The snow finally caught up with me yesterday afternoon. I had reached Frisco well before I had originally intended, but late enough that I felt like I didn't waste the day. The fact is that, in early May, there's very little to do in the Rockies. Most of the ski areas are closed (though Arapahoe Basin is still open), hiking is icy and muddy, biking is icy and the trails are often closed, boating is not possible, and most of the ski towns - like Frisco - are virtually shut down. But I followed a few older sections of US 6, and had a great find in Dillon.
US 6 currently follows I-70 to I-25, then follows that south through Downtown Denver to the 6th Avenue Freeway. The 6th Avenue Freeway opened as an expressway in the mid-1950's with at-grade intersections, but was gradually upgraded to the full freeway it is today throughout the early 1960's. Today, it has a 65mph speed limit - high for an urban area - and serves an alternative to I-70 for commuters coming in from the west side.
Originally, US 6 followed US 40 down West Colfax. Colfax Avenue, even back in the days of Kerouac's time in Denver, has always been a somewhat scummy strip of roadway. Today, the eastern portion, near Sheridan, is lined with cheap shops, flophouse motels and fast food restaurants. The western portion is much the same, though it's a little newer construction but just as run-down.
I followed Colfax as far as Sheridan, where I cut south to see the new "W" light rail line, which opened just over a year ago, and to get onto the 6th Avenue Freeway. The "W" line runs from Golden to Downtown Denver, creating a much-needed transit link between the two towns, and servicing Lakewood.
In Golden, US 6 once followed US 40's current path, south from Colfax and through Mount Vernon Canyon. Up until the early 1950's, Clear Creek Canyon, through which US 6 is currently routed, contained the tracks that were once part of the Colorado Central Railroad, which linked Central City and Golden. Originally built at the time when Golden and Denver were rivals for the state capital site, the railroad was eventually absorbed by Union Pacific and declined with the price of silver. After WWII, the land was apparently donated to the state, and US 6's path, complete with the tunnels that were formerly a part of the railroad, was set by 1957. As far as I can come up with, the tunnels that are along the route today are not original, but were rebuilt - or at least expanded - over the years. The abandoned structures along the route lend credit to the mining history, but there doesn't appear to be any sign of the former railroad.
At Idaho Springs, there is a Main Street where US 6 likely ran, but the bypass that exists today as both I-70 and US 6 was complete by 1957. There is another original section that starts at the Dumont exit (#235) and follows the interstate on both sides until the US 40 interchange, where it continues straight to rejoin I-70. This was always the US 6/40 split.
In Georgetown, the original US 6 runs along Clear Creek (it's followed Clear Creek this whole time) as Argentine Street, then going to the right onto Loop Drive. Loop Drive is named after the Georgetown Loop Railroad, which still exists today as a historical railroad tourist attraction operating in the summer. It was called the "loop" because of its switchback climb up the canyon at the southern end of Georgetown toward Silver Plume, at one point going over itself. Up until I-70 was constructed here though, US 6 also had several switchbacks, avoiding the steep incline that is a problem here today for large trucks. I'm not going to write much about this, because there's an excellent posting about this on the "US Ends" site.
At the Silver Plume exit (#226), you can get off again to follow a more original section of the route, along Water Street, though there is no way to get back on the interstate once you reach the end of the original route. There is a road that runs on the south side of Clear Creek, called Silver Valley Road, but this was never a part of US 6.
At the Loveland Pass exit (#216), US 6 officially separates from Interstate 70. Just west of here are the Eisenhower-Johnson Tunnels, locally known as the "twin tunnels." The westbound side (Eisenhower) opened in 1973, and the eastbound side (Johnson) opened in 1979. The tunnels provide an easier way to cross the Continental Divide, which was previously done via the nearly 11,000-foot Loveland Pass, or by the much more northern 9,600-foot Rabbit Ears Pass via US 40. When completed, they laid the last piece of Interstate 70 (though the highway's planned eastern end, in Baltimore, has never been built), and one of the last pieces of the main interstate highway system to be built. Today, there are signs approaching the tunnels warning very large and wide loads, and trucks hauling hazardous materials, to exit here and use US 6 as an alternative.
I've been over the pass in the summer, and it's mostly full of tourists looking for scenery. However, this day, the road was very quiet. There were a few cars, but it seemed to be mostly tanker trucks, possibly hauling oil or gas. Even they were few and far between though, and the top of the pass was very quiet (and not as cold as you'd think, by the pictures).
Coming back down the pass, you hit the Arapahoe Basin Ski Area, which I had been told by someone in Boulder was now closed. However, it was very much open, with the parking lot mostly full and a snowboarder descending in front of me every few seconds. The traffic was not as bad as it would have normally been, possibly because it was a Thursday, and Keystone, the closest town to Arapahoe Basin, was absolutely dead. I was surprised the stores were open at all.
Leaving Keystone for Dillon, US 6 makes a wide northern turn to go around the lake. I covered it in a previous blog post, but the original path for the route had it running almost directly west-southwest to the original Dillon townsite, which is now under Dillon Reservoir. I had a theory on US 6's original path taking what is now a left at Swan Mountain Road and, after just a few meters, diving into the lake. I was right, and was able to prove it by the lake being very, very low. I walked out to where I thought the road was going into the lake and - lo and behold - found crumbling asphalt, some of it clearly in a line where the roadbed had once been. As far as signs or markers though, I didn't see anything. The grading, as it jumps off of current road's grading, is pretty obvious, and it's an easy place to find, just as I pointed it out on the map.
Reaching Frisco, I got a late lunch at Backcountry Brewing, which ended up being a really good brewery with an excellent happy hour. However, the altitude was already getting to me. When I had walked around at Loveland Pass, I had already noticed the shortness of breath, which seemed strange since I had biked almost forty miles over the past two days in Denver and Boulder. But, as I drank my beer, I definitely noticed the difference, and my high alcohol tolerance could not offset the change in altitude, so I left before I got completely wasted, and checked into the motel.
By then, it had started snowing, killing any desire I had to explore further, so I spent the night watching TV and being stoned. Since I may be in Utah this evening, I thought it prudent to consume the rest of my brownie so as not to cause any problems there. I'm sure Utah, just like Nebraska, is paranoid of this. This time, I took it earlier in the evening, and had a nice enough time. Though I was reminded of why I don't smoke: I cannot get a damn thing done. I could barely play games on the computer. All I want to do is lie around and watch TV, and that's what I did. The snow came down past dusk though, and covered my car, so I don't think I missed too much.
Today I continue west past Vail, Glenwood Springs and into Grand Junction, where I'll at least do laundry. This is the section of the highway that I'm going to revisit this summer, when it's warmer and easier to explore, so I'm not terribly worried about missing things. The temperature on the Western Slope is predicted to get down into the high 40's, so I may just be sleeping in my car in the desert tonight, maybe even right on the Utah/Colorado border which, along the historic routing of US 6 north of I-70, is extremely isolated and sees very little traffic.
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