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The Sangre de Cristo Range is a narrow mountain range of the Rocky Mountains running north and south along the east side of the Rio Grande Rift in southern Colorado in the United States. The mountains extend southeast from Poncha Pass for about 75 mi (120 km) through south-central Colorado to La Veta Pass, approximately 20 miles (32 km) west of Walsenburg, and form a high ridge separating the San Luis Valley on the west from the watershed of the Arkansas River on the east.
According to the USGS, the range is the northern part of the larger Sangre de Cristo Mountains, which extend through northern New Mexico. Usage of the terms "Sangre de Cristo Range" and "Sangre de Cristo Mountains" is varied; however this article discusses only the mountains between Poncha Pass and La Veta Pass.
Geography
Most of the range is shared by two National Forests, which abut along the range divide. Most of the northeast (Arkansas River) side is located within the San Isabel National Forest, while most of the southwest (San Luis Valley) side is included in the Rio Grande National Forest. The central part of the range is designated as the Sangre de Cristo Wilderness. The Great Sand Dunes National Park sits on the southwestern flank of the range at the edge of the San Luis Valley. The range divide is traversed by no paved roads, but only by four wheel drive and foot trails over Hayden Pass, Hermit Pass, Music Pass, Medano Pass, and Mosca Pass.
The highest peak in the range, located in the south, is Blanca Peak (14,345 ft); it is flanked by three other fourteeners, Little Bear Peak, Mount Lindsey, and Ellingwood PeakEllingwood Peak is not always counted as an official fourteener, as it has a high saddle connecting it with Blanca Peak, and hence a low topographic prominence.. Other well-known peaks are the fourteeners of the Crestone group: Kit Carson Mountain, Crestone Peak, Crestone Needle, and Humboldt Peak. Two sub-peaks of Kit Carson Mountain, Challenger Point and Columbia Point, are named in memory of the crews of the Space Shuttle Challenger and the Space Shuttle Columbia. The range is also home to many high peaks in the 13,000 to 14,000 foot range. See the Sangre de Cristo Mountains article for other noteworthy summits in the greater range.
History and economy
In 1719 the Spanish explorer Antonio Valverde y Cosio named the Sangre de Cristo ("Blood of Christ") mountains after being impressed by the reddish hue of the snowy peaks at sunrise. Today tourism and mining are the main economic activities.
Geology
The Sangre de Cristos are fault-block mountains with major fault lines running along both the east and west sides of the mountains and, in places, cutting through the range. The mountains were pushed up about 27 million years ago, pretty much as one large mass of rock.
On the west side is the San Luis Valley with the Rio Grande Rift running down the middle. On the southeast side is the Raton Basin, a quiet but still active volcanic field. On the northeast side are the Wet Mountains and the Front Range, areas of Precambrian igneous and metamorphic rocks formed during the Colorado Orogeny some 1.7 billion years ago and then uplifted more recently during the Laramide orogeny.
The Blanca Massif is also Precambrian rock, while most of the rest of the Sangres is composed of younger Permian-Pennsylvanian (about 250-million-year old) rock, a mix of sedimentary conglomerates, shales, and igneous intrusions. These sedimentary rocks originated as sediment eroded from the Ancestral Rocky Mountains.
Notes
See also
Mountain ranges of Colorado | Saguache County, Colorado | Custer County, Colorado | Rocky Mountains
"Sangre de Cristo Range"