Sangre de Cristo Range
The
Sangre de Cristo Range is a narrow
mountain range of the
Rocky Mountains running north and south along the east side of the
Rio Grande Rift in southern
Colorado in the
United States. The mountains extend southeast from
Poncha Pass for about 75 mi (120 km) through south-central Colorado to La Veta Pass, approximately 20 miles (32 km) west of
Walsenburg, and form a high ridge separating the
San Luis Valley on the west from the watershed of the
Arkansas River on the east.
According to the
USGS, the range is the northern part of the larger
Sangre de Cristo Mountains, which extend through northern
New Mexico. Usage of the terms "Sangre de Cristo Range" and "Sangre de Cristo Mountains" is varied; however this article discusses only the mountains between Poncha Pass and La Veta Pass.
Most of the range is shared by two National Forests, which abut along the range divide. Most of the northeast (Arkansas River) side is located within the
San Isabel National Forest, while most of the southwest (San Luis Valley) side is included in the
Rio Grande National Forest. The central part of the range is designated as the
Sangre de Cristo Wilderness. The
Great Sand Dunes National Park sits on the southwestern flank of the range at the edge of the San Luis Valley. The range divide is traversed by no paved roads, but only by
four wheel drive and foot trails over
Hayden Pass,
Hermit Pass,
Music Pass,
Medano Pass, and
Mosca Pass.
The highest peak in the range, located in the south, is
Blanca Peak (14,345 ft); it is flanked by three other
fourteeners,
Little Bear Peak,
Mount Lindsey, and
Ellingwood Peak[Ellingwood Peak is not always counted as an official fourteener, as it has a high saddle connecting it with Blanca Peak, and hence a low topographic prominence.]. Other well-known peaks are the fourteeners of the
Crestone group:
Kit Carson Mountain,
Crestone Peak,
Crestone Needle, and
Humboldt Peak. Two sub-peaks of Kit Carson Mountain,
Challenger Point and
Columbia Point, are named in memory of the crews of the
Space Shuttle Challenger and the
Space Shuttle Columbia.The range is also home to many high peaks in the 13,000 to 14,000 foot range.See the
Sangre de Cristo Mountains article for other noteworthy summits in the greater range.
In
1719 the Spanish explorer
Antonio Valverde y Cosio named the Sangre de Cristo ("Blood of Christ") mountains after being impressed by the reddish hue of the snowy peaks at sunrise. Today tourism and mining are the main economic activities.
The Sangre de Cristos are
fault-block mountains with major
fault lines running along both the east and west sides of the mountains and, in places, cutting through the range. The mountains were pushed up about 27 million years ago, pretty much as one large mass of rock.
On the west side is the San Luis Valley with the Rio Grande Rift running down the middle. On the southeast side is the
Raton Basin, a quiet but still active
volcanic field. On the northeast side are the
Wet Mountains and the
Front Range, areas of
Precambrian igneous and
metamorphic rocks formed during the
Colorado Orogeny some 1.7 billion years ago and then uplifted more recently during the
Laramide orogeny.
The
Blanca Massif is also Precambrian rock, while most of the rest of the Sangres is composed of younger
Permian-
Pennsylvanian (about 250-million-year old) rock, a mix of
sedimentary conglomerates,
shales, and igneous
intrusions. These sedimentary rocks originated as
sediment eroded from the
Ancestral Rocky Mountains.
*
Sangre de Cristo Mountains*
San Luis Valley*
Crestone, Colorado
