The San Luis Valley

I love the San Luis Valley! It's the home of two of my favorite Colorado towns, Alamosa and Saguache. It's a beautiful valley nestled in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. It's also rich in treasure tales. There are 43 tales of lost treasure that I know of, in the mountains surrounding this valley.

One of the lesser known treasure tales features a very well known landmark in the area, Round Mountain. If you head out of the valley by way of Poncha Pass, on the left hand side of the road you will see Round Mountain. It's said that there are untold amounts of gold nuggets hidden there. The most popular version of this story is that there was a group of Canadian trappers that were trapping along the Snake River when they were attacked and chased out of the area by a group of American trappers. They lost their furs and traps to the Americans.

As they made their way south, into western Colorado, one of the trappers found a gold nugget in the headwaters of the Gunnison River. They spent the next month panning in the sandbars of the river and came up with quite a haul.

They were discovered by the Ute Indians and attacked. It turned into a running battle lasting several days and ended with three of the four Canadians killed. The forth one managed to make his escape over Cochetopa Pass just west of Saguache. He headed up Poncha Pass and it is said he stopped and buried the gold there on Round Mountain. The Utes caught and killed him near the summit of Poncha Pass. The gold has never been found.

There is supposed to be a huge cache of gold hidden on Treasure Mountain in the San Luis Valley. The value of this cache, several years ago, was estimated to be around 33 million dollars. That would certainly make some nice pocket change!

In the late 1700's a French expedition sat out from an outpost near what is now Leavenworth Kansas. It consisted of approximately 300 men and 450 horses. They made their way into southern Colorado and traveled into the San Luis Valley via La Veta Pass, ending up near present day Summitville, Colorado.

They sat up camp just west of Wolf Creek Pass and began panning for gold in the many creeks that flow down the San Juan Mountains. Supposedly they struck the mother lode and buried the gold in three separate locations on Treasure Mountain. A map was made and the locations were known only by the three top officers.