Sewemup Mesa Canyon, Gateway CO
Boondocked below Sewemup Mesa, Gateway CO, April 28, 2011
Point of Interest
From the roadside POI sign along Rt-141 10 miles south of Gateway CO:
Sewemup Mesa is one of the ecologically pristine areas in western Colorado, having been isolated from development by its almost impassible belt of encircling sandstone cliffs. A striking band of thousand-foot-high cliffs of Wingate Sandstone encircles more than 75% of Sewemup Mesa. Many huge ponderosa pines line the canyons of the mesa top and grow directly from sandstone terraces along the mesa's western cliffs. The cliffs provide nesting sites for the endangered peregrine falcon, as well as for the golden eagles. Bald eagles winter along the Dolores River at the area's edge. Mountain lions rule the mesa, and the lower slopes are important big-game winter range for deer and elk.
The legend of Sewemup Mesa began in the late 1800's as a real true cattle-rustling operation. A local rancher "rustler" would drive stolen cattle, from both Utah and Colorado up into the well concealed "pockets" of the mesa. There he would rope them, tie them down and with a sharp knife, cut out the piece of the hide containing the brand. He would then sew them back up with bailing [sic] wire and rawhide. After the wounds healed, the cows would be branded with the rustler's own brand. Then they would be put back on the range with the other cattle and no one was any wiser.
Sewemup Mesa Canyon is a limited, rough, but picturesque boondocking site along the BLM primitive road into the canyon below Sewemup Mesa, a half mile off CO Rt 141 about 10 miles south of Gateway CO.
Sewemup Mesa Canyon, Gateway CO
- Verizon cell phone and EVDO service - no signal
- Locate Sewemup Mesa Canyon on my Night Camps map
- Check the weather here
Nights I've camped here
Wind on the Gangplank
There was almost no soil in that part of the range - just twelve miles' breadth of rough pink rock. "As you go from Chicago west, soil diminishes in thickness and fertility, and when you get to the gangplank and up here on top of the Laramie Range there is virtually none," Love said. "It's had ten million years to develop, and there's none. Why? Wind - that's why. The wind blows away everything smaller than gravel."
Standing in that wind was like standing in river rapids. It was a wind embellished with gusts, but, over all, it was primordially steady: a consistent southwest wind, which had been blowing that way not just through human history but in every age since the creation of the mountains - a record written clearly in wind - scored rock. Trees were widely scattered up there and, where they existed, appeared to be rooted in the rock itself. Their crowns looked like umbrellas that had been turned inside out and were streaming off the trunks downwind. "Wind erosion has tremendous significance in this part of the Rocky Mountain region," Love said, "Even down in Laramie, the trees are tilted. Old-timers used to say that a Wyoming wind gauge was an anvil on a length of chain. When the land was surveyed, the surveyors couldn't keep their tripods steady. They had to work by night or near sunrise. People went insane because of the wind." His mother, in her 1905 journal, said that Old Hanley, passing by the Twin Creek school, would disrupt lessons by making some excuse to step inside and light his pipe. She also described a man who was evidently losing to the wind his struggle to build a cabin: