Alright, movie buffs, do you recognize this iconic location?
Near the top of Owl Creek Pass above Ridgway, Colorado you will find this spot, made famous in the 1969 movie, True Grit, with John Wayne. Here, the shootout between the movie’s hero, Rooster Cockburn and four bad guys began with Wayne uttering the famous line, “Fill your hands, you son of a bitch!”
It is a beautiful location with the Cimarron Ridge of the San Juan Mountains and the 10,958-foot-high Chimney Rock towering above the surrounding landscape.
We just returned from five days of R & R in this area and thoroughly enjoyed every minute. Mother Nature did not really cooperate with extraordinary heat and very dry conditions with, literally, zero clouds above the entire time.
Those conditions did not lend themselves to good portrayals of the extraordinary landscape and geologic features. We visited Deb’s Meadow on the first day, scouting the location, with the intent to return at sunrise or sunset later in the trip when there was some sort of dramatic clouds above. Sadly, that was not to be but, hey, it was better than being at work! 😉
