The main purpose of my two day trip to southern Colorado was
to climb Greenhorn Mountain, the highest peak in the Wet Range and highest
point in Pueblo County . I got the idea for hiking to some of the county high
points in the state that are not the “fourteeners” of which I climbed many to
get to some parts of Colorado I haven’t been to before for a variety of
scenery. At 12,352 feet Greenhorn Mountain is not especially high, but it is
the highest point for about 40 miles in any direction to the Spanish Peaks,
Pike’s Peak, and the fourteeners of the Sangre de Cristo Range. It is also a
particularly prominent peak from the east with a more than 7,000 foot variation
in altitude from Pueblo on the plains below, a similar difference in altitude
between Pike’s Peak and Colorado Springs.

I continued south through the Gold Camp Country backroads
from Victor and crossed the Arkansas River near the small town of Florence, now
known best for its super-maximum security federal prison. I then continued
south to Wetmore and then west into the Wet Mountains as dusk was falling. From
a high altitude junction I took a set of unpaved forest service roads in the
dark to a point near the trailhead and car camped for the night . At around
10,500 feet it was very cold dark and lonely night in the absolute darkness of
a moonless night in the forest.

The hike to the peak from the parking area is not
particularly difficult. With timberline in this part of the state around 11,500
feet, it doesn’t take much climbing before you are in broad alpine meadows with
spectacular views in every direction. Most of the hike ascends gradually along
the top of the ridge leading to the actual peak, one of my favorite kinds of
hikes because you always have that top-of-the-world feeling. I was particularly
inspired by the view south to the Spanish Peaks having climbed West Spanish
Peak only about a month ago.

I made a loop out of the trip by descending rapidly from the
peak on a trail that doubled back to the parking area well below the ridge. The
other thing I enjoyed so much about this hike on a beautiful day during the
week was that I had it entirely to myself. I truly did not encounter a single other
hiker on the mountain .

The drive back to pavement on the unpaved road seemed to go
much faster than the eternity it felt like in the dark the night before. I
decided to take Route 165 south to Fairview when I got to the junction to then
drop down steeply into the Pueblo area on a small road (Route 78). As I was
driving I came across something called Bishop Castle. “Whoa, I’ve never heard anything
about this!”

I needed to check it out. From what I’ve gathered, Bishop
Castle is a one-man labor-of-love undertaken by Jim Bishop over about the last
30 years to construct a fantastical castle out of local stone that looks like
it could be something out of a storybook or Lord of the Rings trilogy. There
was probably not much here when I was doing my extensive exploring in the early
years I lived in Colorado in the early to mid- 1990s, but now it has become a
significant roadside attraction and tourist draw. It’s pretty wild! I hope to
come back again some time when it’s finished. But will it ever be finished?
People who create monuments like Bishop Castle usually consider their projects
to always be a work in progress for continual expansion.