Creede, CO: Imagining a Next Act
There was a time, for a few glorious years, when Creede was the wildest of western mining towns. Almost overnight, more than 10,000 dreamers and scoundrels flocked to this remote outpost high in southwestern Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, all of them trying to get rich, or, just as often, trying to get rich off the folks trying to get rich.
It began in 1889 when Nicholas C. Creede’s discovery of silver in Willow Creek Canyon kicked off a rush unlike anything the state had ever seen.
Precious metals had been found in Colorado before, of course. And, yes, Creede’s Holy Moses Mine proved to be an especially rich vein. But his discovery also came at a moment when circumstances uniquely aligned to capitalize on it, thanks to the nearby Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, which was already in place and ready to haul the mine’s treasures to market in one direction and supply a steady stream of laborers in the other.
In a little more than a year, the area’s patchwork of quickly constructed mining camps and townsites produced more than $1 million in silver ore, and Nic Creede was said to be personally depositing $1,000 a day in his Pueblo bank account.1
As many as 200 newcomers continued arriving daily even in the coldest winter months. They were welcomed by a notorious collection of gamblers, criminals, and ladies of the night, many of whom had only recently relocated to the area after crackdowns on saloons and gambling in Denver had sent them in search of a new base of operations.
Calamity Jane, conman Soapy Smith, and Poker Alice were just a few of the characters working their angles in Creede. The unenviable task of keeping the peace fell to the legendary lawman and gunfighter Bat Masterson.2
Creede boomed until 1893, when a decision in faraway Washington, D.C. was made to shift the country’s currency from silver to gold. With a stroke of Grover Cleveland’s pen, the price of silver abruptly dropped by a third and suddenly mining it was no longer worth the sweat, expense, and danger. Turns out, things are only worth what we agree they’re worth.
The economies in mining towns throughout Colorado were decimated. All but 400 die-hards left the Creede area. Those that stayed were able to make a small living by shifting their efforts to mining zinc and lead. The latter made for a small revival during World War II.
A new silver vein uncovered in the late 1960s sparked another boom in Creede. This one lasted the better part of a decade — until the infamous Hunt Brothers tried to corner the silver market and prices crashed again. The mines closed for good in 1985.
It was then that Creede began its greatest transformation, re-making itself as a destination for recreation and adventure, and, remarkably enough for such an isolated locale, a home for first-rate culture as well. And it’s done it all without ever forgetting its mining roots.
Maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that it was these stories of reinvention and new beginnings that had drawn me to Creede. As I’ve shared before, less than a year earlier I had sold my business and was still wrestling with what would come next. Unlike Creede, however, I don’t have a history of fresh starts. I spent 30 years building that single company. Now what?
The answers weren’t coming. So instead I came to Creede, hoping for insight. Or at least that was the idea. The honest truth was the more I pondered its history, the more I began to fear ending up like the ghost towns that surround present-day Creede. The ones that couldn’t imagine their next act.
While You’re in Town
The drive north on Colorado Highway 149 into Creede winds through towering canyons carved by the Rio Grande, just 40 miles from its source on the upper eastern slope of the Continental Divide. Forget Creede. Forget bikes. The drive itself is worth the trip.
The canyons continue to close in, narrower and narrower, until you reach the end of the road. And there’s Creede.
It is both tiny and remote. In fact, your first thought as you drive into modern-day Creede is almost surely going to be trying to picture 10,000 people crammed into this tiny place during the area’s heyday. Just 257 call it home today — and even so it’s still the largest town in all of Mineral County. (Strictly speaking, it is the only incorporated town in the 876-square-mile county; there are a few other even smaller unincorporated areas. I told you it was remote).
This is no chi-chi resort town. Creede retains all of its unpretentious, rough-edged charm, and yet has somehow also managed to become a major arts destination, thanks to a local pastor who recruited a dozen University of Kansas students in 1966 to create a summer theater troupe that continues to delight audiences to this day.
No less an authority than the New York Times calls the Creede Repertory Theatre “one of the most singular — and joyful — experiences” in American theater. Mandy Patinkin got his start there, saying “paradise was defined for me and birthed in me by the theater of Creede, Colorado.”
The Rep produces a summer-long season of four or five rotating shows, along with concerts, improv, and educational programs. When the last mine closed in the 1980s, the theater’s 75 performers and eight administrative staffers became the county’s largest seasonal employer.
Creede is also home to a variety of other artists, including at least one remarkable writer, Pam Houston, whom I’m proud to have published. Her 2019 memoir “Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country” is a love letter to this place.
Still, mining remains Creede’s core brand. Each Fourth of July weekend, it hosts the Colorado State Mining Championships as part of its Days of ’92 festival. Picture a rodeo with jackhammers instead of lariats and you’ll start to get the idea.
For an even more visceral experience, there’s the Creede Underground Mining Museum, which as the name makes clear, was blasted into a solid rock cliff on the edge of town by three former miners in 1990. Open year-round, the museum features guided and audio tours that document Creede’s history in a brutally realistic setting.
On my most recent trip to Creede, I stopped first at Opie’s on the outskirts of town for a smothered breakfast burrito before heading into Creede proper. “Downtown” Creede, such as it is, is a six-block corridor whose architecture would largely still fit in a Western movie.
Opie’s and MJ’s Cafe are the two best breakfast options I’ve come across. Opie’s is the more upscale choice, complete with espresso drinks and expensive souvenirs, while MJ’s has more of an old-school diner, drip-coffee charm. I can recommend them both.
For later in the day, Kip’s Grill has been a local favorite for more than 30 years. It serves familiar bar fare, but with at least one unexpected amenity: a coin-operated laundromat alongside the pool tables.
If you don’t need your laundry done, other options include Tommyknocker Tavern, pizza at Old Miners Inn, and Big Doug’s BBQ. For a more refined experience, 149 Eatery gets high marks.
Lodging options are limited. The Creede Hotel, which dates back to the 1890s, has just four rooms. It’s often sold out during theater season (despite rumors that it’s haunted) but there’s also a good selection of Airbnbs to consider.
The closest bike shop, Rio Grande Bikes, is 45 minutes away in Del Norte (a town that’s on my short list of places to visit), so get any wrenching done in advance.
My Ride
There are rides that can take you to beautiful places. There are rides that will test you. This is a ride that does both of those things, but more importantly, it is a ride that takes you back in time.
Few rides are as inseparable from the place where they begin as this. In just 17 miles, the Historic Bachelor Loop tours the mines, camps, and abandoned townsites that remain at the core of Creede’s identity. Sixteen informational markers tell the area’s story along the way.
Don’t be fooled by its relatively short distance. You’ll pack more than 2,600 feet of climbing into a ride that starts at 8,868 feet above sea level and tops out at a lung-busting 11,096 feet. This is no easy ride.
To be clear, if you listen to nothing else that I have to say, let it be this: Before starting this ride, be sure to warm up. Take a few laps around town and get your legs loosened up, even if your lungs are already acclimated to mountain elevations. You’re going to be climbing from the very start. And it’s gonna be steep.
You’ll start by the Underground Mining Museum, which aside from being a fitting place to begin this ride is also a good spot to park.
For the first mile, the road tips up at what you’ll soon remember as a gentle 3-5 percent grade. Before long, you’ll reach the junction of East and West Willow Creek Roads, which was the site of the original Creede townsite. Keep right to stay on West Willow Creek Road — and get ready. Almost immediately, the terrain will get rougher and a whole lot more vertical. When I dared to take my eyes off the rocky road, I saw the grade numbers on my Garmin climbing from the high teens into the low 20s.
You’ve probably had those moments on the bike when drivers give an incredulous shake of the head as they pass you on particularly tough stretches of road. Like me, you probably take those looks as a badge of honor. Today, a 4×4 crept around me and I had to admit his disbelief wasn’t misplaced. Good Lord, it was steep.
Fortunately, many of the best historical sites are in those early miles. So there’s no shame in putting a foot down to take a picture (and catch your breath). No shame at all, right?
You’ll press on for another two miles beneath ragged cliffs and past the crumbling remains of Creede’s mining boom. At times, the canyon walls closed in until they felt surprisingly tight. It was hard not to think about what it must have been like for the miners working hundreds of feet underground, perhaps directly beneath where I was now riding.
Once you’ve paid your dues on the early steepness, West Willow Creek Road hairpins to the left, and almost immediately, you’ll be rewarded with a more traditional, and quite beautiful, gravel ride. Tall pines give way to taller aspens, some showing the first glimpses of autumn gold as I spun by. There’s one more climb (after your earlier efforts, it’ll seem tame) that takes you up to Equity Mine, which was among the last of the district’s operations to close.
From there, the loop turns onto Bachelor Road and runs past Bachelor Mountain as it sweeps back toward Creede. This is a fun descent with panoramic views of the town below and the Rio Grande in the distance. A light rain had begun to fall, but that didn’t take away at all from the views. It should have been a sweet ending to a memorable ride, but I couldn’t stop thinking about that 4×4 and the look on the driver’s face.
I had always worked the way I had ridden my bike. Relentlessly focused on metrics and goals, and usually more focused on the next one than on enjoying the current accomplishment. Which is probably why even when success came, it wasn’t all that satisfying. In my head, the real reward was always a bit farther up the road. Just keep grinding. You’ll get there.
Now, though, having just ridden by places where men worked and truly suffered, I found myself wondering, maybe for the first time, where it was I was trying to get to.
Near the end of the loop, you’ll pass Creede Cemetery and the original grave of Robert Ford, the man who killed Jesse James and was himself gunned down in the saloon he ran here on Second Street. Popular culture has immortalized “the dirty little coward” in song and on screen, but by then I was less interested in Creede’s scoundrels than its mostly anonymous miners, some of whom rest nearby.
The rain was catching up with me as I rolled back into town. I cleaned up and stopped at Coffee on the Fly for my afternoon caffeine before heading home. Located on Main Street in the very center of town, Coffee on the Fly is exactly the kind of rustic cafe you’d imagine in a western town like Creede.
I joined the line with two other guys, both about my age. One looked like he had just finished a hike. I imagined that the other had spent the afternoon tinkering in his garage.3
The first guy ordered four breves. I like to think I know my way around an espresso machine, but this was a new one for me. He explained that a breve is a latte but with steamed half-and-half instead of milk.
The guy behind me ordered an Americano. Now it was the first guy’s turn to be stumped. The barista explained that it’s espresso and hot water — in other words, a slightly more upscale version of drip coffee.
The three of us were awkwardly waiting for our coffees to be made when Breve Guy motioned toward a calendar featuring a photo from Creede’s early days.
It wasn’t a picture of wealthy mine owners or infamous outlaws. And certainly not of guys in spandex riding titanium bicycles. No, it showed a group of exhausted men who, to my eyes at least, looked like they had long ago given up their dreams of riches and now simply hoped to make it back up from the mine just one more time.
“My God, those guys worked hard,” he said slowly.
Americano Guy stepped closer to the picture. “Yeah,” he agreed. “They worked their asses off and most of those mines never made a nickel.” He was right.
We stood there for a few seconds before I broke the silence. “And here we are worrying about what kind of milk to have in our fancy coffees.”
Everyone laughed, we got our drinks, and I walked back to my car. My legs were sore but I was feeling good about the laugh I’d gotten. So good that I took the time to write it down, certain that it would end up in this post.
It was only much later that I realized I wasn’t the clever one. Americano Guy was the one who had it right.
All the hours and all the sacrifices don’t matter unless you extract something precious from them. Creede’s miners struggled mightily, scraping tons of rock and ore from the earth in search of even the smallest amounts of treasure. Most never found it.
I’d be lying if I told you that everything changed after that. There’s a reason it’s taken me nearly a year since my ride in Creede to finish this piece. I thought I’d have something more conclusive to share, or at least more progress to report.
All too often, I continue to measure my daily self-worth by how many items got checked off that never-ending to-do list. Old habits die hard, especially ones that you thought were serving you well. Most days, I think I’m making progress. But it’s slow going. And, boy, sometimes that hill sure is steep.
Other Rides
My version of the route sticks closest to the official Bachelor Loop, but there are lots of variations. You can easily add more miles to my route by continuing on after Equity Mine. Turn around when you’re tired; it’s all downhill from there.
Another, more ambitious, option is the version favored by Gravel Adventure Field Guide, which skips the steepest parts of West Willow Creek Road (as well as a few key historical spots) but more than makes up for it with a total of 4,549 feet of climbing over the course of 25 miles and reaches a peak elevation of 12,518 feet.
Finally, if all you’re after are the main sites, or you’re short on time, you can make your ride even shorter than my route by leaving off the Equity Mine tail. That’ll still be a hefty 2,100 feet of climbing in just 12 miles, which may be plenty, especially if you’re not fully acclimated to the elevation.
Beyond the Bachelor Loop? In a remote area like this, there aren’t a lot of local roads to explore. But on my next visit, these two routes look promising:
Let me know if you’ve tried them.
- That’s roughly $37,000 a day in today’s dollars. ↩︎
- This documentary from Rocky Mountain PBS is an excellent introduction to Creede’s colorful and chaotic history. ↩︎
- Since retiring, I’ve discovered that old guys are a huge coffee-shop demographic. Our wives desperately want us out of the house. ↩︎
