Camping in Lead King Basin
by: Sandin Phillipson
The first Summer that I lived in Colorado provided me with an opportunity to
spend six weeks camping in the western Rocky Mountains, during June and July. In
preparation for a summer in the outdoors, I acquired an eleven-year-old1985
Dodge Ramcharger, a model famous for its 4x4 capability and ruggedness. Just the
thing for negotiating the wilds of the West Elk Mountains. I cruised south from
Glenwood Springs, turned short of the road to Aspen, and passed the beehive coke
ovens of Redstone to the town of Marble. In some ways, Marble is a modern ghost
town, with dirt roads and weather-beaten cabins, but as it hosts a Post Office
and fire department, it retains its "living" status. True to its name, the local
quarries provided some of the highest quality stone for monuments in Washington.
Pavement rapidly disappeared as I headed up the steep, one-lane road from
Marble. I passed the U.S. Forest Service road sign that advised "4WD Only Beyond
This Point" and my pulse quickened. I took the right fork and jounced slowly
over twin ruts, the former road to an actual ghost town located some miles from
Marble. As I rounded a bend blasted through granite, just wide enough to
accommodate a horse-drawn wagon, I braked suddenly and gasped. The road in front
dropped off into a steep pile of rubble that clung to the side of a mountain,
high above the roaring Crystal River. Even the twin ruts degenerated into a
jagged surface of jumbled boulders and cobbles. At the base of the steep bank of
talus, off the road, a dented, burned-out Chevy pickup rested in the weeds, a
derelict from a previous adventure in decades gone by. I shifted into 4-Low and
dropped the automatic transmission into "1", such a low gear that even at engine
idle the Ramcharger jerked forward and crawled to the tune of rhythmically
whining gears. Two feet from the edge of the road’s drop-off, and mindful of the
Chevy’s fate, I began the bouncing, swaying descent. Momentarily, the
speedometer needle rose slightly from where it bottomed out at 5 mph, and it
gently tapped the brakes. Too fast, perhaps 3 mph was more suitable. I crept
down the ancient road, imagining how teamsters had once negotiated wagons over
this treacherous track.
At last I reached the bottom, where the road was pot-holed and covered with
dirt, presumably settled-out flood sediment from the roaring Crystal River,
whose whitecaps danced at a level only slightly lower than the road. After some
time, I ascended a rise and came opposite a weather-beaten, yet picturesque mill
perched high upon a jutting promontory of granite above the river. Giant wooden
beams, shed from the structure after a punishing winter, whirled in the vortex
at the base of the millrace, smashed to splinters as the thundering current
relentlessly pounded them into the unyielding granite. Beyond, the town of
Crystal crouched alongside the road. Through town, the road had completely
degenerated into a rutted, rocky, jouncing misery even at 5 mph. Rugged log
cabin-type structures lined the street, constructed of rough-hewn square timbers
notched together, boarded up and nailed shut. Aha, but I saw that this wasn’t
strictly a ghost town! The last house on the edge of town had a somewhat
cared-for appearance, with a circa 1974 Ford pickup parked in front that
prominently displayed a bumper sticker that advised "51% Nice Guy, 49% SOB.
Don’t Push It." No problem there, I’m just passing through.
As I continued out of town, the lush, green valley of Lead King Basin was
sprawled out before me. I had broken out of the woods along the river bottom,
and thick green grass sprinkled with yellow, blue, and white flowers swayed in
the mountain breezes. All around, majestic, snow-capped granite peaks rose
toward the sky, and the steep, jagged cliffs of the distinctively colored Maroon
Sandstone jutted into the air. This is the same rock formation made famous in
Colorado postcards of the Maroon Bells. I climbed the narrow jeep trail,
carefully driving over a series of berms that, from the look of the surrounding
prospect pits, had been piled up by a bulldozer to keep out the casual gawkers
when prospecting had been more lucrative. I took a sharp left, and had to gun
the engine to climb the steep, one-lane trail that ended at the boundary of the
Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness. What a gorgeous sight, as the classic U-shaped
glacial valley spread out before me. The daily afternoon rainshower had begun,
and so I elected to remain in the shelter of the Ramcharger’s backseat for the
night. The giant windows afforded a spectacular view of the surroundings, and I
gasped in awe as lightning bolts crackled from the snow-capped, granite peaks
across the valley at my very eye level.
The rain gradually diminished and ceased by mid-morning, and it was time to
continue on my way. I rolled out of my parking spot, back onto the shallow, twin
ruts that would lead me the short way back to the main jeep road. Suddenly,
apprehension gripped me as I noted that the ruts, so easily climbed the night
before, had a pronounced tilt from my present approach. I had been proceeding at
a relatively sedate 15 mph, but apprehension turned to panic as I felt the
Ramcharger begin to slide sideways as gravity tied to pull it down the
deceptively shallow, but increasingly steep slope into a shallow gully. For a
split second I considered making a controlled, soft landing, but quickly
realized that by the time I slid to the bottom of the shallow gully, the truck
would be on its side with no hope of recovery. As an automatic reaction to avoid
danger, I stepped on the brake and was horrified to feel the truck speed up as
the tires broke loose on the wet grass and greasy mud. I could hear the
slithering slap of wet, leafy fronds on the tires and felt my momentum increase,
bearing me toward the declivity, as I screamed Oh, Dammit NO! Counter to
panicked intuition, I clutched the ball of the transfer case lever and pulled it
back sharply from 2-High into 4-High as I goosed the accelerator. Trying to slow
down had nearly been disastrous, and my heart was pounding as I desperately
hoped that the engaged front wheels would pull me back up onto the treacherous,
deceitful twin-rutted path. By now leaning crazily, the spinning front tires
found purchase and arrested my lateral slide into the gully, as the Ramcharger
regained the shallow, muddy ruts with a final fishtail. As I began to relax, I
realized that within five seconds I would have a more serious problem. I had
regained enough momentum to climb back onto the gently tilted trail, but as I
crested a slight rise, I stared straight down, past the adjoining main jeep
trail and out into space past the edge of the cliff. While congratulating myself
on avoiding one disaster, I was now rapidly speeding toward another, since I now
had enough momentum to careen down the hill, shoot across the jeep trail, and
fly off the cliff. Recalling my Wisconsin winter-driving experience, I shifted
the automatic transmission into neutral to disengage drive to the wheels and
began gently tapping the brake pedal at a furious rate. As the cliff edge
loomed, I felt the truck slow and knew I had regained control. I crept down the
steepest part of the rutted trail onto the main jeep road at the dizzying speed
of about six inches per second. My heart was pounding, and my entire body was so
tensed that I could barely command my leg to press the brake pedal, or my arm to
shift into Park. I idled on the jeep road, as the adrenaline spasms rippled
through my body and I tried to catch my breath. When I finally regained control
of myself, I crawled along the greasy, shale-slicked road in 4-Low, and
considered myself lucky to be leaving Lead King Basin.
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