Through a mysterious portal in the woods, Eli Turner journeys across time—into the fury of the Great Blizzard of 1913, the grit of the Great Depression, and the flames of the 2018 Spring Creek Fire—where he uncovers a single unshakable truth that defines Cuchara, Colorado: resilience.
He arrived at his Pinehaven cabin in the Cuchara Valley as the sun dipped behind the Spanish Peaks. He parked his Subaru under the pines and breathed in crisp mountain air. A quiet weekend at the cabin meant time to explore the land’s secrets. Behind the cabin stood an old wooden outhouse, weathered and still. Eli knew it was more than a relic—somehow, it was a doorway through time. Steeling himself with a deep breath, he pulled open the creaking door and stepped inside.
The Great Blizzard of 1913
One moment it was a calm evening; the next, Eli stepped out into a blinding snowstorm. Icy wind howled around him. Snowflakes swarmed the air, piling in drifts up to his waist. The familiar valley lay buried under a white siege, every pine and boulder cloaked in snow.
Through the blizzard, Eli spotted a dim lantern glow in a half-buried log cabin and pushed toward it. As he neared, a man burst out, shovel in hand, heaving snow away from the door. The man’s coat was crusted with frost; his mustache hung with icicles. He started at the sight of Eli appearing from the storm.
“Hello!” Eli shouted over the gale. “I’m just passing through.”
The man lowered his shovel, eyes wary but kind. “Better pass inside before you freeze,” he called back. He beckoned Eli into the cabin.
Inside, the two men crowded near a small iron stove radiating feeble heat. The man introduced himself as John L. Powell, a homesteader who had come over the Continental Divide by covered wagon to settle this land. His lined face and calloused hands spoke of years of hard work. Powell had the kind of eyes that held their ground—steady, unflinching, and shaped by someone who has walked through fire and kept going. There was a quiet intensity in them, a small spark that told Eli John was the kind of man who overcomes.
Outside, the wind battered the walls, but here in the glow of a kerosene lamp, Eli felt a momentary respite.
“Worst storm of my life,” John said, pouring Eli a tin cup of coffee with a shaky hand. “Started on December first and just keeps coming. We’re buried near five feet deep already, and it ain’t lettin’ up none. Every wagon road and trail is buried. Even the train tracks over La Veta Pass are lost under snow—nothing’s getting through.” He glanced at the ceiling anxiously as it creaked. “Roofs are collapsing around the valley from the weight. I’ve been up clearing mine every few hours.”
Eli blew on the hot coffee, astonished at the scenario. He realized he was witnessing the Great Blizzard of 1913—a once-in-a-century storm that had isolated these mountains.
John managed a tight grin. “I’ve seen wildfires and floods out here, but this? I’d almost rather fight a fire than dig out of this blizzard. At least you can see a fire coming. This snow…” He gestured at the door, which was already edged in white from blown-in powder. “It just smothers everything.”
A gust rattled the bolted shutters, and for a moment both men fell silent, listening to the muffled roar of the storm. John chuckled suddenly, breaking the tension. “Heck, even my horses are smarter than me today. They poked their noses out the barn and were like, ‘nope, not going out in that.’”
Eli couldn’t help but laugh. Despite the dire circumstances, John’s spirit was unbroken. This homesteader was fighting the blizzard with grit and humor, determined to outlast it.
Eventually, the daylight outside dimmed and the wind began to ease ever so slightly. Eli took that as his cue. He thanked John for the shelter and warmth. “You take care,” Eli said sincerely, gripping the man’s hand. Through the window, the swirling white was dying down into an eerie, snow-muted twilight.
Eli slipped back out to the snow-covered outhouse that stood near the cabin. As John Powell climbed onto his roof to clear the snow one more time, Eli pushed through the snow drift and opened the outhouse door. A sudden stillness fell, and the icy air vanished.
The Shadow of the Great Depression
Eli stepped out of the outhouse into blinding sunlight and a haze of dust. The snow and cold were gone—now it was a dry summer day, sometime in the 1930s. The buzz of an engine and the thud of hammers echoed through the valley.
Downhill, men in overalls were carving a new road into the mountainside. Eli approached one of the workers taking a brief water break by a black Model T truck laden with picks and shovels. The worker’s face was sunburnt and weary, but he gave a nod in greeting.
“Helluva project, isn’t it?” the man said, gesturing at the half-finished road that snaked along the green slope. “WPA’s putting in a highway over Cuchara Pass. It’s the worst spell I’ve ever seen. Money’s tight, work’s scarce, and everybody’s living day to day, hoping for better times. Didn’t expect to be blasting rock for a living, but a job’s a job.”
He introduced himself as a local who’d grown up in these mountains. His father had been a coal miner. “Back in ’30, this county had near 17,000 people working the mines. Then the Depression hit, mines shut down, and most folks left. Whole towns emptied out. Huerfano County lived up to its name—‘orphaned’.” He took a swig from his canteen and wiped his brow. “Me, I stayed. These New Deal road crews saved us. We’re literally paving a future here, even if we’re not sure what comes next.”
Eli looked at the newly cut road. He knew exactly what would come next: this highway would open the Cuchara Valley to the world. “When this road is done, tourists will find their way up here,” he said, smiling.
The worker chuckled, shading his eyes to gaze at the peaks. “Heh, in fact I hear some dreamers are already planning for that. A go-getter named Charles Powell—son of a homesteader wants to build a summer camp in the forest called Cuchara Camps.” He shrugged with a hopeful grin on his face.
Eli’s heart swelled hearing those familiar names. The worker couldn’t know, but those plans would become reality—Pinehaven and other mountain getaways would spring up, giving the orphaned county new life.
A foreman’s whistle blew, signaling the men to resume work. Eli thanked the worker for the chat and stepped aside as the crew returned to their tasks. Dust from the road construction hung in the warm air as trucks rumbled by.
Not far from the roadside, the old outhouse stood waiting under a spruce tree—just where it always did. Eli slipped inside once more, the din of hammering and engines fading. He shut the door, and the world lurched again.
Spring Creek Fire in 2018
Squinting through the haze, he stumbled forward and almost ran into a line of fire trucks and emergency vehicles stationed on a dirt road. The ground was uneven beneath Eli’s feet, a tangle of fire hose and pine roots hidden under a layer of ash. He caught his toe and pitched forward, barely catching himself on a bumper as hot cinders rained around him.
The air was choking. His eyes stung. What in the world am I doing out here? he thought, blinking at the glowing ridge. This wasn’t some historical curiosity—this was a live disaster. A falling ember hissed as it hit damp earth near his hand, and the smell of singed bark filled his nose.
Somewhere beyond the haze, men were yelling, engines growled, and the mountain itself felt like it was breathing fire. Firefighters in yellow gear were shouting orders as they worked frantically to hold back the blaze. A firebreak had been bulldozed at the forest’s edge; if the fire jumped it, Cuchara Village would be lost.
“Hey! You need to evacuate, now!” a commanding voice hollered. Eli turned to see a broad-shouldered man in a soot-stained helmet rushing toward him. The name on his jacket read JAMESON. He was the fire chief, eyes sharp with urgency.
Eli raised his hands apologetically. “I’m sorry—I’ll go.”
The chief grabbed Eli’s arm, guiding him toward a waiting truck. “We’re not kidding, this is mandatory evacuation. We’ve been fighting like hell to save this town. Those cabins down there,” he jerked his chin toward Pinehaven’s dark silhouettes, “are all evacuated and we aim to keep them standing.”
He paused a split second to catch his breath, and in that moment of flickering firelight Eli saw the fierce resolve in the man’s face. It was familiar, as if he’d seen it before. There was something in Chief Jameson’s eyes Eli couldn’t quite place. They didn’t waver and were focused, like a man who had weathered more than their share of storms.
The chief coughed into his sleeve and managed a grim smile. “My great-granddad—John Powell—he rode out a monster blizzard here in 1913. Grew up hearing his stories. He used to say he’d rather face a fire than another one of those big blizzards.” Chief Jameson gestured at the inferno on the ridge. “Now here I am, a hundred-plus years later, fighting flames in the same place. I wonder what he’d think of this.”
Before Eli could respond, a gust of wind shifted and the flames on the ridge began to falter. “The line’s holding!” someone yelled. By some miracle—sheer effort and a late evening rain shower that started to fall—the fire was slowly dying at the firebreak. In the distance, Pinehaven’s cabins remained untouched, standing defiantly at the very edge of the blackened line of burnout.
The chief took off at a run, barking orders and pointing toward the ridge as he snapped the crew into motion. In the commotion, Eli slipped away toward the old outhouse, which miraculously still stood at the forest margin. He stepped inside amid the fading orange glow and swirling embers.
Epilogue: A Legacy of Resiliency
A heartbeat later, Eli opened the outhouse door onto the cool quiet dawn of his own time. The forest was still and damp with morning dew, as if the night’s turmoil had been just a dream.
He stood near his cabin, heart full, and gazed out at the valley. In the distance, a line of charred trees on the ridge bore silent witness to the fire that had nearly taken Cuchara. Beyond that, the ribbon of the paved highway wound through the pass, a testament to those who built hope during the Depression. And all around him were the sturdy cabins and a village that owed their existence to the grit of people like John Powell.
Eli realized that each era’s struggles—blizzard, hardship, wildfire—were bound together by the same resilient spirit. The faces of John Powell in the snow, the road worker carving a future, and Chief Jameson under the fiery sky all seemed to overlap in Eli’s mind. Separated by decades, they all fought for this valley they loved.
Shouldering his pack, Eli walked back toward his cabin, the sunrise painting the peaks gold. He felt the living presence of history in the soil and in the whispering pines. The Cuchara Valley and its people endured, and their stories were alive in him. As he shut the outhouse door, Eli knew he had witnessed the true resilience of Cuchara—a legacy of courage and hope passed down through time, as constant as the mountains themselves.
END
* Authors Note: Time-slip fiction, as used in the Cabin in the Pines blog, is a form of historical storytelling in which a modern character, Eli Turner, travels between eras through an old mountain outhouse that serves as a portal in time. Each journey uncovers the people, geology, and folklore that have shaped the Cuchara Valley across the centuries.
These stories are distinct from the blog’s fact-based historical pieces by their titles, which begin with the words “The Outhouse at the …” Though fictional in form, each tale is rooted in authentic history — blending real people, places, and events with creative imagination to bring the valley’s past vividly to life.