Braman's Wanderings

A couple weeks ago I reached the latest destination on my Virtual Hike. I have not gotten around to writing a post, but figured I better get it done before I make it to the next stop.

This segment of the hike was from Chimney Rock to Alamosa, Colorado. You can see that I had several routes to choose from. I picked the shortest one as usual. However, it was not just because it was the shortest.

Here is a shot from Google Maps Street View of where the route leaves US-160 to head over the mountains on smaller roads and trails. One nice thing about Google Maps is you can select the walking/hiking icon to include trails. They sometimes are much shorter. Of course, in this case it would also be much more difficult terrain in real life.

Here is the satellite view of the route. You can see that it goes up and over some mountains before heading down into the San Luis Valley.

Here is a closer look at the area through the mountains. Here you can see the names of some of the mountain peaks.

Because it is a trail and not a road Google Street View did not have images. However, there were some Photo Sphere images. The pictures I looked at were very scenic. I am sure that it would be a hike worth taking in real life. Of course, some of the views may depend on what time of year you take the hike.

Here is where the Street View images were available again. This is looking back at the mountains that I virtually hiked through.

From here the route was flat all the way to Alamosa which is the major city in the San Luis Valley. The region is the highest agriculture region in the country with a large flat valley at over 7,000 feet above sea level.

As I looked at the images on Google Maps, it looked very familiar. I grew up in an agricultural region of Kansas and now live in the Central Valley of California. This area looks very much like both of these regions. You pass by many fields and barns and see a lot of farm vehicles on the roads.

Alamosa is on the Rio Grande River and is within 100 miles of the source in the San Juan Mountains.

The city of Alamosa has a population of around 10,000 and is the home of Adams State University.

Keep an eye out for my next destination. It is one that has a personal connection as I spent some time there during both summer and winter when I was young.

I already have a good start so it won’t be too long till I virtually arrive. It just depends on how much I walk 🙂

Steven