experienced”, though he never actually summited.
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| William Henry Jackson (1843-1942) Mountain of the Holy Cross (1873) J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
The 7’ x 5’ painting that Moran produced in 1874, a long view to the peak up Holy Cross Creek, is a classic Moran concoction. The recurrent fact is you can’t see the cross until up pretty close, but Moran undoes that reality for pictorial and presumably thematic purposes. His cross is distinctly visible on the peak that is towering hopelessly far off in the nevertheless inspiring distance, separated by clouds from the rest of the landscape. The foreground of boilerplate Moran mountain riverbed suggests just how long and rugged any approach would be. Let the interpretations begin.
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| Thomas Moran Mountain of the Holy Cross (1875) Autrey Museum of the American West |
Moran showed his painting at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876. He wanted to show it alongside his two monumental paintings of the Colorado’s Grand Canyon and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, arguing and perhaps believing that the Mountain of the Holy Cross was as significant as these two legendary sites. But he had sold those pictures to the United States Congress, which refused Moran’s entreaties to loan them out. So Moran just showed the Holy Cross, alongside Jackson’s photographs.
An executive of the Denver and Rio Grande Railway bought Moran’s painting and displayed it in his house in Manitou, Colorado, which he opened as a resort for consumptives. The railroad had opened several such resorts to exploit the dry air and natural springs found around Manitou; the executive sought a competitive edge by offering, in addition to a curative creek, a chance to gaze at Moran’s Mountain of the Holy Cross, the real thing being a very tough hundred miles away.
By the 1920s Christian pilgrims were reaching the site itself. In 1928 the Mount of the Holy Cross Pilgrim Association received permission from the Forest Service to build a campground and some houses. President Herbert Hoover proclaimed Holy Cross National Monument on May 11, 1929. The Denver Post reported in 1930 that... "There is an unusual number of persons this year who are afflicted with serious maladies that have defied the best efforts of medical science: they hope that a sight of the Holy Cross, coupled with firm faith in divine power, will accomplish cures." By the 1930's these pilgrimages were attracting thousands of participants.
But it was a short run. Erosion and rock slides sullied the cross’s left arm, plus religious-nature transcendentalism went out of fashion. By 1950 visitation had dwindled to the point that President Truman revoked the mountain’s National Monument status and returned it to the Forest Service. In 1980 the Forest Service surrounded the mountain with the 122,797-acres Holy Cross Wilderness. Hard-core climbers and skiers use the couloir to climb or descend the peak.
Notch Mountain
I followed Hayden and Jackson’s path from Leadville over Tennessee Pass (10,424’) into the headwaters of Eagle River, a tributary of the Colorado, and drove ten very rough miles up the Forest Service’s Tigiwon Road to Half-Moon Campground. My original plan was to use the campground as a base camp for a visit to nearby Vail and day hikes to Notch Mountain and Missouri Lakes, but the road was so bad I knew the next time I drove out it would be the last. So I decided to hike Notch Mountain the next day and drive out Friday night in hopes of getting a site along Eagle River. Knowing nearly nothing, it would be a gamble, as befits traveling while knowing nearly nothing.
Most people use Half Moon Campground as a base for the hike to The Mount of the Holy Cross, part of the more contemporary pilgrimage of Fourteeners. But I was going to Notch Mountain, like Jackson, to see the cross. The campground sits at about 10,300', making Notch Mountain less than 3000’ elevation gain, a stroll in the woods compared to what I had been hiking. Not a Fourteener, no longer a religious pilgrimage, the trail was pretty much empty. I saw three other hikers the entire day and was all alone at the top, though I wasn’t sure exactly which pile of rocks was the actual top. A hazy sun, no wind, some bugs, quite a few spiders, nice rocks. No sign of a thunderstorm. The Mount of the Holy Cross was in good light, though not much was left of the cross. The sturdy shelter build in the 30s by the CCC was holding up pretty well though.
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| Mountain of the Holy Cross |
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| Mountain of the Holy Cross |
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Vail
After my hike I drove out to the highway and got one of the few remaining sites at Camp Hale Memorial Campground. The weather the next morning looked ominous so I decided to hold off hiking for a day. I spend an hour or two in Vail. You have to park outside town - free parking in the summer, $25 for one to sixteen hours in the winter - as Vail’s one main commercial road that does not allow cars. Just pedestrians, bikes, and a fine bus. I took the bus to the library but the library was closed. The skating rink across the street was doing a brisk business in youth hockey. The people here, excluding me, were really scrubbed. I rode the bus back to the other end in hopes it would take me to Ford Park but it didn’t. I’d have to drive. The Betty Ford Alpine Botanical Garden was nice enough, but I had been immersed for weeks in the real thing. Some wonderful music coming from The Gerald Ford Amphitheater turned out to be the New York Symphony rehearsing. I took a short hike to a little nature center but the whole thing was just too tame. The sun was out and I should have been hiking. Instead I drove out to Nottingham Lake in Avon and tried to read, but mostly I just swatted flies.
Missouri Lakes
It rained hard Saturday night, and the skies on Sunday morning appeared even more threatening than they had the day before. But I overruled caution, overcame inertia and headed out to the trailhead for the Missouri Lakes/Fancy Pass Loop. I hiked through woods along a creek that had cut a steep narrow gorge through hard rock and soon emerged into Missouri Lakes basin in a cool, threatening breeze. Crowds were pouring down from Saturday night backpacking and plenty more tents remained scattered about. Colorado’s National Forests do not limit backpacker numbers and this area struck me as being very overcrowded. A party of ten passed me on the trail: fathers and daughters? But the big green basin formed in the large rock walls of Savage Peak (13,139’) contain nice lakes and the entire scene was quite inviting.
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The weather held through the several Missouri Lakes but rain started falling just as I began my ascent to Missouri Pass. I took cover under krummholz, not because it was raining that hard but because I hoped the storm would pass quickly and leave behind some dramatic mountain lighting. The rain did stop but no sun followed. I had a lovely stroll along the high meadow between Missouri and Fancy Passes. Storm clouds loomed large in all directions so I figured my strolling window would be brief. I stopped to eat lunch, thank goodness, as I would not have gotten another chance. The rain resumed just as I got to Fancy Pass. The storm clouds were approaching and imposing.
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| Photographer About to Get Soaked (#47) |
I did not linger to enjoy the view but headed straight down the other side of the pass, a steep and much more rugged slope than the one I came up. I had some fun sliding down steep snow slopes among huge boulder fields and made good time in the process. Then the skies opened up, first with hard rain and then with really hard hail. I was wearing my hiking hat and my raincoat hood and still the hail was ponging my head. Thunder cracked hard and close, though I never did see lighting. Then again I was in a narrow canyon with my head down, moving fast.
At one point I spotted a cairn marking a trail into the woods. I dismissed it as a marker for a campsite and didn’t even slow down to check it out. The trail I was on seemed so right. I kept on trucking, first in the belief I was right, then in the hope I was right, and finally in the stubborn thought that ok maybe I wasn’t right but I didn’t want to backtrack in this pouring rain - maybe this trail would take me out reasonably close to my trailhead. I couldn’t blame hunger this time, it must have been brain damage from the hail. Eventually the trail stopped descending and began contouring the mountain in the wrong direction and I knew I had to turn around. I soon came upon two drenched hikers who'd made the same mistake and we backtracked together. The earlier cairn, of course, marked the trail. On closer examination I saw the trail post was still standing though the sign had fallen down. I just blew it.
Down quickly now through rich forest, a nice gorge, lovely epiphytes, but these things lose appeal when you're drenched. A mother-father-teenage daughter team came hiking up the trail; they would be having a cold, wet night. Soaked and exhausted, I got back to the car at 3:30: a fine Sunday hike. I did not get struck by lightning. I was not beaten senseless by hail. I did not wander lost all night in the Holy Cross Wilderness or follow the wrong trail to the road ten miles from my car. What more could I ask for, given that each of these loomed likely at one time or another during the day? It really was a good hike and I'd like to try it sometime in better weather.
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