Rollins Pass, elevation 11,676 ft (3,559 m), is a mountain pass and active archaeological site in the Southern Rocky Mountains of north-central Colorado in the United States. The pass is located on and traverses the Continental Divide of the Americas at the crest of the Front Range southwest of Boulder, and is at the boundaries of Boulder, Gilpin, and Grand counties. Over the past 10,000 years, the pass provided a route over the Continental Divide between the Atlantic Ocean watershed of South Boulder Creek (in the basin of the South Platte River) with the Pacific Ocean watershed of the Fraser River, a tributary of the Colorado River.
Rollins Pass was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 and is listed as one of the most endangered sites in Colorado.
Video Rollins Pass
DescriptionEdit
Rollins Pass (first known as Boulder Pass and also known, particularly in Grand County, as Corona Pass) is located approximately five miles east and opposite the resort in Winter Park, and is in the general area between Winter Park and Rollinsville. The pass is traversed by two roads:
- The first dirt road is the Rollinsville and Middle Park Wagon Road, created in the early 1860s and this route predates the rail line. This road employed much of what would later become Rollins Pass. This original wagon route, now called the Boulder Wagon Road (BWR) took a steep counterclockwise route up Guinn Mountain encircling Yankee Doodle Lake before continuing to head west/northwest to proceed over the summit and down into the Middle Park valley near present-day Winter Park and Fraser, Colorado.
- The second dirt road is mostly the former roadbed of the Denver, Northwestern, and Pacific Railway, that later became the Denver and Salt Lake Railway. This high altitude or 'hill route' railroad was part of the Moffat Road and this route was replaced (and later abandoned) by the opening of the Moffat Tunnel in 1928; the rails and ties were removed from Rollins Pass in 1935.
Rollins Pass is a recreational location known for its views, wildflowers, hiking, and photography during the summer months and can be accessed from roads on both west and east sides. The road can be traveled by regular two-wheel drive vehicles in the summer in good weather, or by snowmobile in the winter. Although not steep nor loose, four-wheel drive higher-clearance vehicles fare better. While Rollins Pass is scheduled open for vehicular summer traffic from June 15 through November 15 each year, it is generally not possible given average snowfall amounts, to drive higher than Ptarmigan Point on the western side and Yankee Doodle Lake on the eastern side before early-mid July. Early autumn snowstorms make reaching these points impossible after late September or early October. There are no facilities (neither water nor restrooms) on either side of the pass. Usage of Rollins Pass is currently classified as 'heavy' by the United States Forest Service and parking can be very limited at designated parking sites.
- From the east (near Rollinsville & Tolland): The road up the pass on the eastern side from the Peak to Peak Highway (State Highway 119) begins at the East Portal road running west, parallel to South Boulder Creek and the current Union Pacific Railroad tracks, to the East Portal of the Moffat Tunnel, and then rises on the abandoned railroad grade from Giant's Ladder to the closed Needle's Eye Tunnel. From Rollinsville to East Portal, the road is an all-weather gravel road, with some chattery washboard sections, which can be traveled by regular automobiles. However, beginning at East Portal, at the formal start of Rollins Pass road, the road prism becomes very rough due to lack of maintenance. The BWR can also be accessed on this side of the pass and is a four-wheel drive road not suited to lower clearance two-wheel drive vehicles, and in some areas a winch can be helpful; some portions of this road were open prior to 2008. This former railroad roadbed is open for 11.7 miles; two miles past Jenny Lake, there is a concrete barricade approximately one half-mile before the Needle's Eye Tunnel. The road is open for hiking and mountain biking beyond the barricade to the entrance of the closed tunnel, and a rough trail continues around either side of the tunnel for those on foot to bypass the closure.
- From the west (near Winter Park): The road up the pass on the western side from Winter Park is in fair condition starting from U.S. Highway 40 in Winter Park. Guided snowmobile tours follow much of the summer road from Arrow and terminate shortly after Sunnyside (located further uphill and past the Riflesight Notch trestle). However, the tour does not go higher than Ptarmigan Point and does not reach the summit in the winter, despite the tour company claiming "tours top out at nearly 12,000 feet."
The majority of the route or right-of-way is open and intact, although some of the trestles have collapsed, deteriorated (Riflesight Notch), or have been destroyed (such as trestle #72.83 on the west side); as well as sections leading to the Needle's Eye Tunnel--a 150-foot-long high altitude railroad tunnel which was open from 1956-1979. In 1979, the tunnel was closed due to rock falls; following a geologic engineering study in 1981, a Mine Safety and Health Administration study in 1985, engineering design work in 1986, and repair work in 1987, the tunnel was re-opened in 1989. In 1990, several thousand pounds of rock fell from the crown of the tunnel, injuring a United States Navy veteran and Denver firefighter resulting in a below-knee amputation. Since then, the tunnel was sealed by Boulder County and the United States Forest Service and rockfalls continue to occur at both the crown and shoulder of the tunnel. In 2002, the James Peak Wilderness and Protection Area Act (Public Law 107-216) was passed by Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush. The Act created a narrow road corridor between the Indian Peaks Wilderness and James Peak Wilderness areas and states if one or more of the affected counties (Grand, Gilpin or Boulder) request, the Secretary will cooperate and assist with the repair of the Rollins Pass road and until that time the attendant road will remain open to motorized use. Boulder County and the US Forest Service have differing interpretations regarding this wording. Both Grand and Gilpin Counties have made written requests to the Secretary; to date no repairs have been made. The reopening of the BWR, and/or repair of the Rollins Pass road, and even the facts surrounding the 1990 accident in the tunnel, have become contentious and ongoing issues.
Maps Rollins Pass
HistoryEdit
Rollins Pass as a prehistoric Native American hunting complexEdit
Native Americans were the first to utilize Rollins Pass as a natural, low crossing over the Continental Divide for the purposes of communal hunting of large game, including big-horn sheep and elk. There are more than 96 documented game drives, including the Olson Game Drive, found largely above timberline and near the summits of multiple mountain ridges. Handmade rock walls drove prey towards hunters waiting in blinds. These unique high-altitude constructs were built, refined, and continually used over millennia. Currently the game drives are being studied by Colorado State University archaeology graduate students led by Dr. Jason M. LaBelle, associate professor, Department of Anthropology, Center for Mountain and Plains Archaeology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins. The game drives built on--and over--Rollins Pass have international significance.
The Olson Game DriveEdit
The Olson site (5BL147) is a multi-component rock walled game drive and is but one part of a much larger game drive complex located on Rollins Pass. Byron Olson and James Benedict conducted work at the site in the late 1960s. Present-day archaeology teams built on Olson and Benedict's work to expand the overview of the site using modern techniques. As of 2013, at least 45 blinds as well as 1,307 meters of rock walls are present across the Olson site; the purposes of which were to funnel game upslope to waiting hunters. Both radiocarbon and lichenometric dating suggest occupation by Native Americans spanning the last 3,200 years, with diagnostic tools suggesting even older use of the site, dating back to more than 10,000 years ago.
Rollins Pass as a toll wagon roadEdit
The first recorded use of the pass by a wagon train was in 1862. It is named for John Quincy Adams Rollins, a Colorado pioneer from a family of pioneers, who constructed a toll wagon road over the pass in the 1870s providing a route between the Colorado Front Range and Middle Park. The pass was used heavily in the late 19th century by settlers to drive cattle over the continental divide to Middle Park, and at one time as many as 12,000 cattle at a time were driven over the pass.
Rollins Pass as a railroad lineEdit
In 1880, the first attempts to build a rail line and tunnel under Rollins Pass were met with both engineering and financial failures, and the remains of one tunneling attempt can still be seen on the northern slope of the rock wall at Yankee Doodle Lake. The detritus from the attempted excavation of the tunnel was placed at the northernmost part of the lake where pulverized granite tailings can be seen rising out of the water.
Then, in the early 20th century, David Moffat, a Denver banker, established the Denver, Northwestern and Pacific Railway with the intention of building a railroad over the Front Range in the vicinity of the pass towards Salt Lake City, Utah (however, the railway ended in Craig, Colorado). The line was known as the Moffat Road and for the stretch over Rollins Pass, the line ran 23 miles over the top of the Continental Divide, with a four percent grade and switchbacks along many stretches, and was one of the highest adhesion (non-cog) railroads ever constructed in North America. This route over Rollins Pass was always intended to be temporary; therefore it was constructed as cheaply as possible: using wooden trestles instead of iron bridges or high fills and wyes instead of turntables.
Along this route were three tunnels: Tunnel #31 (Sphinx Head Rock), Tunnel #32 (Needle's Eye Tunnel), and Tunnel #33 (the Loop Tunnel at Riflesight Notch). All three tunnels today are either completely caved in or have had partial cave-ins. Other notable landmarks on the route included the Riflesight Notch Loop, a 1.5 mile loop where trains crossed over a trestle, made a ~90 degree gradual turn to descend 150 feet, and passed through Tunnel #33 underneath the trestle. A rail station, Corona, was established at the top of the pass, with a dining hall and lodging, which helped workers keep the rail line free of snow in the winter.
Operational Difficulties & WeatherEdit
Despite the fact that the line was enclosed in almost continuous snow sheds near the top of the pass, trains were often stranded for several days (and in some cases up to 30 days) during heavy snowstorms because snow could fall or be blown through the wood planking of the sheds. Coal smoke and toxic gasses collected in the snow sheds causing temporary blindness, loss of consciousness, and sometimes death. Workers on the Moffat Road had an adage: "There's winter and then there's August." It was these heavy snowstorms that led to the financial demise of the Moffat Road and served as the incentive for construction of a permanent railroad tunnel through the Rocky Mountains.
Wrecks of Mallet locomotives and/or the loss of portions of rail manifests occurred on both sides of the pass:
- East side: On a curve just above Antelope (Mallet #201)
- West side: The Loop, near Riflesight Notch (Mallet #208)
- West side: The Loop, near Riflesight Notch (Mallet #210)
- Unknown: an inside-braced, drop-end wooden gondola railcar
- After scuba dives, no evidence exists to support claims that locomotive or wreck debris is at the bottom of Yankee Doodle Lake or Jenny Lake
The Moffat TunnelEdit
Plans to build a longer tunnel at a lower elevation were better planned and financed; the Moffat Tunnel opened just south of Rollins Pass on February 26, 1928. A wye on the passing siding at the East Portal of the Moffat Tunnel marks the spot where the Rollins Pass line would have merged into the modern route if it still existed and is currently utilized for short-turning some modern services.
After the Moffat Tunnel opened, the tracks over Rollins Pass were not immediately dismantled as they had to remain in place as an emergency route. When several wooden planks inside the Moffat Tunnel collapsed in July 1928, a final run was made over the pass. Permission to dismantle the rails on Rollins Pass was granted by the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1935.
The route through the Moffat Tunnel became part of the mainline across Colorado for the Denver and Salt Lake Railroad, later the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, and now the Union Pacific Railroad. The Moffat Tunnel continues to be used for both the Amtrak California Zephyr that provides service between Chicago, Illinois and Emeryville, California as well as for the seasonal Ski Train that operated between Denver and Winter Park from 1940-2009; in 2015 and 2017-present, the service was rebranded the Winter Park Express.
EnvironmentEdit
FloraEdit
Rollins Pass consists of several distinct floral environments including lodgepole pine and quaking aspen at lower elevations, and krummholz at tree line. Above tree line, the landscape consists largely of small perennial flowers, cryptobiotic soils, and alpine tundra. The latter being extremely fragile and if damaged, can take hundreds of years to recover. Leaving the trail can cause erosion, land degradation, possible species extinction, and habitat destruction and it is for these reasons ORVs are not allowed to leave the established road.
FaunaEdit
The top predator in the area are black bears (Ursus americanus), generally below timberline; however, they occasionally venture above the krummholz. The bears prey on bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) and mountain goats (Oreamnos americanus), as well as yellow-bellied marmot (Marmota flaviventris) in the region. Above timberline, pikas (Ochotona princeps) are common. Below timberline, both elk (Cervus canadensis) and mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) are common. The presence of migratory bighorn sheep and other large game is the reason why the Native Americans constructed the large and complex game drives on Rollins Pass.
Among birds, the white-tailed ptarmigan (Lagopus leucurus) are present on Rollins Pass, especially above treeline. Their camouflage is effective against the exposed blocks of granite rendering them virtually invisible to the eye. Brown-capped rosy finches (Leucosticte australis), rock wrens (Salpinctes obsoletus), and pipits are also seen or heard at timberline and near the summit.
ClimateEdit
Due to high-elevation above timberline in a backcountry setting, there is neither lightning protection nor lightning mitigation from sudden thunderstorms resulting in a high-risk, extremely dangerous situation for visitors.
While temperature, humidity, and other factors influence atmospheric pressure, the atmospheric pressure on the summit measures roughly 457 Torr (mmHg); while a standard atmospheric pressure measured at sea level is 760 Torr. At this pressure, many people, especially out-of-town sightseers and tourists, can suffer from rapid dehydration and altitude sickness, also known as acute mountain sickness. Acute mountain sickness can progress to high altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) or high altitude cerebral edema (HACE), both of which are potentially fatal.
GeologyEdit
The Front Range was created by the Laramide Orogeny, the last of three major mountain-building events, which occurred between 70 and 40 million years ago. Tectonic activity during the Cenozoic Era changed the Ancestral Rocky Mountains via block uplift, eventually forming the Rocky Mountains as they exist today. The geologic make-up of Rollins Pass and the surrounding areas were also affected by deformation and erosion during the Cenozoic Era. Many sedimentary rocks from the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras exist in the basins surrounding the pass.
TodayEdit
Rollins Pass as a scenic dirt roadEdit
From 1955-1979, Rollins Pass served as a complete road over the mountain pass for automobiles until a rock fall in Needle's Eye tunnel in 1979 closed the path over the pass. In 1989, after several studies and structural strengthening of Needle's Eye was accomplished, the complete road was re-opened only to close permanently in 1990.
Aviation accidents and incidentsEdit
- On January 6, 1954, a single engine airplane, with a tail number of N792D, crashed on a shoulder of Guinn Mountain near Yankee Doodle Lake on the east side of Rollins Pass.
- On January 24, 1964, a single engine airplane, with a tail number of N4351N, crashed in turbulent, cloudy, and stormy conditions near the Riflesight Notch loop on Rollins Pass. One pilot and three passengers of the Cessna 195 were killed on impact and recovery did not occur until August 20 that year.
- On July 11, 1966, a nonscheduled operation of an Alamo Airways De Havilland 104-6A, with a tail number of N1563V, impacted a mountainside in turbulent, cloudy, and stormy conditions on Rollins Pass. The crash of this dual engine plane occurred upslope of Deadman's Lake, opposite Mount Epworth at the crest of the Continental Divide, less than 285 feet from an FAA rotating radio beacon located on Beacon Peak (the beacon has since been removed; only a 10 x 10 concrete pad remains). Two crew and one passenger were killed.
- On July 30, 2006, a single engine airplane, with a tail number of N5232X, crashed in clear conditions on Rollins Pass, approximately equidistant from Bob, Betty, and King Lakes. The two occupants of the 1969 American Champion 7KCAB were killed on impact.
- On August 4, 2010, a single engine airplane, with a tail number of N8974A, crashed in clear conditions on Rollins Pass, near Jenny Creek, southeast of Yankee Doodle Lake. All three occupants of the 1951 Beechcraft C35 airplane were killed on impact.
In popular cultureEdit
- Some ski runs (and two chairlifts) at the nearby Winter Park Resort are named after Rollins Pass itself (Rollins Ridge, Corona Way), features on Rollins Pass (Riflesight Notch, Rainbow Cut, Needle's Eye, Phantom Bridge, Sunnyside), or are inspired by general railroad terminology (Runaway, Trestle, Boiler, Coupler, Railbender, Derailer, Sidetrack, Gandy Dancer, Golden Spike, Brakeman, Roundhouse, Zephyr).
- Winter Park Resort's summer downhill mountain bike park is called Trestle.
- Some of Winter Park Resort's buildings and services infrastructure are named after features on Rollins Pass (Mount Epworth) and the neighboring Moffat Tunnel (West Portal).
- Since July 1966, the Epworth Cup has been one of the nation's longest-running downhill skiing races held annually in mid-July on Mount Epworth.
- The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 1925 rare silent film "The White Desert" starring Claire Windsor as Robinette McFarlane and Pat O'Malley as Barry Houston was filmed on Rollins Pass in the winter of 1922. The film features moving pictures of long trains ascending Riflesight Notch trestle and of rotaries plowing snow between Ptarmigan Point and the summit. The railroad imagery is displayed only at both the beginning and the end of the movie with dramatic scenes and text filling most of the film's runtime.
- On November 3, 2012, Colorado State University archaeology professor Dr. Jason M. LaBelle and colleague Dr. Pete Seel debuted their documentary film, Stone and Steel at the Top of the World which describes the ancient hunters of the Colorado high country as well as the Moffat Road railway. As part of a Rollins Pass Mini-Film Fest event, the documentary was shown prior to a rare screening of The White Desert in Fort Collins, Colorado. This occasion marked the first time Reginald Barker's silent film had been shown since 1978.
- On May 10, 2018, it was announced that the Indian Peaks Traverse, a single-track trail open only to "hikers, bi[cyclists], horseback riders and any other form of non-motorized transport" will traverse a portion of Rollins Pass and is slated for a soft-opening in 2022.
- On May 12, 2018, Colorado State University archaeology professor Dr. Jason M. LaBelle along with the authors of multiple archaeological and research-based publications on Rollins Pass, B. Travis Wright MPS and Kate Wright MBA, held a book launch event and presentation for Rollins Pass titled, Rollins Pass: Through the Lens of Time that included a screening of Dr. LaBelle's documentary film, Stone and Steel at the Top of the World as well as a rare screening of The White Desert at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Littleton, Colorado. As a central part to the authors' founding movement preserverollinspass.org, the authors revealed The John Trezise Archive for Rollins Pass Imagery at the event which will be the "world's largest collection of Rollins Pass imagery for non-commercial use that is crowd-sourced, completely searchable and available to the public, and secured from loss."
- The 2018 Peak to Peak Chorale's spring musical told "the tale of a train trapped for days by a spring blizzard atop Rollins Pass in the 1900s." The singers, musicians, and actors portrayed the passengers and crew that departed from The Stage Stop (in Rollinsville, Colorado) and became stranded when a huge rotary snow plow stopped working.
See alsoEdit
- Colorado mountain passes
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Boulder County, Colorado
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Gilpin County, Colorado
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Grand County, Colorado
ReferencesEdit
Further readingEdit
- Bollinger, Rev. Edward T. (1979). Rails That Climb. Boulder, Colorado: Johnson Publishing Company.
- Bollinger, Rev. Edward T. & Bauer, Frederick. (1981). The Moffat Road. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press.
- Boner, Harold A. (1962). The Giant's Ladder. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Kalmbach.
- LaBelle, Jason M. & Pelton, Spencer R. (2013). Communal hunting along the Continental Divide of Northern Colorado: Results from the Olson game drive (5BL147). Quaternary International: Volume 297, 29 May 2013, Pages 45-63.
- Sundquist, Elizabeth Josephson. (1994). Dismantling the Rails that Climbed. Denver, Colorado: Egan Printing Company.
- Wright, B. Travis & Wright, Kate. Foreword by Jason M. LaBelle, PhD. (2018). Rollins Pass. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-1467127714.
- Wright, B. Travis & Wright, Kate. (2018). Rollins Pass. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-1467129053.
External linksEdit
- Google Maps view of the Rollins Pass summit
- Denver & Salt Lake Historical Society
- Artist renderings of the rail line over Rollins Pass
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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