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The flowers above allude to "the glories" of Caribou mountain! This post was originally part of the post, A Look Around Caribou Mining District, but I eventually gathered so much new information and updated photos about the topics that I decided to break the original post up into two parts, otherwise one post would just be a monster. This part now has updated information about the cemetery and a local miner. The original post had a few landscape and flower photos included at the end. But Caribou mountain is my special place where I replenish my spirit and soul, and I actually have gobs and gobs of photos of her wildflowers and aspens, so I've decided to add some more of those, and some wildlife, at the end here. New material begins with the photo of the Caribou Cemetery Gate. 

So I got on a local mountain cemetery kick this summer, 2022. All the old mountain communities in my 'hood are mining communities established in the 1800s, which experienced varying levels of success and longevity. Like so many in Rocky Mountain Colorado, Caribou was a boom-bust town. The rich lodes were discovered in 1869; by 1870 the place was packed; and by the latter 1890s it was all but deserted. Mining was revived on and off in subsequent decades for different mineral veins, but one would assume the majority of the graves in Caribou Cemetery were dug during those 25 or so heyday years in the 19th century.

I have seen photos from the early- to mid-20th century of some of these headstones, some marking the resting places of locally famous characters. But in a devastating turn of events, nearly all the headstones were stolen some decades ago. 

Who can fathom why, or what the loathsome thieves did with them, but they robbed all of us of our local heritage. I mean, if they denoted legendary Egyptian pharaohs or something, while it would still super suck it would at least be a little understandable. But why these 19th century miners, most of them living obscure lives in the bowels of the earth?

Well, as a result, we are now left with a hillside reclaimed by nature with but the fewest and most humble remains. I did not even know about the vandals when we visited the cemetery. I knew it existed, I knew one access route was closed; we found another access. I just thought it was a pity at the time that it hadn't been kept up like so many of the other mountain mining community cemeteries. It was haunting, beautiful, lonely, mysterious, peaceful. But now that I know why the gravestones are missing and no one kept it up, it is also sad, I'd even go so far as to say tragic. 

But here are a few headstone foundations and stones, any engravings wiped out by erosion, toughing it out in the throes of high-altitude nature. 

And this admirable aspen, not daunted in the least by a metal fence. It looks so intentional in its growth around the metal rods, as if purposefully telling them, "I will prevail!" No headstone remains within the fence, so it almost looks now like it was built to pen the aspens like livestock.

Added September 2023: since I first wrote this post, some work has been done to clean up and restore what is left of the cemetery by a small group of volunteers, "Friends of the Caribou Cemetery." You can read about their work HERE and support it, too! 

And now added October 2025, some of the results of the clean-up and restoration and re-dedication. This beautiful gate has been added and the large rocks including a wonderful memorial to local miner, Tom Hendricks. I'll tell you more about him below.  

An informational plaque was also added near the gate. It tells us that the cemetery recorded its first interment in 1875. According to the plaque, 1898 was about the last of the burials during the town's "active era" (which began about 1869). But several other graves were dug since then including Nederland's mining icon for decades, Tom Hendricks, in 2020. From the plaque: "Site surveys from 1948 and 1972 provide the only known records of pre-1898 burials. Apparently there was no plot map and likely no grid-like organization for interments. With rocky soil that was frozen for much of the year, families buried their dead wherever they could. The stones, along with iron and wooden fences, have succumbed to vandalism and the ravages of time. Yet the remains of these hardy men, women, and children are still here. Please treat the cemetery grounds with respect."

In October 2023 the first phase of restoration was completed including the iron fence and gate. They added markers to the identified gravesites. In 2025 the plaque and marble stone were placed, and they re-erected two recovered gravestones. The stone for Agnes Julia Ewert (daughter of the Methodist preacher at the time) was actually found right in the area, just outside the perimeter of the cemetery. Why and how it migrated there is unknown. But what an exciting find when they were all thought lost.  

The other stone is inscribed with the names of three children the Richards family lost in a single week to diphtheria -- Anna age 10, Willie age 8, Alice age 3. What a heartbreak to watch your children die one after the other. I was told a resident in the county had found this marker on his property, I don't know where it is or how he came to "find" it. But he handed it over to the "Friends of Caribou Cemetery" organizing and overseeing the current work. A representative of the organization says, "We were very appreciative that he contacted us and turned it in. We would love to find some more." She pleads for others to come forward with information on any other historic stones. Many ornate iron fences were stolen, too. If you have information on any of these use the link above to contact the Friends of the Cemetery! 

Years, actually decades, ago I was a volunteer at our town's Visitor's Center. One time Tom Hendricks gave a tour of the Cross Mine to the volunteers. It was so interesting, and one moment from that tour has always really stuck with me. Erik and I have taken several mine tours, but none has recreated the early hard-rock miner experience like Tom did. He shut off the lights in one of the tunnels and let us experience absolute, total darkness for a little while. It definitely redefines darkness, as most of us will use that word to signify what we now know is merely a degree of dimness. Inside the earth, it's a tangibly different darkness that feels like it could swallow you up. Then he lit a miner's candle on his hat, exactly like the old miners did as their only light source until they later got carbide lamps on their hats. So there he was, the flickering candlelight a pinprick in the darkness. Then he took out a hammer and chisel and started pounding on the chisel, the sound of metal contacting metal filling the chamber. Clink. Clink. Clink. A lone candle, a single steady staccato beat in the cold, empty tunnel. So eerie and lonesome. There would often be numbers of men working the same shaft in a mine so it would not be quite so silent and dim with multiple candles and hammers, but we still got a brief feel for the early miner's experience. 

As I mentioned, Tom Hendricks is Nederland's own mining legend. We watched him compete every year when Nederland used to hold Miner's Days and host mining competitions (there was actually a circuit for mining competitions, I don't know if that's still a thing or not, much like for lumberjack competitions and other "niche" athletics like Scottish Highlands). I recently read a transcript of an interview with him in the Carnegie Library oral history collection. You can listen or read the transcript at  https://localhistory.boulderlibrary.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A23777. All of it is interesting but I decided to share a few tidbits of my favorite parts here -- just to show you what kind of guy he was, what a true miner in heart, soul and spirit, not to mention physical strength. The Cross Mine was first opened in 1869, but had lain dormant for decades before Tom opened it again.

 Tom: "You gotta remember when I was first mining here in the early ‘70s, a lot of the mine maps I made were on the back of a Safeway bag, which I’d draw up at night in my little cabin by candle light. ... When I first went to California to lease this mine [Cross Gold Mine] in 1972, I charged it on a Gold Visa card. I didn’t have one dime to my name. I was living from paycheck to paycheck, and I tried to convince the family [mine owner] that we're the descendants of this whole mining/ranching family from California, that at age 22, I could open a gold mine and make it work. The first year they said, “Oh come back in a few years. You’re a little young to be doing this.” And I kept hammering them and in 1974 they gave me a 15-year lease on this mine, so I quit work at the Comstock and immediately started opening this with a pick and a shovel and a wheelbarrow. And I still have that wheelbarrow, and I have all the pictures to show that. I didn’t even know what the price of gold was. I just knew that I wanted to open my own gold mine. Then I teamed up with a Denver industrialist by the name of Jack LaFollett. He knew the Caribou operation during the ‘40s, and he was making all the bottles for Coors beer. Jack said, “Kid, I know that Caribou area. I tell you what—you go in there and see my comptroller and tell him you want 2,500 bucks a month to open this little mine with, and see where you get to.” So I had $2,500 a month to buy dynamite, mine machinery; so I worked here for two years by myself and started reopening the mine—timbering cave-ins and driving tunnels and stuff. Then I hired my first employee in 1976."

 From here it was like a micro reproduction of the boom-bust mining industry of Colorado right there in Tom's mines, the Caribou and Cross. He worked up to having a major investor, allowing him multiple employees, who then went broke and told Tom he had to shut down the operation, he could no longer bankroll it. So Tom basically did. Then there were three -- Tom and two employees -- in this giant maze of mine shafts.

 Tom: "Although there is a lot of high-tech equipment capable of doing a lot of the work in a mine, Tom said, "But no, we drill with jackleg drills like you see there (points to row of jacks leaning against the back wall), which are very physically demanding. They’re loud in closed areas and they run at 140 decibels. That’s why my hearing is so bad. I figured the other day that I’ve drilled 50,000 or 60,000 holes with jackleg drills. We use tungsten carbide drill bits and anywhere from 2-foot to 6-foot drill steels. These are very noisy, loud machines. But compared to hand drilling, they’re revolutionary. Compared to what’s available today, they’re primitive." If you don't know what jack drilling is, here's a little youtube video to demonstrate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSbFTHlNRt4

 In 2002 he was the only one working the mine though he was involved with other major companies with over a thousand shareholders. So in 1980 51 employees; in 2002 just him. Flashing back to that tour when he stood there alone hand drilling into the rock -- that really was a portrait of him, just slightly updated with the amenities electricity afforded for light and drilling equipment.

Some of the detail of the marble stone that serves as a memorial for Tom on one side and the entry to the cemetery. This is the front side welcoming visitors to the cemetery, "Respect these sacred premises. Go in Peace." 

The cemetery spills down a slope from a hilltop toward a valley that we often drive with our 4x4 vehicles. Caribou creek meanders through this valley creating a willow heaven for the moose's appetite and a peaceful brook to relax by, and apparently a pretty good fishing spot judging by the anglers we run into. 

Caribou is a very special place to me. I can get from my house up the mountain to the first overview of the back mountain range in 35 minutes with our beloved 4Runner, Chewie. Erik and I go there together a lot in all seasons. We go with friends sometimes. But honestly my favorite times are when I go by myself. Usually late in the day in summer (leave home around 5). I hardly ever -- knock on wood -- encounter other people. The 4x4 route is a bit challenging but not crazy. I can spend a couple hours on the mountain and not see another soul. Just photographing, walking, having my happy hour beer, sitting quietly, whatever. It genuinely feels like it's my mountain. So I'll share with you some of the natural beauty of this place, it's wildflowers and autumn aspens. I included some mountain-top panorama shots in the original post and left them there except for this one below. I'm so lucky to have this in my backyard.

 So this is what Chewie and I were driving through in summer 2025 -- it was a spectacular wildflower season, with virtual carpets of wildflowers covering the mountainside.

There are lots of snowshoe hares in the area but they are very hard to capture in a photo, as they generally do not sit still long enough. But I finally caught this guy in the road. They have very large white paws, but his are quite muddy today.

Nearly all of my favorite varieties of wildflower grow here. Here are some of the individual flowers I like. Whipple's penstemons come in white and purple varieties. I love it when they grow right next to each other. The red is Indian paintbrush which grows quite profusely.

There are also a lot of blue columbine up here, Colorado's state flower. 

I am also very partial to mariposa lilies, which in 2022 and 2025 had superbloom years; they were everywhere!

A less common flower is this gentian, but there is an area at Caribou where they are particularly plentiful.  Green gentian (also called monument plant) can live to be 80 years old, but each year of its life all you see are the basal leaves growing, reaching to the sky until the last year of its life when it produces a stalk from 4 to 7 feet tall covered with beautiful small  flowers. This is the  “monument” phase. Each flower produces up to 60 seeds ensuring the next generation. The plant then dies leaving the dead stalk which may stand for a few years. (that info sourced from wildernesswalks.net) 

Blanket flowers often seem to me to have a lot of personality. This one among the ubiquitous red paintbrush.

Tons of wild buckwheat and harebells cover the mountain. And here we have a harebell nestled in the middle of a buckwheat!

Late in the season the fireweed comes out in force. They're most often clumped together in patches, but one year I was intrigued by this lone fireweed beside this trippy dead tree. I was by myself this day so I spent ages photographing it from all different angles -- so much fun. This is my soul food.

The clouds are often the star of the show up here. Once in awhile a clear blue sky, but usually some dynamic clouds. 

My favorite wildflowers above all others are elephant heads. You can easily see why they're called that. And there's a whole marsh full of them up here. Also some white bog orchids growing in the same marsh. 

It's not uncommon to see moose here, but I haven't managed to grab many photos of them. Here are a few, though. A couple boys and a mama and baby. 

And a very unique find was this moose spine and pelvis. Either natural causes or a mountain lion left these remains. 

Okay now a turn to autumn and a little bit of what my Caribou has to offer in the way of aspens. 

The wall of aspen! And believe me, it is nearly impenetrable, the trees are grown so thick you can hardly squeeze your body between them.

An enchanted forest! 

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