Qualla: Animas River

Animas River: Introduction

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Staplegunther at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. Spanish explorer Juan Maria de Rivera recorded the name in 1765: "Rio de las Animas" -- the River of Souls. Some say the full name was once "Rio de las Animas Perdidas," the River of Lost Souls, commemorating people who died in its waters. The river has been earning that name ever since. Rising high in Colorado's San Juan Mountains at the ghost town of Animas Forks, it flows past the abandoned mining settlements of Eureka and Howardsville, through a canyon where a narrow-gauge railroad clings to the cliffs, past ancestral Puebloan ruins, and on into New Mexico. In August 2015, the river turned a shocking mustard yellow when three million gallons of mine waste poured into its waters. The Animas is a river that carries its history -- beautiful and catastrophic -- in plain sight.

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Image: Staplegunther at English Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

Animas River: Ghost Towns and Iron Rails

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andy Eick, CC BY 2.0. The Animas begins where the West and North forks converge at Animas Forks, a ghost town perched above 11,000 feet. From there it slides south past Eureka and Howardsville -- more ghost towns, more remnants of the silver mining frenzy that briefly electrified these mountains in th...

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Image: Andy Eick | CC BY 2.0

Animas River: Ruins Along the Banks

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit USEPA Environmental-Protection-Agency, Public domain. At the town of Aztec, New Mexico, the ancestral Puebloan site of Aztec Ruins National Monument sits along the river. The complex contains the only fully reconstructed Anasazi kiva -- a ceremonial structure -- in the United States. For much of its course through New Mexico, the An...

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Image: USEPA Environmental-Protection-Agency | Public domain

Animas River: The Day the River Turned Orange

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit USEPA Environmental-Protection-Agency, Public domain. On August 5, 2015, a crew working for the Environmental Protection Agency accidentally removed a plug while investigating a leak at the abandoned Gold King Mine above Silverton. The mine had been leaking toxic water at 50 to 250 gallons per minute for years, but the plug's remova...

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Image: USEPA Environmental-Protection-Agency | Public domain

Animas River: Trout, Eagles, and Hollywood

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Robert Tadlock from Westminster, CC BY 2.0. Despite its troubled history with mining contamination, the Animas remains a celebrated recreation corridor. It accounts for 8.9 percent of Colorado's commercial rafting market, generating 45,411 commercial user days and over five million dollars in direct expenditures annually. ...

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Image: Robert Tadlock from Westminster | CC BY 2.0