30 MISC. PUBLICATION" 18, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 



calente, in search of a route from Sante Fe to the missions of Cali- 

 fornia, guided his companions in a westerly course, skirting the 

 southern boundary of the present San Juan National Forest. To 

 Escalente is ascribed credit for the musical Spanish names borne by 

 such streams as the Rio San Juan, Rio de las Animas Perdidas, 

 Rio de las Piedras, Rio de los Pinos, and the Rio Florida. Modern 

 usage, however, has shortened these names, and our present-day 

 maps merely indicate these rivers as the San Juan, Animas, Piedra, 

 Pine, and Florida. 



A treaty with the United States Government in 1868 secured south- 

 western Colorado to the southern Utes. It was not until 1873 that 

 another treaty released the greater part of this area to settlement 

 and mineral development. Several years previous, however, in 1860, 

 a party of 200 men under the leadership of Charles Baker, thoroughly 

 explored this region and paved the way for subsequent develop- 

 ment. Baker's Park, the present site of the town of Silverton, 

 bears the name of this intrepid explorer. Here it was that in 1861 

 the expedition endured privation and starvation, and Baker him- 

 self narrowly escaped death at the hands of his mutinous band. 



THE MONTEZUMA NATIONAL FOREST 



Joining the San Juan on the west is the Montezuma National For- 

 est. The northern and eastern sections of the forest have the rugged 

 topography of the San Juan and the Ouray division of the Uncom- 

 pahgre, while the southwestern part is of the mesa type. The forest 

 is crossed north and south by two automobile roads, one from Nor- 

 wood and the other from Placerville by way of Telluride to Dolores. 



Most of the western yellow pine stands in and near the southwestern 

 national forests were cut over in early logging operations before the 

 forests were created. A few virgin stands remain, however. One 

 of these on the Montezuma, containing 400,000,000 board feet of 

 western yellow-pine timber, is the scene now of the largest logging 

 operation under Government supervision in the history of Colorado. 

 Because of the advanced age of this stand, an unusually heavy cut 

 of about 80 per cent of the volume is being made. This operation 

 consumes about 30,000,000 board feet of timber each year or over 

 130,000 feet daily. About one-third of it is on private land. The 

 timber on other units is more thrifty and will not be cut so heavily. 



Grazing on the Montezuma is very important to the ranching com- 

 munities which join it on the south, west, and north. The entire 

 forest has been covered by intensive reconnaissance of grazing re- 

 sources. On this basis unit plans are being worked out which will 

 guarantee the heaviest possible use of the forage without damage to 

 forest growth. Although unit plans are common on all forests now, 

 intensive reconnaissance is justified only in a few cases. 



The water that flows from the forest is used for irrigating farm 

 lands and operating large hydroelectric plants. 



THE RIO GRANDE NATIONAL FOREST 



The Rio Grande National Forest is a unit of over a million acres, 

 and across it the granite back of the Continental Divide, seamed with 

 canyons and jagged with numberless peaks, twists, and bends for 

 150 miles. 



