OST #1 - Ft Uncompahgre Traditional Cache

The Old Spanish Trail (OST) is a National Historic Trail and has long been of interest to Team kekj as it is integrally tied into the history of Ft. Uncompahgre at which we work as volunteers.  We have long wanted to start a series of Caches on the history and currently accessible locations along the OST in the Delta Area. We already have caches at two strategic locations under different names but have long wanted to set this one first before renaming and including them in the OST series. That has now been done.

Ft Uncompahgre was established in the early 1820's as a fur trading outpost and had ceased to existed by the mid 1840's as silk took over the top hat fiber of choice.  In the early days the Ft. was only accessible by foot or mule train but over time the route was improved such that ox carts were able to make it by the late 1830's.  At the same time a route from Santa Fe to California was being scouted out that avoided the Apache and had good water and grazing along the entire route. There was a route across northern AZ but it was dry, dangerous and the Colorado River canyons had to be scaled at some point. 

Eventually a route was established that met the needs of the time -  primarily for moving trade goods from Santa Fe (mostly cotton and woven goods) to CA where it was traded for horses (many were stolen) which were then brought back to the New Mexican Territory. There were several routes, this being the “Northern Route,” that were used dependent on time of year and weather conditions. This was the more commonly used as there was always good water at many points but there were higher passes to summit in winter. In operation primarily 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.

In 1853 Capt. Gunnison came through with hundreds of men and wagons and did major "road work" on portions of the trail while scouting out a potential railroad route through the area. Going north on Hwy 50 will bring you to OST #2 - Wells Gulch, and an additional few miles takes you to OST #3 - Whitewater, where you will find additional kiosks that tell more of the story of Capt. Gunnison and the history of the OST.  Additional OST caches will be published as time allows, mostly at trail heads that follow the route of the OST, some of which may require high clearance vehicles and/or a moderate amount of walking to access.  Look for them as you cache the area.   

We are far more interested in you learning of the history of the OST than in having difficulty in finding this cache - which is kept filled with kid friendly goodies by the visitor center staff.            

SO!  to find the cache:    -    a. >  let the kiddos hunt first, they will probably find it easy!  

 b. >  Look up under kiosk, see hint for more instructions  -    p.s.  I personally built the kiosk - making it easy to incorporate the cache  !!

Ft. Uncompahgre Visitor Center is the ONLY OST interpretive center along the entire distance of the 700 mile long OST going from Santa Fe, NM to Los Angeles, CA.   We want to thank them for not only being supportive of geocaching but WANTING this cache placed here! We have hosted several events here at the Ft. and they are aggressively pursuing us to place several more OST and local historical caches in the area.

OFFICIALLY the FTF goes to GoDogGo200, the youngest member (5-6?) that attended the nearby Community Celebration Event "Geocaching - Coming of Age " <GC8MAPQ> that started at near the same instant that this cache was published.  Unofficially all who attended the event were allowed to log as CO - FTF