Purgatoire River Dinosaur Track site, Picket Wire Canyon, Comanche National Grasslands [AAW16]
The Purgatoire River heads in the southern the peaks of the Sangre de Christo Range in southern Colorado. One of the mountain streams feeding the Purgatoire River flows from the east flank of Culebra Peak at an elevation of 14,049 (or 14,053 - various sources provide different values). Here's a view of the ridge leading to the summit of Culebra Peak taken on a walk there a few years ago. Culebra is Spanish for snake and you get a bit of the sense of the snaky ridge in this image but the snaky character of the summit ridge is best seen from the west at a distance. All precipitation that falls on the side of the ridge in this image, flows into the drainage basin of the Purgatoire River.
The uppermost part of the Purgatoire River drainage basin just below Culebra Peak.
Culebra Peak is on private land and access has been extremely controversial in the past. When I climbed it it cost $100 per person and they limited it to 30 people per day. One of the more expensive walks I've been on - and when we got to the top, we saw a lot of clouds and not much view. The clouds provided a rainy descent back to the trailhead and the San Luis Valley floor which is barely visible in this image.
View from the summit of Culebra Peak - slightly obscured by clouds.
But this is about the downstream portion of the Purgatoire River in Picket Wire Canyon so let us proceed some 160 miles or so downstream (east-northeast) from Culebra Peak to Picket Wire Canyon on the Purgatoire River in the Comanche National Grasslands.
First a bit about semantics and nomenclature. The Purgatoire River received it's European name from French fur trappers. The word "purgatoire" is obviously French for "purgatory" - which may give you a sense of the nature of the land through which it flows. If you pronounce purgatoire with a semi-correct French pronunciation (something like pur-guh-TWAHR), and say it fast and perhaps a bit haphazard, you can hear yourself saying "Picket Wire." Go ahead, give it a try. That is exactly what the "English" speaking settlers heard. So, literacy aside, the name Picket Wire stuck.
I accessed Picket Wire Canyon through the Withers Canyon trailhead. The Purgatoire River flows into the Arkansas River about 40 miles downstream (northeast) from the trailhead. There's a nice little campground at the end of the road. No water. No fee either. Nice new pit toilets though. No one there during my first night. A young couple returning from the 2014 4/20 festivities in Denver arrived near sunset on the second night. Gotta love the hippies!
A welcoming sign at the Withers Canyon trail head.
After a nice evening's sleep on the ground, I got an early start on the canyon walk. The trail drops down a couple of hundred feet from the plateau into Withers Canyon floor and a hard right turn puts you into Picket Wire Canyon proper. It may be obvious why I chose this hike if you noticed the middle destination listed in the trailhead sign above: "Dinosaur Tracksite."
The Purgatoire River Dinosaur Tracksite is the largest dinosaur tracksite in North America. And it's only a 5.3 mile walk along a lazy river. You can also bike it. Or, even worse, drive it on limited days of the year with a special permit. But it's best not to think about such things and proceed on foot as we evolved to do.
After passing a dissolving adobe building and rusting junk of someones abandoned attempt to live in the canyon, I reach the river. There will be no whitewater rafting today.
Purgatoire River, Picket Wire Canyon, Comanche National Grasslands.
This is hardly a wild river. Upstream it flows through Trinidad Reservoir and then trough the town of Trinidad. But here in this deserted quarter of the eastern Colorado outback, it seems wild enough. Proceeding upstream along the river I encounter a graveyard and the ruins of a church.
Church ruins and graveyard.
The legible gravestones are all young children. Tough place to grow up.
The walking is easy and the early morning April air is pleasant but beginning to warm as I approach the tracksite.
A spur trail leads me down to the river and the tracksite proper. The longest sets of continuous tracks are across the river, but, there are some excellent specimens on this side.
Such as this Allosaurus track - complete with claw print.
This pick shows a step or one-half of a stride.
Allosaurus step.
This one gives you a good sense of the size of the foot and even better detail of the claw.
Close up of Allosaurus print.
So, about 150 million years ago a bipedal carnivore walked the muddy shore of a lake looking for food or water or probably both. Allosaurs are members of the Therapod family tree (or clade) that includes modern birds. Modern birds are not descended from dinosaurs, they are dinosaurs. The prints above look a bit like a bird to me.
Across the river I come upon a dual trackway made by a two Apatosaurs walking side by side.
Apatosaur dual trackways and unfortunate self portrait.
Apatosaurs (aka Brontosaurs) were an average of 22 meters long and weighed and estimated average of 16 metric tons. Big critters stomping through the mud side by side. I wonder what the day was like. I hope they had a nice warn sun-filled day along the lake.
I spend a bit of time just looking and listening. The sounds of wind, water and dinosaurs flitting around in the bushes. A nice peaceful hour with the foot prints all by myself. Then in the distance the faint hum of internal combustion engines. The Forest Service has arrived to do some stabilization work (I later find out) to try to prevent the tracks from being washed out by the river. I cross the river and keep brush and landscape between me and the two-person two-vehicle work crew. No need for human contact today. I'm walking with the dinosaurs on this outing.
I head on up the river to the ranch house mentioned on the trailhead sign. It is a nice simple home with a shady porch. After a brief look around, I settle in on the porch, have lunch and a nap.
Abandoned, but well maintained ranch house, Picket Wire canyon.
The chap who built this place did well through the depression. He amassed quite a few acres at rock bottom prices as his neighbors' ranches failed, they went bankrupt and their lives crumbled like adobe in the rain. Tough place to make a living - unless you can prosper from the misfortunes of others. But in the end ranching turned out to not be a profitable venture and the Feds reclaimed the land that should have never been part of the homestead act.
The wind changes and some high clouds start moving in from the west. I head back down the river: about 8 miles until I'm back at camp. On the return trip, I spot an interesting rock that I did not notice the first time through. Upon inspection I find some faint petroglyphs.
Some sort of 4-legged creatures and some abstract designs. Very faint but someone took some time and energy to put them here many years ago.
As I get back to the trail I see them coming - the Forest Service crew. I've been spotted and there is nothing to do but stop and talk. We meet in the middle of the road. They ask how my day is going, tell me about their stabilization project and we have a nice chat. They kindly offer me some water, but I have plenty sloshing around in my pack so I decline. After I assure them I am ok for the return walk, they fire up the engines and slowly drive away. Nice friendly folks doing honest important work. But I still could have spent the whole day seeing no one and would have been happier.
As I reach the track site on the return walk I stop again. Clouds have moved in and it would be good to get an idea of how the day looked if instead of sunshine the Apatosaurs had clouds and threatening rain. And it looks about the same.
I head back to camp. The winds continue to pick up and clouds darken. Just might get some rain if this keeps up. I notice a couple of side trails and check them out briefly. About a mile or two from the trail junction with Withers Canyon I notice some cairns and a fairly well worn trail. After a steep climb up out of Picket Wire Canyon I am back on the plateau and camp is two drainages away. The wind is even stronger on the plateau and brief showers start passing through. I walk on not too worried about the rain. I can see it coming in isolated showers that move through fast and don't soak hikers too badly.
Back in camp I grab a couple of cold beers, start cooking supper and sit on the tailgate of the Subaru watching the rain squalls. Soon the afore-mentioned hippies stop by and we chat a bit about their trip. They came out here all the way from Louisiana just to smoke pot in Colorado. Now that is devotion to a lifestyle. They tell me that bullet riddled signs they saw driving in across the grasslands made them a bit nervous. But I reassure them that the ranch hands who do that are usually too drunk to take very good aim so I don't really worry about them shooting me - at least not on purpose. Talk about dedication to a lifestyle.
My friends take their leave and I have a quiet supper of curried canned tuna and couscous watching the sunset way over there behind Culebra Peak.