Re: The road from Gato to Dulce in DRGW times

I don't know about that direction, but I had a pretty unique experience in the other direction. I drove down to Gato from Pagosa Springs on a dirt road that was pretty muddy, and it was an adventure and a half to get there, working the steering wheel very carefully and keeping speed up all the way to keep the car moving. Stopping would have been fatal and left us stranded in most places. From there it made no sense to go back as we (my friend Paul Orlow was with me.) were headed toward Durango, so we turned west, following the tracks. That road was really muddy too, but I managed to keep the car moving for most of the distance until I got to the bottom of what turned out to be the last hill before getting to the gravel road paralleling the Navajo Dam relocation. Of all things, there was a Coca Cola truck stalled at the bottom of the hill, and I could not pass him with any speed, which made it impossible to make a run for the hill. Finally in desperation we encountered a Navajo farmer who had a tractor, and he hooked up to my car and pulled us up the hill. I thanked him, after which he made it clear that a financial contribution was in order, and I complied. For the life of me I could never figure out what a Coca Cola truck would be doing out in the middle of nowhere on a muddy dirt road, and both Paul and I wondered if that Navajo watered down the road on a regular basis to maximize profits.