1940s: Mount Evans, CO highway down the other side?

[Kniwt]

This was a new one by me: The 1946 Rand McNally shows the Mount Evans, CO highway "proposed" as a through road continuing past the summit and down the other side.



I've not seen any mention of this in other histories of the highway. Was this just a RMcN fantasy, or was this actually under consideration at one point?

Added state.

[usends]

This was a new one by me: The 1946 Rand McNally shows the Mount Evans, CO highway "proposed" as a through road continuing past the summit and down the other side.
I've not seen any mention of this in other histories of the highway. Was this just a RMcN fantasy, or was this actually under consideration at one point?

Hmm, not sure whether it was ever under construction, or if it was just a pipe dream that road builders finally gave up on.  I reviewed historic CDOT maps, and here's what I found:
Maps through 1921 didn't show any road going to Mt. Evans, from any direction.  (But that doesn't necessarily mean there wasn't a road.)

The 1922 map was the first to show a road going up from Idaho Spgs through Echo Lake to Mt. Evans.  Then it's shown going down the other side, but southeast, along what must've been Deer Creek, coming out to today's 285 north of Bailey (hwy. 35 back then), via what your Rand map showed at lower right as hwy. 282.  This was the case through the 1926 map.

The 1927 map was the first to show a similar route to your Rand.  This remained the case through the 1951 map, although starting in 1930, the maps showed everything south of Mt. Evans and down Scott Gomer Creek as a dashed line.  The legend on the earlier maps defined this dashed line as "unimproved", but later maps defined it as "projected" and/or "impassable".  But I should note that some maps show Loveland Pass with this same line.  So it's unclear to me whether this "Mt. Evans extension" was an actual unimproved road, or never made it past the planning stage.

The 1952 map showed the Mt. Evans Rd. ending where it does today.  At that time, the Guanella Pass Rd. was shown as two discontinuous segments: up from Grant only as far as Scott Gomer Creek, and up from Georgetown only to the Waldorf Mine.

The 1955 map was the first to show Guanella Pass Rd. in its current form (complete between Georgetown and Grant).

So here's a theory: maybe in the early 20th century there was a desire, and maybe even a plan, to continue the Mt. Evans Rd. to the south, connecting to the North Fork valley.  But when it was finally decided that this was impractical, they decided instead to build the Guanella Pass Rd.  Just guessing. 

Today the only access up Scott Gomer Creek is via the Abyss Lake hiking trail.  You can drive up Deer Creek only as far as Highland Park/Harris Park - up from there it's just the Rosalie hiking trail.

[texaskdog]

Awesome drive!  Did it on Saturday, so much fun!  Thanks for the Mount Evans recommendation!

[rbradt]

I came across this post while doing a little research on the Mount Evans road. As I understand it, there was a hope that the road could be pushed through to the town of Grant on the present US285 as a southward extension of the "Peak to Peak Highway", running south from Estes Park. The Peak to Peak Scenic Byway is now made up of CO 7, CO 72, and CO 119. The tie to Grant was apparently determined to be impractical and a tie to US 285 was surveyed to US285 at Shaffers Crossing. From the southernmost point on the Mount Evans road a line was surveyed in 1923 by Drexel Lacey to the head of Deer Creek, then eastward. An interesting account is found in http://www.profsurv.com/magazine/article.aspx?i=1229 . Despite the survey, no road was ever built to connect to 285. There is, however, an ancient two track running across the tundra to the head of Deer Creek that can be traced in Google Earth. Horses were used by the original survey party, so it seems there was some attempt to follow up on the original survey by vehicle.
The Guanella Pass began as a trail from Georgetown to Grant. Paul Byron Guanella, a Clear Creek county commissioner started pushing the road through in the 40's and it was completed in the early '50's as I understand it. The Mount Evans road and Guanella Pass were unrelated.

[NE2]

A detailed map of the route:
http://research.archives.gov/description/5829315 (second map)
http://research.archives.gov/description/5829197 (south edge of third map)
It would have left the current road at the beginning of the hairpins up Mount Evans (not counting the isolated lower pair) and headed south, just west of Epaulet Mountain, and then curved west and followed the trail along Scott Gomer Creek to the Guanella Pass Road northwest of Grant.