Donald L. Baars - The American Alps: The San Juan Mountains of Southwest Colorado (Coyote Books)

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title	:	The American Alps : The San Juan Mountains of Southwest Colorado Coyote Books (Albuquerque, N.M.)
author	:	Baars, Donald L.
publisher	:	University of New Mexico
isbn10 | asin	:	0826313523
print isbn13	:	9780826313522
ebook isbn13	:	9780585219035
language	:	English
subject	Geology--San Juan Mountains (Colo. and N.M.) , San Juan Mountains (Colo. and N.M.)--Description and travel, Geology--San Juan Mountains (Colo. and N.M.)--Guidebooks.
publication date	:	1992
lcc	:	QE92.S3B33 1992eb
ddc	:	557.88/3
subject	:	Geology--San Juan Mountains (Colo. and N.M.) , San Juan Mountains (Colo. and N.M.)--Description and travel, Geology--San Juan Mountains (Colo. and N.M.)--Guidebooks.

Page i The American Alps

Page iii The American Alps The San Juan Mountains of Southwest Colorado Donald L. Baars University of New Mexico Press Albuquerque

Page iv Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Baars, Donald L. The American Alps : the San Juan Mountains of Southwest Colorado / Donald L. Baars. 1st ed. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 0-8263-1352-3 1. GeologySan Juan Mountains (Colo. and N.M.) 2. San Juan Mountains (Colo. and N.M.)Description and travel. 3. Geologyan Juan Mountains (Colo. and N.M.)Guidebooks. I. Title. QE92.S3B33 1992 557.88'3dc20 92-8859 CIP 1992 by the University of New Mexico Press. All rights reserved. First edition

Page v CONTENTS Introduction vii Part One: Geology Chapter 1 Some Basics 3 Chapter 2 It's About Time ... 9 Chapter 3 In the Beginning ... 17 Chapter 4 The Early Years 35 Chapter 5 Ancestral Rockies 47 Chapter 6 Big Red 59 Chapter 7 The Dull Days 65 Chapter 8 Uplift 73 Chapter 9 Cenozoic Strip Tease 79 Chapter 10 Enter Man 87 Part Two: Geologic Tour of the San Juan Mountains Chapter 11 Mountaineering Geology 101 Chapter 12 San Juan Skyway 117 Chapter 13 The Silverton Railway 153 Four Corners Region Place Names 159 Glossary 175 Index 181

Page vii INTRODUCTION Without a doubt, the San Juan Mountains, nestled in southwestern Colorado, are the most alpine, scenic, and geologically fascinating ranges in the southern Rocky Mountains province. Mountaineers have thrilled to the lofty peaks and crags for decades, fishermen have harvested the lakes and rills for even longer, and prospectors have ravaged the mountains for gold, silver, and other metallic riches for more than a century. Now, ever-increasing numbers of tourists threaten to devour the beauty of the American Alps. Long before this alpine paradise was discovered by twentieth-century adventurers, the Native Americans, principally the Ute and Navajo Indians, roamed the high country in search of bear, elk, deer, mountain sheep, and other, smaller game. Why is this magnificent upland unique? Everyone has a different answer based on their perspective. Merchants of rods and reels, rifles, and camping gear believe it is the basic instinct of mankind to get back to nature, to hunt and fish for one's natural food supply, to fight for survival as our ancestors did. Nowhere in the southern Rockies offers more pristine lands than these. Prospectors who crossed the rocky ridges and dug holes in

Page viii every exposure of red rock and dirt believed the land was meant to provide riches for those with prospecting prowess. Untold riches have been found and lost in the San Juans. To the restless Ute (pronounced "yoot") Indian, these mountains represented an abundant food supply. The miracle of the San Juan Mountains has resulted from more than two billion years of geologic processes and forces. It has taken all of geologic history, perhaps as much as four billion years, to render this part of Planet Earth into huge broken basins and uplifts, to deposit a blanket of sedimentary rock more than three miles thick, to bulge the rock layers into a gigantic rounded dome, to spew forth several thousand feet of volcanic lavas and ash, and finally to sculpt the upland surface into myriad ragged crags, rounded valleys, and deep canyons by the relentless scouring of glaciers and roaring mountain rivers, to form the landscape we know and love today. Not only geologists but anyone with a whit of curiosity and a little help in understanding geologic processes and endless geologic time can learn to appreciate this alpine wilderness called the American Alps.

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