The Wet Mountain Valley is a high elevation mountain valley located in Custer County in south-central Colorado. The towns in the valley are Westcliffe and Silver Cliff, which are at an elevation of just under 8,000 feet. The area is known for its historical ranches and excellent hay production and it is nestled beneath the rugged Sangre de Cristo Mountains that parallel the Wet Mountain Valley on the west and the biologically diverse Wet Mountains on the east. The valley is drained by two major drainages; Grape Creek which begins in the south of Custer County near Music Pass and flows North into Deweese Reservoir from there it enters a narrow gorge before reaching the Arkansas River and Texas Creek which begins northwest of Westcliffe and flows to the northeast meeting the Arkansas River at US Highway 50.
Famous quotes containing the words wet, mountain and/or valley:
“We artists are indestructible; even in a prison, or in a concentration camp, I would be almighty in my own world of art, even if I had to paint my pictures with my wet tongue on the dusty floor of my cell.”
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
“The mountain stood there to be pointed at.
Pasture ran up the side a little way,
And then there was a wall of trees with trunks;
After that only tops of trees, and cliffs
Imperfectly concealed among the leaves.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“To be seventy years old is like climbing the Alps. You reach a snow-crowned summit, and see behind you the deep valley stretching miles and miles away, and before you other summits higher and whiter, which you may have strength to climb, or may not. Then you sit down and meditate and wonder which it will be.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)