My sister Susan and I have driven up Colorado Highway 103 (which leads to the top of Mount Blue Sky) from Bergen Park toward Echo Lake several times now, and the colors seem to be more vivid each time. We once went all the way to Echo Lake and then down the other side to Idaho Springs, but lately I have been turning onto Winter Gulch Road, where I took the photograph above, which leads down to Evergreen. Not only is this drive very pretty, but unlike Boreas Pass near Breckenridge and Guanella Pass above Georgetown, it is pretty close to Denver, which makes for a pleasant but relatively short trip. Mount Blue Sky, by the way, used to be known as Mount Evans, but was renamed after Cheyenne and Arapahoe tribal leaders, residents, and local government officials lobbied for the change due to the role of territorial governor John Evans in the 1864 Sand Creek massacre. During that massacre, 230 Cheyenne and Arapahoe people, most of them women, children, and elderly, were killed at Sand Creek by U.S. Army calvary soldiers. In the aftermath, Evans did not acknowledge or criticize what happened, and even defended and rationalized it. But it is now Mount Blue Sky, and so enjoy the colors while you remember that event.
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