Portions of The Old Spanish Trail( OST) are still highly visible slashing across the side of the nearby hill to the NW about 1/4 mile away, and is now a National Historic Trail. The original OST actually went up the ravine to the NE of what you see but was a much longer route that the Capt shortened considerably and what you now see is known as the "Gunnison Cutoff" As he had several hundred men and wagons with months and months of supplies with him, it was worth the effort to improve the trail bed as he surveyed a RR route through the area. Over the years the 1st road bed washed out and if you look closely you can see numerous cutouts going parallel below and/or up and around the major slash as subsiquent travelers came through. Not visible from here, but if you go up and look down on the slash you will see that it is washed out 15-20' deep for several hundred yards such that a normal 4x4 would not be able to negotiate it, only a rock crawler. We hope to eventually put a cache up there so you can get a good look at the actual trail bed.
At the time the OST was in use Wells Gulch was a days wagon travel (10 miles) from water at the river (what is now Delta area) and the Gulch had a year round spring feed stream of water running down from the mountains to the east (Grand Mesa) and was a well established stopping point on the OST. In operation from 1829 > 1848 it was considered "the most arduous of all trade routes ever established in the United States" taking 2-3 months to travel one way.
OST #3 is to the north just a few miles at Whitewater but you MUST Check out OST #1 at Ft. Uncompahgre < GC9AFAV > in Delta where you can find lots of free info on the OST as this is the ONLY visitor/interpretive center along the entire distance of the 700 mile long OST going from Santa Fe, NM to Los Angeles, CA.