Wagon Wheel Gap is a narrow rock gateway with its own geology story

About 8 miles southeast of Creede along Highway 149, the Rio Grande pinches through a tight rock narrows called Wagon Wheel Gap. It is the kind of place that looks like a natural gateway, and there is a reason for it. The gap sits near the eastern rim of the Creede Caldera, one of the collapsed ancient volcanoes that built this part of the San Juan Mountains. The river found a path through rock shaped by that violent past.

The geology here did more than make a pretty narrows. The same mineral-rich ground supported mining. Near the gap, a mine worked fluorspar, a mineral used in making steel, during part of the last century. So Wagon Wheel Gap carries both a deep geologic story and a more recent mining one.

You do not have to be a geologist to appreciate it. The Forest Service maintains an interpretive site at the gap with signs that explain how the narrows formed and how it got its name. It is a short, roadside stop rather than a hike.

To learn the real story behind the rock and the old mine, the Rio Grande National Forest’s interpretive site and History Colorado are good places to start.