2007 Texas to Colorado Model T Tour
June 20th thru July 4th, 2007
joining the "Search
for the Mohigans Tour”
and the Model T
Club of Northern Colorado.
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Everyone was excited as we prepared to
challenge Mount Evans this morning. We ate a big
breakfast in Idaho Springs, filled up on gas at $3.39/gallon,
and headed out.
The road to Mount Evans begins as a
public roadway right in town and it is beautiful right from the
start. A rock-filled stream rushes past, the rock walls
rise up from the roadway, and the skies were a brilliant blue.
Ben and I led the way. We now had six cars and 11
people.
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The road rose quickly and it put a strain
on all the cars. We noticed pretty early that Austen and
Nicky had dropped back and, with them, Ross and Luke. The
rest of us kept going to the stunning Echo Lake (see picture
below) and the lodge built beside it in the 1920’s.
After several minutes with no sign of them, Ben drove
back to check. Martin, who is new to mountain driving,
went on ahead. The rest of us waited at the lodge.
There must have been a hundred hummingbirds skitting
around the porch and an equal number of cyclists. This is
a very steep mountain and it was going to get steeper and we
thought they were as crazy as they thought we were.
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Echo Lake, at the start of the actual climb
to Mount Evans, could not be more beautiful. In the early
morning when we first came by, it was still and serene.
On our way back down, the entire edge of the lake was
filled with fishermen and tourists and the lake was dotted with
canoes and other small boats. (Click on Image to view)
Austen’s car was still giving him
trouble and they decided to return to Idaho Springs and check
it out before the drive to Loveland. So the four of them
missed the drive to the summit. The rest of us continued
on the fourteen mile climb. The road is completely paved
but there is no shoulder and no guardrail. It is you and
the mountain. On many of the hairpin curves, the road
appeared to disappear into space. We shared the very
narrow road with clusters of cyclists, motorcyclists, hikers,
and one or two joggers. And one large motor home!
But the scenery was so overwhelmingly
beautiful that it was hard to be frightened because there
was so much to see. We were climbing Mt. Evans but we
were surrounded by other mountains, also 14,000+ feet tall.
Every curve brought another view: another small
lake, another mountain range, a snow pack, an occasional rocky
meadow. It was breathtaking in more ways than one.
Jeff Cordes and Blake Williams
follow us briefly. However, no one in their car was
saying “slow down!” so they quickly passed us..
Summit Lake, just a few miles from the top,
still had ice on the surface. Again, we got there at the
right time because it was already heavily crowded by the time
we came down.
On additional note on the road:
the entire road is paved but the area in front of the
lake was like driving over logs. The frost heaves had
left just that one section of the road badly rutted and warped.
Also, there was still a lot of snow
on the mountains. On the long stretch of snow in this
picture, you could see ski tracks. We didn’t see
skiers today but I don’t imagine it has been long since
they were here.
We are always asked how the Model T’s
do in the mountains. The answer is that they do really
well. They go slowly, as I’ve mentioned before, but
they are steady. Unlike a modern car, there is a lot of
shifting that is done by the driver. A
“stock” Ford has Ford High/Ford Low, only two
gears. Most restored cars have a Ruckstell two-speed rear
axle which offers two additional gears. Our 1926 pickup
truck has a three-speed Warford transmission. But the
driver shifts it him or herself. And the car is going
slowly enough that you can see the scenery instead of rushing
to the top.
At the summit of Mt. Evans, (14,264 ft.) a
film crew was doing a story on the baby mountain goats, only
three weeks old. They were all over the visitor area.
The adults were very tame and didn’t seem at all
afraid of people.
There was an unusual observation
tower at the summit, also. It had a star-shaped
foundation and portions of walls. In the late
1930’s and early 1940’s, this had been a
restaurant, designed as a star to honor the heavens that it was
so close to. But a fire destroyed all but the foundation
and the walls currently remaining. It was stabilized by
the University of Denver but never rebuilt.
Four of our cars made it all the way to the
top of the world! It was an exciting achievement.
Left to right, the cars belong to Martin Thomen, Jeff
Cordes, Ben Hardeman, and Bruce Lilleker.
At the restaurant at
breakfast, the waitress recited a litany of potential illnesses
we would suffer by going up Mt. Evans. Not a single one
of us got sick! Another advantage of going up slowly?
Maybe so.
When we got down from the mountain, we
found Ross, Luke and Austen surrounding Austen’s 1915.
The ground was littered with parts. Fortunately, it
looked a lot worse than it was and, within an hour more, we
were on our way.
The road from Idaho Springs and Central
City (another old mining community) is called the “Oh My
God Road”. Literally. It’s on the map.
The reason is that by the time you reach the first
hairpin turn, that is what you are saying. It is a dirt
road, with uncertain edges, really serious inclines, and
switchbacks and turns that will make your hair gray. All the
while, you are climbing several thousand feet in the space of
less than five miles. That is Martin coming around one of
the curves in the photo on the right and Nicky and Austen in
the photo below.
On the other other end of that mountain
road is the town of Central City. The road was orignally
built to transport miners, materials, and gold from the two
towns back to Denver. Now, Central City is one the
gambling communities of Colorado and the “Oh My God
Road” wasn’t the ideal choice to bring gamblers to
the casinos. The State of Colorado built a multi-million
dollar spur off of I-70 to safely transport their guests to
Central City. We actually ate lunch at a casino but I
don’t think any of us even gambled a dollar. We are
driving Model T’s over mountain passes! Who needs
slot machines to gamble?
At long last, we all arrived in Loveland,
the start-up city for the “Search for the Mohegans”
tour. The event kicked off with a barbeque get-acquainted
dinner and we will set off in the morning over Trail Ridge Road
in the Rocky Mountain National Park.
Jennifer Lilleker, wife of Ross Lilleker,
arrived today to join the tour as did Martin’s
girlfriend Patty. So now, we have a group of 13.
