By Hal Walter
March finally arrived in April, and the wind had been howling the entire afternoon as I left for an evening speaking engagement at the Greenhorn Valley Library in Colorado City. The Sangre de Cristo Range was barely an outline in the ghastly gray dust blowing over from the San Luis Valley, and an occasional gust tossed my car sideways.
The quickest route from my home near Westcliffe is the Greenhorn Highway through San Isabel and Rye. It’s a curvy and hilly, but scenic, drive with very little traffic. As I rounded one curve on this winding highway, I found a tree that the wind had dropped from the uphill side of the road. It had fallen perpendicular to the pavement and broken at the trunk. The impact from the tree breaking had literally tossed the fairly sizable treetop uphill quite a distance, leaving it angled across both lanes amid debris of bark and broken branches. I stopped the car and got out to inspect the scene and take a photo. Then I got back in and eased slowly past the tree trunk, continuing on my way and calling to notify the authorities when I arrived at the library.
