The following was phoned in by Randy to Nancy (who may have taken some liberties to embellish the adventure as told by Randy)

Coming down from Summitville and Indiana Pass we got our first good taste of rain.

Summitville is known for its designation as an EPA Superfund disaster. The late 1980's mining activity leached cyanide into the river and killed the river. (For more information see below...)

The rain forced us to seek shelter, which was offered by an old cabin that had seen better days. What was left of the roof leaked like a sieve so Jeff and Ron got out their tarps and put them up inside, which gave us true refuge from the rain. The Dutch couple, Wim Van Hoorn and Tiny Van Der Werff, soon caught up with us and joined us in trying to stay dry and warm. We got the stove out and cooked up some hot chocolate and shared the rest of the afternoon. A wonderful warming touring experience.

[More reading about Summitville superfund site]

This 1,400-acre site is located in Rio Grande County, approximately 18 miles southwest of Del Norte. The mine site is in the San Juan Mountains at an elevation of 11,500 feet, surrounded by the Rio Grande National Forest. The Alamosa River and its tributaries flow from the site through forest and agricultural land in Rio Grande and Conejos Counties and past the San Luis Valley towns of Capulin and La Jara. The Terrace Reservoir, used for irrigation, is on the Alamosa River 18 miles downstream from the site.

History
Gold and silver mining began at Summitville around 1870. The latest mining operator was Summitville Consolidated Mining Corp., Inc. (SCMCI), which mined the site from July 1986 through October 1991 and abandoned the site in December 1992. SCMCI did open pit heap leach gold mining which used cyanide to extract the gold. The EPA Emergency Response Branch assumed responsibility of the site on December 16, 1992. The site was placed on the NPL of Superfund sites on May 31, 1994.