Spanish Peaks 
THE 
LAND OF HUA JATOLLA 
(WAH Hah toy~ah) 
The Land of Huajatolla is not 
a distant Shangri-la. These great twin 
mountains rise abruptly from the high 
eastern mesas a mere seventy miles 
south of Pueblo. They are plainly vis- 
ible most any time from most any point 
where the trees and buildings of the 
city do not intervene. For countless 
centuries before the white man came 
they were a landmark to the Indians 
who roamed the vast plains, and a bea- 
con and the end of the world to the 
adventurous travelers who came later. 
The Spanish Peaks are unique as they 
are independent of any mountain range. 
They stand alone - unmistakable. They 
mark the end of the great plains to 
the east and the beginning of the 
mighty Rockies to the west. They di- 
vide the north and the south. In the 
archives in Mexico City are writings 
of the early Spanish explorers who 
believed that Huajatolla was practi- 
cally the end of the earth, where the 
mysterious and limitless plains began, 
and to the west, lay a land no man dare 
enter - a land at which many even 
feared to gaze in the eerie moments 
of dawn, for out there lies a lofty, 
snow clad range reaching far out and 
beyond that which the eye can see, and 
out there, in the hazy distance is where 
the earth and the heavens meet. Out 
there, for a few fleeting moments, when 
the day begins to come slowly over the 
rim of the world in the east, the rosy 
lights of dawn bathe the snowy heights 
with crimson, and he is sinfull, indeed, 
who can not see with his own eyes that 
this is the wondrous Sangre De Cristos 
the (Blood of Christ). Thus the Land 
of Huajatolla was the end of the world. 
Here peoples, long vanished, worshiped 
the sun for the ruins of their crude 
shrines, facing the east, still stand. 
And ofcourse, the Spanish Peaks were 
the abode of the giants and the demons. 
The giants defended this no-mans-land 
between the earth and the heavens from 
the evil spirits of the plains. That 
they did so with great fury and mighty 
power is evidenced to this day by the 
huge stone breastworks that mark a line 
