I consider myself a newbie to Crestone, having been there just three times for a total of five weeks over the last three years.
Still, I have to say, the place scares me a little.
It’s not the people. The ones I’ve met are great. I hear there is some animosity downtown where one market owner wants to see another driven out of business, but that could be anything. All the folks I’ve met, and it hasn’t been many, have been just lovely.
It’s more just the physical place: The topography. The vegetation. Or lack thereof. The wildness just beyond the next mile of light suburban development.
I heard someone who lives there say life at Crestone is austere. That would mean he thinks life there is either severe or strict in manner, attitude, or appearance or having no comforts or luxuries; harsh. Or maybe definition #3 is a little more his flavor: having an extremely plain and simple style or appearance; unadorned.
For me, Crestone’s austerity manifests itself in the magnitude of things. There’s just so much of everything there.
The mountains: Four 14k peaks just to the east in the Sangre de Cristo range. Trails and mountain experiences abound. Enough said.
The desert: Thousands of empty dry acres west making up the Baca Grants and just beyond, the Baca National Wildlife Reserve. No more than ten miles due south is Great Sand Dune National Park and Preserve. The desert is a presence here.
The summer sky: A moving and morphing painting of open blue, scudding puffballs, and by afternoon, localized thunderheads dropping their wet loads, visible from your perch in the foothills, from cloud top to water hitting the earth. Amazing scope. And just about every mid to late summer afternoon.
The spirit: A respected zen teacher professed this place one of the best in the world for personal retreat because of the natural energy converging via of water, sky, earth, and spirit. The Carmelites have come here to offer quiet desert cabins as places of reflection in the presence of mountains. People seem to think this a place where spirit has a better chance of connecting with souls.
For me, the Crestone area is a living and breathing dichotomy that, while still a puzzle to me, energizes me in ways that make my heart sing.
I’ve referred to the mountains as green, and they are. But the land just at their skirt is sandy and rocky and dry and for all intents and purposes a desert. Prickly pear cactus does very well there. Remember, too, that the swelling desert just beyond the mountains is the body of the San Luis, that large expanse of alpine valley known for both its abundance of wildlife and its record setting potato production.
It’s all just a little strange for a guy who has grown up in the presence of trees and summer thunderstorms.
Maybe it is some buried reverence for water deep inside that I don’t understand.
I’ll say this: something there is about interacting with a mountain stream, tumbling true and cold from some alpine lake full of snowmelt.
Just being on the mountain in the presence of its water is enough. Being at a wider spot in the stream, down lower after multiple rivulets have combined into one larger flow that is enough to be named: Willow Creek, South Crestone Creek, Spanish Creek. Listen to the spirit in the voice of the water babbling.
It was along the North Crestone Creek that our Crestone adventure began a couple Saturdays ago. Cindy and I knew we wouldn’t walk far, but we wanted to get the boys up a mountain trail for an authentic experience. The trail turned out to be a gravel road, but you get the idea.
We ascended for 45 minutes or so, finding a great open spot just along the North Crestone Creek probably a mile or so uptrail from the national forest campground. Packs were dropped, Cindy’s camera came out, trail snacks were consumed, and boys became mystified boulder hoppers.
And the beginning of a very fine time was had by all.
Today’s elder idea: The Sangre de Cristo mountains is among the youngest in Colorado. With nine peaks above 14,000 feet, this rugged mountain chain is one of the longest and straightest continuous mountain ranges in the world. The Sangre de Cristos stretch for over 75 miles, rarely dipping below 10,000 feet, and are home to more than 60 alpine lakes, 400 miles of streams, and nearly 400 miles of trails.
from a National Geographic map
Photo: Cindy Lou Cooke c. 2011
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