At the beginning of March I took a couple days to visit my friend in Creede Colorado, which is just over two hours east of Durango over Wolf Creek pass. Wolf Creek is also home to one of the highest ski areas.
Due to the steep mountain terrain the road goes through the mountain - such a beautiful drive!
Main Street, Creede (pardon the window glare - it's not the sun)Atlas, I arrived in Creede. This itty bitty mountain mining town sits at the base of a canyon. The town kind of dead ends where the canyon gets narrow. The road is sort of paved sort of dirt and not much is open in the off season.....
Sam!...but leave it to Sam to find a Mardi Gras fundraiser going on that night. We partied in the underground community center with live music and $4 hurricanes! Sam was a gracious hostess and offered to be the designated driver so I could enjoy those hurricanes. We moved the festivities to her house and stayed up way too late talkin' girl stuff.
Delia tried to seek refuse under the coffee table but my camera found her - she seemed less than thrilled with the flash.
Me & SamWe finally made it up to Wolf Creek mid-morning the next day. True to the picture, I was feeling a bit upside down from the night before.
With over 18 inches of fresh snow in the last two days, we decided to hike to fresh uncrowded powder. Breaking a sweat definitely helped break the hang over.
The top of the world!!
Hey Sam, Look over here!!What a great day! We rode the open slopes, played in the trees and hiked for epic runs. We didn't take many pictures, I guess we were too busy playing. Isn't that always the case?
We may have arrived mid-morning but we were some of the last to leave. We caught the last lift chair and were the last off the slopes.
The next morning I went back to take pictures of the town. The community center is in the side of the mountain in a series of old mining caves. It made for amazing acoustics for the band during the fundraiser.
Creede's Fire Department is also located in a cave."Even though Mother Earth News called Creede one of the best places to live in North America, only 300 or so folks have taken them up on the offer. With a tax base like that, city planners knew it wasn't going to be easy to raise the money for a new fire station. Still, since the entire town burned to the ground just three years after it was established in 1889, it was something they felt forced to propose.
Luckily, the innovative little town lifted itself above convention and came up with the novel idea of building their fire station into the side of a cliff. Using explosives rather than lumber, they blasted out 45 - degree-angle rock stalls for the volunteer fire department's two fire trucks and inadvertently opened up a whole new trickle of revenue. In fact, so many tourists came to see the World's Only Underground Firehouse ( the local 4-H Club gives tours) that they eventually decided to blast another tourist attraction - an underground mining museum." **
"Multiplying loaves and fishes is one thing. But in Creede, with a population of less than 800, the world famous repertory theater manages to sell 19,000 tickets every season. How do they do that? By winning kudos from everyone from USA Today (their reviewer dubbed Creede Repertory Theater "one of the 10 greatest places to see lights way off Broadway") to Rocky Mountain News, who said, "No wonder the Denver Post calls it a 'a miracle in the mountains.'"**
I can't wait until summer when we can go back as a family to visit Sam and take in some of the amazing sights of this adorable little mountain hideaway.
**Quoted from Colorado Curiosities by Pam Grout 2006
Sometimes you just gotta get away and have a little girly time!!
