National Heritage Areas (Non-Units) - Colorado

Cache La Poudre River Corridor National Heritage Area

5/22/2007 Cache La Poudre Wild & Scenic River

5/27/2012 Cache La Poudre Wild & Scenic River

Sangre de Cristo National Heritage Area

10/4/2012 In Fort Garland, stopped at the eponymous fort about 45 minutes before closing. Colonel Kit Carson and New Mexico Volunteers were stationed here in 1866 which was designed in 1858 to house two companies of soldiers to protect settlers in the San Luis Valley, which was the Territory of New Mexico. I stopped here because it is in the Sangre de Cristo NHA. It wasn’t the most exciting of forts, with a simple layout of buildings, but did have some excellent dioramas in one of the barracks. Headed due south to San Luis (on the Los Caminos Antiguos CO Scenic Byway) for a church in the NHA. The one in town at my waypoint turned out to be the wrong one; after moving the car I climbed (much too quickly) a large steep hill on a switchback trail to La Capilla de Todos Los Santos, a beautiful 1986 traditional Spanish adobe chapel. Along the way were bronze statues of the Stations of the Cross. There was a great view of the San Luis Valley and distant mountains and the town below, through which the Old Spanish NHT [CO] passes (and Fort Garland as well).

The park sign

The central area of the fort

Me in the barracks

The view up to La Capilla

La Capilla de Todos Los Santos

10/5/2012 Great Sand Dunes National Park

7/27/2017 Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve

South Park National Heritage Area

10/5/2012 In Fairplay, first photoed the Community Church, then went to South Park City, a site (along with the church) in the South Park NHA. This outdoor museum is a historic reconstruction of a mining town from the days of the Colorado Gold Rush and the later Colorado Silver Boom in South Park in the late 1850s through the 1880s, with 34 authentic relocated buildings filled with over 60,000 artifacts.

Community Church

The town and sign

A look along the main street

One of the many businesses

Cool loco and water tower