Like a million bucks?
Columnist held on for dear life on the “Million Dollar Highway.”
Iam a brave woman, one tough cookie when it comes to adventure. No princess complex here. But I have one fear, terrible and debilitating. I’m afraid of winding mountain roads built on the shoulders of tall cliffs. The type I mean don’t have guardrails. I firmly believe they don’t have guardrails because it’s far too dangerous to install them on the brink of an abyss.
Yet on the other hand, I love spectacular scenery. My heart sings when I look out over a mountain vista, blue mountains layered into the distance or lacy waterfalls plunging into a riot of foam. What is lovelier than a mountain meadow bedecked in wildflowers?
I didn’t investigate when my beloved husband planned a southern Colorado camping trip and said we were going to traverse the Million Dollar Highway. “It’s supposed to be extremely scenic,” he mentioned casually. “It’s on the list of America’s most scenic byways.”
That sounded right up my alley. He knew my terrible fear and it never crossed my mind that he was setting me up for an hour of sheer terror.
The Million Dollar Highway got its name supposedly because it cost a million dollars per mile when it was built in the 1880. Its purpose was to carry silver ore from Silverton to Ouray. Other folktales claim that the road got its name because of the million dollars worth of gold in the rock excavated to make the highway.
We were driving our Ford Clubwagon that seated 12 people that sunny day. It had nearly 200K miles by that time and the steering was getting a little loose. We had already been enjoying a combination of camping and quaint motels, and that day was set aside for scenic sightseeing. Since Jeff usually drives while I ooh and ahh the scenery, it was my turn to drive.
I drove south from Ouray, Colorado, on Highway 550. By the time we encountered our first hairpin turn, there was nowhere to turn around. The pavement gained altitude like a ski lift bunching itself to vault over Red Mountain Pass. The S curves seemed to follow the path of a giant sidewinding snake.
Did I mention that there are no guardrails? In fact, the lanes are so narrow that the white line that indicates the right side of the lane disappears where the road was too narrow to allow the width of a paintbrush.
There are other places where an outside curve chokes the protruding mountain so that the road appears to vanish into a rock face. There’s nothing but blue sky visible through the windshield, and drivers must take it on faith that a Russian emigrant engineer named Otto Mears understood the difference between a road, a scenic overlook and a footpath.
Jeff began to exclaim over the astonishingly beautiful views. I told him sharply to “Be quiet!”
The kids started making jokes about untimely deaths. “Hush!” was all I could say. I didn’t want stronger language to be my last words.
It started raining. There was a little waterfall rolling across the road, its descent barely interrupted by the pavement. I had to peel two fingers off the steering wheel to turn on the windshield wipers.
Instinct said to stop and call for a helicopter rescue. I have since read that drivers freeze up on that road every year.
Did I mention the steering was loose?
If there was an entrepreneur with the courage to harness himself to the rock face about half way through that pass who offered to drive tourists to safety, he would be a millionaire in less than a year.
I didn’t stop. There was no entrepreneur. If I had, the driver coming around the blind curve behind us would rear-end us, pushing us into the bottomless gorge. No, it was better to meet death bravely.
The speed limit on that 12 mile stretch is 15 mph. Jeff tells me that the scenery is some of the most majestic and awe-inspiring he’s ever seen. I wouldn’t know.
Only in America, God bless it.