October is the month Spanish Peaks Country stops trying to impress you and simply does. The aspens turn, the air sharpens, the summer crowds thin, and the whole valley settles into its best few weeks. Between Walsenburg, La Veta, Cuchara, and Gardner you can spend a Saturday in a biergarten, a Sunday on a trail under gold, an afternoon on the back roads past towns that time walked away from, and an evening in a theater seat. Here is what to put on your October calendar.
1. La Veta Oktoberfest Opens the Month on October 3
Main Street closes and the town fills up on Saturday, October 3, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. La Veta Oktoberfest brings a biergarten, live bands, a classic car show, more than 100 artisanal vendors, and family activities to the center of town, and admission is free.
It is worth knowing this is a nonprofit community event. Proceeds go to local scholarships and charity, so the bratwurst you buy and the booth you browse both stay in the valley. Come early if you want a parking spot near the action, and plan to stay through the afternoon when the bands hit their stride and the light goes long and gold across the peaks.
Dates, times, and what to expect are on the La Veta Oktoberfest event page.
2. Hispanic Heritage Month Runs Through October 15
National Hispanic Heritage Month runs from September 15 to October 15, and in Spanish Peaks Country it is local history. In the early 1860s, Hispano shepherds from the San Luis Valley built La Plaza de los Leones along the Cuchara River. That plaza grew into Walsenburg. By 1865, nearly all of the county’s 371 settlers were Hispano families who ranched and farmed these valleys, and Hispanic families remain at the heart of these towns today.
You can still read that history on the map. Huerfano means orphan. La Veta means the vein. Cuchara means spoon. In La Veta, the thick adobe walls of Francisco Plaza, built in 1862 in the traditional Hispanic style, now hold the Francisco Fort Museum on Main Street. In Walsenburg, the Huerfano Heritage Center at 114 West 6th Street keeps the county’s photos, newspapers, and records, and is open Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
3. Chase the Aspens, Then Get Out and Walk
Fall color here usually runs from late September into the middle of October, and it moves downhill as the month goes on. The high country turns first, so early October is the time for the passes and the campground roads, and the second half of the month is when the cottonwoods along the creeks and the valley floor catch up.
Cordova Pass, Cuchara Mountain Park, the roads up to Bear Lake and Blue Lake Campgrounds, and the Uptop Historic District on Old La Veta Pass are all reliable places to find it. Our guide to where to see fall colors in Spanish Peaks Country maps them out.
Here is our suggestion though: park the car. A drive shows you the color, but a walk puts you inside it, and October is the kindest hiking month of the year here. Cool mornings, no afternoon thunderstorms to outrun, dry trails, and hardly anyone else out.
A few to start with:
- Indian Trail #1300: views over the Cuchara Valley and the old Cuchara ski runs, with connectors to Dodgeton and Baker if you want to stretch it out.
- Bear Lake Trail: views of West Peak and Trinchera Peak, straight out of the campground.
- Blue Lake Camp Trail: an easy connector between the Blue Lake and Bear Lake campgrounds, good for a short leg-stretcher with big aspen stands.
- Dike Trail #1389: follows one of the great volcanic dike walls with the Cuchara Valley below you the whole way.
- Hogback Trail: an interpretive loop through sandstone with views of the Spanish Peaks, the Sangre de Cristos, the Wet Mountains, and Greenhorn.
- Wahatoya Lake Trail: a gentle loop through fields and woods along the lake edge, and an easy one to do with kids.
Descriptions, surfaces, and trail numbers for all of these and more are on our hiking page. Bring layers. A sunny 60 degrees at the trailhead can be a windy 45 on a saddle.
4. Badito, the County Seat That Vanished
Drive northwest out of Walsenburg on Highway 69 toward Gardner and you cross the Huerfano River at a wide, quiet spot in the valley. There is not much to see. There used to be a great deal.
This is Badito, and for six years it ran Huerfano County. The crossing had been in use for centuries, first as an Ancestral Puebloan route, later by Spanish expeditions, and then by the Taos Trappers Trail linking the Santa Fe Trail to the Cherokee Trail. A post office opened here in 1865 under the name Little Orphan, the same orphan that gives the river and the county their names. Badito became the county seat in 1868 and held it until 1874, when the railroad pulled the county business toward Walsenburg. The post office hung on until 1910. After that, the valley took the town back.
What is left is ruins and a historical marker, and much of the ground around them is private property. Treat this as a stop you make from the road: pull over where it is safe, read the marker, look at the river crossing, and think about court being held out here. Then keep going up Highway 69 to Gardner, where the pavement runs out into some of the best open country in the region.
5. Uptop, the Ghost Town at the Top of the Old Pass
Twelve miles west of La Veta on Highway 160, a turn onto County Road 443 takes you up Old La Veta Pass to Uptop, sitting at 9,382 feet. The Denver and Rio Grande built through here in 1877, and for the next twenty-two years this was the highest railroad track in the world. When the rails came out, loggers and coal miners took over. When they left, the highway did too, and a 1962 realignment finished the job.
The town should have disappeared. Instead, two sisters bought the forty-acre site in 2001 and spent thirteen years putting it back together, one window at a time. Nine historic buildings survive, including an 1877 homestead cabin, a chapel, a schoolhouse, a dance hall, and the barns. The site is listed on the Colorado State Register of Historic Properties and the National Register of Historic Places. The property has since changed hands and is privately owned today.
Uptop is private property, and the owners do not open it to visitors. Treat it the way you would Badito: a stop you make from the road. Pull over where it is safe and take in the chapel and cabins with the October aspens behind them. The drive up Old La Veta Pass is worth it on its own. Snow can close the Highway 160 approach on short notice, so check conditions before you go. For more on the region ghost towns and mining camps, our post on fall and winter in Spanish Peaks Country covers where else to look.
6. Causa Mortis Brings Four Nights of Comedy to La Veta, October 22 to 25
The Incorrigible Orphan Theatre Troupe closes out the month at the La Veta Mercantile with Causa Mortis, a whodunit hospital comedy built on one gloriously absurd question: what happens when a small medical mishap leaves a woman living with a fine Swiss timepiece in her skull for decades?
Shows run at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, October 22, 23, and 24, with a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday, October 25. Tickets are $20, and a portion of sales benefits La Veta Village Assisted Living. Anyone who has ever spent an afternoon in a waiting room will find plenty to laugh at.
Details are on the Causa Mortis event page, and tickets are at SimpleTix. Make an evening of it: dinner on Main Street, then the show, with the Spanish Peaks right outside the door.
Plan Your Spanish Peaks Country October
October here is a biergarten on Main Street, a trail full of gold, two towns that gave up and one that would not, and a comedy at the Mercantile to send the month off. It is all within a short drive along the Highway of Legends National Scenic Byway, and the lodging is easier to book than it was in July.
Find a room on our lodging directory, check what else is happening on the events calendar, and come get back to some place new. We will see you out here.