Letter from Roger Williams
Security – April 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors:
Regarding your usual interesting issue [March, 2008]: P. 7, “War on terrorism…”: I’ve seen cars driving over Dillon Dam, but I’ve never been over it myself; I didn’t know it was closed.
Unfortunately, several other dams are inaccessible. Hoping to walk across Gross Dam in the foothills, I found it fortified with a hideous razor-wire entanglement. So much for that idea. A gate led through this eyesore but it was padlocked and posted. The road to the foot of the dam was posted though it’s National Forest; I snuck in on foot, to find some buildings, a jet of water into the creek, and a door leading into the dam with a warning about an alarm. I’d love to know what’s in there; I got to go through an inspection tunnel in Glen Canyon Dam once because an elevator was out of service.
You used to be able to go about 1/3 of the way across Barker Dam near Nederland until the City of Boulder bought it from Public Service Co., now Xcel Energy. Did the city make it accessible? No; now the whole thing is fenced off, though you can see it from the pullout. I tried to drive to the bottom. Closed or locked gate posted No Trespassing Private Property. Phooey.
I drove into the parking lot for the exit of the long Roberts Tunnel from Lake Dillon to US-285 on the way to Kenosha Pass once. You could walk right up to the portal and look through a chainlink fence to see a pressure bulkhead inside. The water goes through a small power plant into the South Platte River. Now it’s blocked with Jersey (freeway) Barriers and posted with warning signs. Driving past, I could that see a shutter — like the ones that guard shops abroad — was down over the portal.
The road up to the top of the dam (headwall) at Curecanti is posted No Trespassing though you can, or could, walk to the power plant below it. One parks by an old train displayed on a bridge. It’d be nice to walk up to and across the headwall but I decided not to risk it; some guy in an SUV opened the gate and drove up there.
The facility by Twin Lakes below Mt. Elbert Forebay also seems to have been closed. Formerly you could tour this, just off Colo. 82 on the way to Independence Pass. The forebay, a pumped-storage scheme like the one off the road to Guanella Pass, is visible from the trail to Half Moon Campground or up Mt. Elbert.
On a more pleasant topic, is Orville Wright (p. 21) any relation of a well-known namesake from Ohio who helped build and fly the first successful powered airplane, when not running a bike shop?
Roger Williams
Boulder
where spring is about to spring already along the Front Range.
