The Yampa Valley: An Amazing Place

By Ellen and Paul Bonnifield

Finger Rock

Looking south from the Yampa Gas station parking lot.

When driving south on Colorado Highway 131, pull into the gas station parking lot on the south end of Yampa. Exit your car, look around, and allow your mind to explore visions of wonderment. Look east along the rim of Greenridge at the head of Wheeler Basin and notice the curved shape circling behind Lone Spring Butte. It is the scar of a massive caldera – miles across. Lone Spring Butte’s cone shape was a volcano with its caldera clearly visible which grew within the caldera of Wheeler Basin. Let your eyes follow down the mountain toward Eagle Rock and Finger Rock. It is possible to see the outline of two more eruptions plus extensive lava intrusions that formed Sleeping Lion, Finger Rock, Eagle Rock, Laughlin Butte, and Sumner Butte. The gray outcroppings across Phillips Creek were once large ash piles. The small caves in the ash were formed by wind and not water. What forces caused the wind to gently form small caves in that location but nowhere else? And, where did all the igneous rock go?

Standing in the parking lot, look south to Horseshoe Park on King Mountain west of Toponas. Nearly a century ago a homesteader lived there, cleared the land, and planted fields. The remaining home, although crumbling, still stands against the onslaught of time. The meadows are fertile, but winters are harsh and water for home and livestock is limited. Looking at Horseshoe Park you see a place of grandeur while also a place of broken dreams and unrewarded labor.

Returning to the view from the Yampa parking lot and looking at King Mountain, notice the large open space between the east and west side of the mountain where the opposite sides slope toward the center in the unmistakable angles of a large volcano. That open space and the distant ridge beyond tell of a massive caldera. Within the caldera in a low willow patch, King Creek flows from the earth only to be trapped a short distance downstream by a small earthen dam – storage water for a few acres of meadow land in Egeria Park. The Kier family homesteaded along lower King Creek. In 2020 the creek went dry during the summer. Larry Kier said it was the first time that ever happened.

Within the caldera are the archeological remains of numerous sawmills and lumber camps. The heavy regrowth on Sunny Side Pass shelters a large slab pile telling of hundreds of trees once milled at the site. Long ago a telephone line reached the logging camps. One school existed for children. In a beautiful meadow clearing, Fred “Shorty” Streutzl operated a small mill employing half a dozen men while his wife cooked for the crew. When their daughter reached school age, they moved to Toponas. At one time Toponas was an important sawmill and lumber shipping center. One of the old sawdust burners remains standing.

In sight from the Yampa parking lot is another wonderment – the Flat Top Mountains. Consider this: with all the volcanic activity and their calderas – King Mountain, Wheeler Basin, Black Mountain, and Thorpe Mountain – the Flat Tops are flat. Back, sometime ago when North America was wintering down south, the Flat Tops began uplifting and molten lava began springing from the earth – not erupting – just flowing out of the ground. In some areas the flow became fifteen hundred feet deep. The lift was greatest in the south and divided into four separate groups – Big Flat Tops, Little Flat Tops, Dunkley Flat Tops, and Beaver Flat Tops. In the heart of the Flat Tops a glacier gouged out a hole 180 feet deep that covered more than 300 acres creating the second largest natural lake in Colorado. It was here, at Trappers Lake in 1919 that Arthur Carhart made his forest preservation fight (birth of the wilderness movement). In 1964, the Flat Tops was officially designated a wilderness.

Archibald R. Marvine headed the party to survey the Yampah River (as it was spelled back then) and White River in 1874. The report stated, “The Dome Mountain ridge is entirely separated from the plateau, and Mount Orno mass is connected by a narrow wall of rock, . . . in places but three feet in width, and a sheer precipice on both sides of from 700 to 800 feet . . .. Standing near the center of the wall, which is 125 feet in length, with outstretched arms, and dropping a stone from each hand simultaneously they fall for 100 feet before touching the sides of the cliffs. It was very much cracked and shattered, and another winter will probably demolish this natural causeway.” Marvine’s is the first known description of the Devil’s Causeway; he also inadvertently named it. Mount Orno is named after the surveyor who climbed to the top and set up the surveying equipment.

Marvine labeled Bear (Yampa) River from Yampa to the river’s head Stampede Creek, the stream passing Finger Rock was called Chimney Fork, and Egeria Creek was called Bayard Creek. Egeria Park was viewed as “an open terraced basin, about twelve miles long from northwest to southeast and from one to four miles wide.” The report also noted, “the divide between the Yampah and the Grand [Colorado] River water is only a very low gravel terrace, scarcely noticeable.” The Yampa River drains into the Green River and is part of the Green River Basin. Toponas is not in the Green River Basin, but rather in the Colorado River Basin. Egeria Creek, Toponas Creek, and Egeria Canyon are in the Colorado River drainage. Five Pine Mesa is the divide.

Continue driving south on Highway 131 from Yampa to Toponas. The low ridge line seen on the right (west) is Five Pine Mesa – glacial till. About 10,000 years ago, give or take another few thousand years, the Flat Tops were covered with deep ice. In some places the ice carved deeply into the earth. The Devil’s Causeway was formed by two types of glacial activity. One formed the East Fork, the Lost Lakes and China Wall. The other side carved a large glacial valley where the Yampa River heads. The material removed for the Yampa River fanned out to form three mesas. The Big Mesa terminated at the Yampa Ranger Station. The second is unimpressive and simply called The Mesa, if named at all, and terminates at Finger Rock. Five Pine Mesa is by far the largest and most important glacial moraine. It divides the Green River drainage and the Colorado River drainage. The southern edge of the Yampa Valley is the top of the grade a short distance north of Toponas. The Mesa rim viewed to the west of Highway 131 from about three miles south of Yampa until topping the rise at Toponas is the divide between the two rivers. The divide is not the high mountains.

The Hayden Survey crew certainly were not impressed by the mineral springs at Steamboat. Simply stating, “The Steamboat Springs are located right at the bend of the Yampah, on both sides of the river, and close to the bank on the north side. The water is lukewarm, of from 70° to 72° temperature and is strongly saturated with sulphur.” At that point the reporter wrote about other mineral springs along the Eagle and Grand (Colorado) rivers.

F. F. Brune did extensive geological surveying in the Yampa Valley for the Hayden Survey. Using notes from that survey, Brune wrote a prospectus for the Western Colorado Improvement Company (the settlement company that founded Hayden). The report may have influenced James Crawford to settle at Steamboat Springs.

In the prospectus Brune wrote, “Mid way of the Bear River valley region, near the mouth of the Elk River, and directly in Bear River valley, is situated one of nature’s wonderful works, the great Mineral Springs, or series of springs; they are named Steamboat Springs. . .. They doubtless possess medicinal virtues and will eventually become attractive as a watering place; at present it is a great resort for game.”

Probably the most important aspect of the Hayden Report was its study of the Yampa Coalfield. The map was surprisingly complete. The coalfield “is great store house of most valuable coals, including the famous Albertite, the most valuable known for production of oils.” A few miles west of Trout Creek and near the Yampa River, oil seeped from the ground forming small oil springs. (The first oil well in the world was “dug” in western Pennsylvania in the late 1850s, and it was believed the oil originated in the nearby coal seams – thus coal-oil.)