Try a less busy alternative: The Highway of Legends

By Steve Graham

If you don’t want to travel the crowded Interstate 70 corridor over spring break, try a much less busy alternative: The Highway of Legends. The 82-mile stretch of Colorado Highway 12 and U.S. Highway 160 was recently designated a National Scenic Byway.

The route follows a horseshoe off Interstate 25 between Walsenburg and Trinidad, with a side trip to Aguilar, creating an E-shaped byway.

Perhaps the most scenic part of the journey is Spanish Peaks country through Cuchara and La Veta.

SpanishPeaksCountry.com offers an audio tour of this stretch, rolling through plains and up over 10,000-foot mountain passes. There are also separate tours of the small towns along the way.

“You’ll drive through historic cities and towns, former mining camps, and even a few ghost towns,” said Lindsay Diamond, chief storyteller at VistaWorks, a marketing company in the area. “You’ll find out about the ancient geologic changes that have formed the surrounding landscape over millennia. You’ll hear tales of the old West, with its covered wagon trains and gun battles.”

The tour also includes history of the native people and the coal and steel production in the area, including a connection to the infamous Mother Jones, “the most dangerous grandmother in America,” she said.

One of the oddest sights along the route is coke ovens of Cokedale. These outdoor ovens were used to bake coal until 1947, and they still stand in long rows that somewhat resemble a Roman Coliseum.

Cross country skiers can traverse old ski runs in the abandoned ski resort that is now Cuchara Mountain Park.

The area also sports Colorado’s first state park, the newest state park, and a state wildlife area. Lathrop State Park has two lakes within nearly 1,600 acres of land. The recently designated Fishers Peak State Park sits above Trinidad, and is the second largest state park in Colorado.

The Wahatoya Lakes State Wildlife Area just east of La Veta offers fishing, hiking and wildlife viewing.

Also, outside La Veta is the Southern Colorado Astronomical Park, with dark skies, a stone calendar and two observatory structures.

Photos: courtesy La Veta Creative District

For a bit of culture, the La Veta Creative District has an “an eclectic mix of artists, photographers, musicians, thespians, dancers, writers, practitioners of the healing arts, and people seeking a creative experience,” Diamond said.

There is also plenty of culture and history in Trinidad, the largest town on the route.

Trinidad has “one of the largest inventories of historic buildings per capita in the West,” said Trinidad tourism manager Marty Hackett.

There is also a burgeoning creative district that includes a theater, galleries and the ArtCartopia museum, a celebration of quirky vehicles that opened in 2018.