The Garden Wall

The climb starts here. Logan Creek's small lot is just ahead on your right, eight cars and an outhouse, if you want one stop first. If you pulled in, turn right for the climb. Now look through your windshield. That long wall across the valley is the Garden Wall, the Continental Divide itself. One of George Bird Grinnell's parties named it in the late eighteen nineties. They were camped at Grinnell Lake, singing a popular song called Over the Garden Wall around the fire, when somebody said, there is one wall we cannot get over. Glaciers worked at it from both sides, and they nearly finished the job. It's an arête, a knife-edged ridge, and at the top it's only a few feet thick. Passengers, find the dark band running high across it. That's the Purcell Sill, magma that forced its way between layers of limestone underground and hardened there. It's about a hundred feet thick everywhere you see it, so use it as a ruler. Lay it against the mountain and count how many would fit. One wall we cannot get over. The road goes up it. About twelve miles of this road were carved out of the mountainside with hardly any powered equipment, at an almost constant six percent grade from here to the pass. If heights bother you, here's what you need to know. Past The Loop you'll be in the outer lane, on the drop side, with the wall across the road. Nearly every pull-off from there to the pass is on your right, on that same drop side, and they double as places to let faster cars by. The road is twenty-two feet wide and less, and some oncoming drivers edge over the center line to stay clear of overhanging rock. The limit is forty on the lower road and twenty-five in the alpine section. Drivers, the view belongs to your passengers from here on. Eyes on the pavement, hands easy on the wheel, and let that wall come to you.