We left Denver early. Early enough that the city still felt groggy, wrapped in its weekday quiet. Highway 285 led us out, westward, past Red Rocks Amphitheater. Just a sliver of sandstone off to the side. The road sliced through jagged red formations, climbing, coasting, climbing again.
Eventually the land opened up. The mountains loosened their grip and let us into a plateau that stretched for miles. To the left: the Rockies, bold and snowcapped even in spring. To the right: soft brown hills, the kind you imagine cowboys riding over, low and patient. In between: cattle, barns that looked more like weathered boxes than buildings, and the occasional shack with a stovepipe clinging to its roof. Someone lives there, I always think. I wonder what their little lives are like.
We ended up in Poncha Springs. It’s not a destination. It’s more like a junction. A place defined by where else it can take you. Two-lane highways run through like veins, feeding Salida to the east and the mountain passes to the west. But it has its charms. The visitor center sits like a checkpoint for wanderers. Friendly and practical, with water spigots, a dump station, and a few faded interpretive signs tacked up. The building itself was closed, but we lingered outside, reading about the Arkansas River and early settlers.
The town has a dusty market where we stocked up on basics: canned beans, eggs, a fresh apple or two. Locals wandered in and out with coffee and gas station burritos. No frills, but friendly. Poncha Springs isn’t trying to impress anyone. It exists for the people moving through and the few who’ve decided not to.
From there, we climbed again. Up Monarch Pass into thinner air. The road twisted its way to over 11,000 feet. You feel it in your chest before you feel it in your head. Just a reminder that this body is built for sea level, not sky. A headache bloomed slowly, dull and persistent. I was unsure if it was the altitude or the dehydration or the anxiousness about the altitude. Still, the view was everything.
At the top, a sign announced: Continental Divide. An invisible boundary where the waters choose their course. East to the Atlantic, west to the Pacific. I stood there, wind tugging at my sleeves, and thought about that split. On one side, the rivers run back toward the ocean that has always meant home to me: the salt-heavy Atlantic, the shorelines I grew up with, the idea of east as origin. And on the other side, rivers fall toward somewhere else entirely. Toward deserts, canyons, and the open mouth of the Pacific. It’s just water. But it’s also a decision point. It always feels like something bigger.
We descended slowly, letting the brakes hum. Below, a river curled like ribbon. Wide, slow, sure of its path. We passed elk grazing along the edge of a clearing, their antlers catching the last of the light. The land opened again into a stretch of high desert: rolling hills stitched with sagebrush and the occasional cottonwood.
We found a dirt road marked with a small Bureau of Land Management sign and turned down it, dust rising behind us. BLM land is public land that covers nearly 1/8 of the United States stretching over deserts, mountains, grasslands, and canyons. Most of it being in the west. Here, you can camp for free, up to 14 days. You can hike, fish, and explore as well as long as you follow leave no trace and respect the land. BLM land is the in-between country. The quiet spaces you find when the highway narrows toa strip of cracked asphalt and the map turns pale. Here the wind sounds like its been telling the same story for centuries and you’re just another traveler lucky to hear it for a little while.
We parked just before a gate and shut off the engine. Outside, the light was working its last magic brushing the red rock cliffs in gold, turning green shrubs silver, painting long shadows across the dirt. The horizon faded into soft purples and the world felt stripped down. Rock, sky, and the slow turning of day into night. The quiet settled in quickly. Stars began budding in the sky. Wind moved through the brush, weaving the calm of the desert into the coming night.
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