Mountain Biking Colorado by Stephen Hlawaty

Author:Stephen Hlawaty [Hlawaty, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Falcon Guides
Published: 2018-04-06T04:00:00+00:00

Mount Princeton, with the Chalk Cliffs lying to the south (left)

The Ride

The Mount Princeton to Raspberry Gulch trail lies in the heart of Colorado’s Fourteeners region (the highest concentration of 14,000-foot peaks in the continental United States). Fifteen Colorado peaks, all reaching more than 14,000 feet, lie within a region no larger than 30 by 20 miles. Here the impressive Sawatch Mountains stretch across the west side of the Arkansas Valley from southwest of Salida north to Leadville. Of these fifteen peaks, four (including Mount Princeton) are typically referred to as the Collegiate Peaks.

At 14,197 feet, Mount Princeton is the second highest of the Collegiate Peaks, second only to Mount Harvard. The Collegiate Peaks include Mount Princeton, Mount Harvard (14,420 feet), Mount Columbia (14,073 feet), and Mount Yale (14,196 feet). Each peak gets its name from the institution that sponsored its study and survey in the mid to late 1800s. Of the four Collegiate Peaks, and perhaps of all the mountains in the Sawatch Range, Mount Princeton remains one of the most striking. As you look west from the Arkansas Valley, Mount Princeton displays an almost perfect symmetry, with two smaller peaks flanking the central summit. But Mount Princeton’s symmetry is not all that attracts the eye. No doubt your curiosity will be sparked by the mountain’s south-sloping escarpment.

As though someone had taken a giant cleaver to the mountain, Mount Princeton’s south slope falls abruptly from the mountainside to form the Chalk Cliffs. Though chalk-like in appearance, the white, crumbly composition of these cliffs is actually an admixture of quartz, K feldspar, and plagioclase called white quartz monzonite. Strikingly unique, these cliffs have over the years developed an identity and history that are almost independent of the mountain to which they cling.

One story tells of a band of Spaniards who raided a nearby Ute village more than 200 years ago. With the stolen booty in hand, the Spaniards headed for the sanctuary of the Chalk Cliffs. Undeterred by the Spaniards’ dangerous route, the Ute warriors followed. Sensing the Ute hot on their trail, the Spaniards buried the booty somewhere in the cliffs. The Ute finally caught up with the thieves, but when the Spaniards wouldn’t say where they had hidden the stolen possessions, the Ute summarily killed the raiders. According to legend, the treasure remains buried somewhere in the dusty recesses of the Chalk Cliffs.

With the Chalk Cliffs to your left (north), pedal your way from Mount Princeton Hot Springs to Mount Antero. The hot springs once served as a mining camp for the Hortense Mine, located on the southern peak of Mount Princeton. The Hortense Mine, one of the most productive silver mines in the Sawatch Range, drew much attention from itinerant traffic; consequently, so too did the hot springs.

By 1915 the hot springs had a hundred-room hotel, complete with stained-glass windows and a gigantic ballroom. The market crash of 1929 dealt a serious blow to the hot springs’ popularity, and in 1930 the hotel was reopened as the Antero Hotel (named for the nearby mountain).

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