In my 30 plus years of back packing and fishing in the northern Sangre De Christo [Blood of Christ] range of southern Colorado I have had many a fond memory. Not unlike the desert it too holds the mystique, beauty and serenity of some thing magnificent. In the Wet Mountain Valley on the east side of the range lies Silver Cliff [pop 100], once the third largest city in Colorado in 1880 and almost a state capital designation with over 10 miles for roads back then. Silver mines dot the valley land and most of the mines in the Sangre De Christo's were silver in nature and rich lode or placer deposits of gold were not found in the northern Sangre De Christo's with a few exceptions as in the Crestone Colorado area on the western side of the range.

  Hardrock mining dominated this 1880 town of 2000 in 1899. How ever rich lode and placer deposits of gold have been reported as found and lost. Legends abound of lost mines, Indian uprisings against the Spaniards who held them as slaves to work their mines, hidden gold in the many caves in the Sand Creek Lakes area etc. Spanish symbols [a red Maltese Cross at the entrance to Spanish caves] and Spanish artifacts and mining equipment dating from the 1600's have been found in this area and the San Luis Valley on the west side. This is a beautiful area to pack into with excellent fishing and scenery. Access is via the Music Pass road south of Westcliffe on the east side of the range. Upon reaching the top of Music Pass which is a one mile walk[ 600 vertical] from the trail head one overlooks a vast bowl surrounded by 14 teeners. One can see also from the top, 14,197' Crestone Needles looming in the distance west of the western flank of this bowl.

  This is a very unique area of the northern Sangre De Christo's in the effect as the range widens and kind of doubles up here. In the valley which is another mile and a half down lies Sand Creek which eventually winds through a mind boggling valley for some 12 miles to finally flow through the Sand Dunes on the west side. Access to the Maltese Cross, Marble Cave etc. is reached from the top of Music Pass and I have heard it is a tough 5 hour hike around Marble Mountain.

  At the head of Sand Creek lie the upper and lower Sand Creek Lakes. They are outstanding fishing and just this last summer my 14 year old daughter Brandy retrieved a 20" Cutthroat spin flying with a Joe's Hopper. If one decides to walk down the stream [excellent fishing too and camping in the Aspen valley] towards the Sand Dunes, high shelves or terraces[1000 vertical above the valley floor] engulf the both sides of the stream starting about 2 miles down stream at the trail fork. Very rugged up from the stream floor. These are littered with caves. I have never been up on these high shelves but one can look and wonder if it has ever been explored at all in modern time.

  This area is usually accessible after July and I have been in a couple of Sept. snow storms in the area. A snow plug usually covers Spanish Cave until Aug. and the temperature stays in the 30's with 100% humidity year round. The Sand Dunes National Monument flank the western foot hills in the Crestone Colorado area. Covering a very large area of some early day trials of placering were attempted to little avail for the very fine gold distributed throughout the sands. As in Salida [gateway or exit] where I live Indian legend has it that the area was a window to other worlds. UFO reports and activity in the areas have abounded going back to the early 1900's.

  Anyway to the Iron Door. About 10 years ago my dad and I were on a cross country trek to a high lake about 10 miles north of this area. The lake is a good 7 mile hike from the Westcliffe valley side so I had figured out this shortcut on the topography map of walking cross country and dropping into the stream drainage from a high access road from the top. We had never fished or been to this lake before. The first mile entailed climbing and walking across large boulders to a lake in our starting drainage and then 600 vertical up from it to a saddle and dropping down to the next drainage to the south. We were on all fours the last couple hundred feet as it is steep and loose shale. Basically its just one large rock slide going up, jumping and stepping from one large rock to another. One thing I noticed up on the saddle was a uniyue geology of faulting and up lifting and there were pockets of mineralized rock in places. We were about 12,600' here. We dropped down the other side which was not quite as steep and more of a talus covered slope and eventually followed a faint trail along the feeder creek.

This was a northern fork off of the main drainage we were heading down. We worked our way down to the main valley floor and started passing a group of massive like dome or monolith rocks. I noticed what appeared to be strange symbols and signs in a dull red color high up on several of them. I kind of thought at the time, who would be spray painting rocks up here. The rocks probably were about 30 feet high and one thing that I remembered was that you would have to be up in the air a ways to paint them cause they were up about 10 feet or so on the rocks.

We continued down about another mile and camped out at the lake for 2 days and had some really good fishing. On our way back out and almost to the top of the saddle again I looked down and saw what appeared to be a rectangular iron or steel door that was perpendicular to the hill side below. I told my dad and he checked it out too. Not much thickness to it as in a rock slab and it looked so perfect in it placement below us. I would guess it was down about a quarter of a mile and about 300 vertical below us. We were pretty tired and at the time I just didn't feel like walking back down there to check it out which I wish I would have now.

  It stayed in the back of my mind for years and 5 years ago I went back up there by myself to fish that lake again and check out that door. The minerals at the top didn't impress me as much this time and it seemed more like crumbling Mica and such. Upon summiting the saddle I started a series of traverses down the other side in hopes of finding the door again. I got about half way down and I saw this pile of rectangular rocks down below. I started to dismiss what we had seen earlier as just a perfect rectangular rock laying on the hill side. I walked by this 100 foot patch of rocks on the way down, Nothing there. So I figured we had just been fooled.

  I asked my dad about it the other day again and he said the same thing that is still in the back of my mind. It was so perfect looking in the way it lay to the slope, didn't have the thickness or mass of the rocks in the area, and it stood out like a sore thumb. Now I got myself all going on this again and am going to try to find this door? one more time. Instead of fishing I am going to just concentrate on prospecting. I know a little more now on mineral examination and I am going to make a wider traverse of the area and concentrate my timing on the late morning time that we had first seen it. Maybe the light has to be just right. Don't know for sure if its a rock or an iron door but I do know its lost now. With GPS in hand now there will be nothing like the thrill of the search and maybe locating it again.

  The northern Sangre De Christo's are now a wilderness area with the exception of a few of the old roads in cul-de-sacs leading to high lakes. Rainbow Trail on the east side of the range is still open to dirt bikes and runs for 70 miles from just south of Salida to Medano Pass which is about 7 miles south of the Music Pass area. It ranges in elevation from 7800' to 10,000' at one point. It is a beautiful trail through pine forest, pinion, and meadows and generally crosses a stream drainage every few miles. 52 high lakes can be found in the range down to the New Mexico border. Most are 3 to 7 mile hikes up from the wilderness boundary of Rainbow trail. Various road access points on the the east and west side of the range access trail heads and Rainbow Trail.