Pagosa Springs?

[Pagosan]

Originally Posted by ColoTroutlHntr

These natives could have done something about curtailing crappy sprawl. Instead of selling out their land and crying about the changes as they left town they could have planned, zoned, etc.to maintain a small town charm. In nearly every nice town in the Rockies it's the same. Old locals cry about new arrivals and change. However, instead of accepting responsibility for maintaining the very things they claim to miss they take the money instead.

To be fair, the natives have been pretty much isolationists for a good long time. By 'natives', I mean those that live in the town proper. Pagosa Springs, the town, is a hodgepodge of less than thoughtful development. Housing ranges from broken down trailers to fancy town homes.. and right across the street from each other. What the town really needs is urban renewal on a large scale.

Archuleta county has a population almost 10 times that of the town of Pagosa Springs and most of the county housing is in better shape than that of the city. And the zoning is far better too, in most cases. There are patches of blight in the county too, but it is generally harder to find.

[chilly]

Thought it was more useful for searchers to resurrect an existing thread than make a new one... but I've been hanging out in Pagosa Springs for a while now. To comment on Wolf Creek Pass, if skiing is one of your priorities. It is child's play compared to any of the canyons in Utah or Rt. 17 in Vermont.

It is a wide, multi-lane, well maintained, highway of no more than 8% grade. I might not enjoy driving a semi through there in a storm, but a car or truck with 4wd and snows, and it's trivial. I can put it in 4th in my automatic and never exceed the speed limit on the downhill (to pagosa) without touching brakes.

If it's closed for avalanche clearing a couple times a year, then consider it homage to the snow gods. Powder Mountain in Utah has a sustained 16% grade. That's a pucker pincher.

[debbie at bouontiful]

Except the last time I was up there (last October) we drove an Impala and going from Pagosa to Wolf the car seem to be over heating and down I could smell the brakes. I will not be driving such a powerless vehicle again on that pass. It did fine on the Cumbres pass which I am thinking because we stop a lot to take in views. I guess next Oct. I'll drive the truck it is just driving from Eastern OK every year we like to take the Impala which gets incredible gas mileage and we spend most of our vacation in Chama anyway.

[jazzlover]

Originally Posted by debbie at bouontiful

Except the last time I was up there (last October) we drove an Impala and going from Pagosa to Wolf the car seem to be over heating and down I could smell the brakes. I will not be driving such a powerless vehicle again on that pass. It did fine on the Cumbres pass which I am thinking because we stop a lot to take in views. I guess next Oct. I'll drive the truck it is just driving from Eastern OK every year we like to take the Impala which gets incredible gas mileage and we spend most of our vacation in Chama anyway.

I drove an Impala for my work for over 60,000 miles (and it already had 60,000 miles on it when I started driving it), much of it in the mountains of Colorado, Wyoming, and New Mexico. If you were having trouble with overheating, there was something wrong with the cooling system. If the brakes were overheating, you were not properly gearing down on the downgrades. The Impala, for me, was an excellent and reliable mountain car--one of the few US made cars I would say that about. Never had any problems with overheating or brakes--the original brake pads were still good at 120,000 miles.

[debbie at bouontiful]

Well that impala is still around with 120,000 miles on it and I love it. I probably wasn't putting it in a lower gear or I was smelling a truckers brakes, or just scared of the pass!!. My husband says the car did fine but not a lot of experience on passes. He wasn't with me on that adventure, it was giving up fishing time to him! I had less of a problem driving from the opposite end of 160 going to Wolf and then down to Pagosa. I am getting at least 30 miles to a gallon on that vehicle.