Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2010 12:22:55 -0500
Reply-To: mcneely4@COX.NET
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Dave Mcneely <mcneely4@COX.NET>
Subject: Re: trip out west
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTikNVdskAqr0C-8uVCxjsqNNvTuJsW92WmLXncUO@mail.gmail.com>
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---- neil n <musomuso@gmail.com> wrote:
> I just did that "To the sun" road. Pretty amazing. Can you imagine
> being on the crew to maintain that thing?
The road is an amazing feat (National Civil Engineering Historic Landmark). I read once that when the Park Service first got bids for a road, they all came in with plans as per standard highway features of the time, which with wide, graded shoulders and so on were not in keeping with the natural feature preservation that the service sought. They turned all bids down and went to the engineers with very explicit, detailed descriptions of what they wanted. That's what they got. Of course, they had the support of the White House at the time, one of the good things that the engineer who occupied it did. His name: Herbert Hoover.
One of the bus drivers on the road told us that people who live on one side of the park and work on the other actually use the road to commute during the months it is open. Amazingly, it is plowed in early winter and in spring (but closed in the peak snow season). I wouldn't drive a snowplow on that for anything (well, I wouldn't drive a snowplow, even on a Vanagon). Has anyone used a Vanagon for plowing? Could be done, I guess, especially with a Syncro. But, a Vanagon isn't really a winter beast.
Yeah, working on that road would require strong confidence in one's ability to keep his balance. I looked at some of the masonry done on the downhill side of the road, with sheer drops of hundred of feet below. Big stones in the walls, too.
I actually think the road should be closed to private vehicles (which I think is a serious proposal in the Park Service right now) and put everyone who wants to see that part of the park on buses.
As I said, I chose not to drive on the road, letting the professional drivers handle it. So much for my nerve.
On our return to Oklahoma we stopped off at a place we've passed by numerous times over the years, and never visited, Capulin Volcano National Monument in New Mexico (between Raton, NM and Amarillo, TX). Though on a much smaller scale, the road there is pretty amazing, too. The park supervisor there in the 1920s built the original road without authorization, using money scavenged from his budget, and some personal funds, and used no motorized equipment. It spirals around the mountain, climbing some 1500 feet. He was told when he reported that he'd built the road that the service wished he hadn't, because there wasn't enough money to pay for all the deaths that were going to result. To this day, no one has died on that road, or even in the park from any cause.
If you are out and about in your Vanagon along U.S. 87 in northern New Mexico, visit Capulin. You'll be glad you did. You can see four states (Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado) from the summit, including the Spanish Peaks some 80 miles away in Colorado. Amazing views.
David McNeely
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