On Aug. 3, 1990, U.S. President George H. W. Bush approved a joint resolution declaring the month of November as National American Indian Heritage Month, also referred to as Native American Heritage Month, according to the U.S. Department of Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The Indigenous people, who first inhabited the land now called Grand County, were from several tribes who hunted the plentiful game in the warm months in the Middle Park. The Utes, Arapaho and Sioux women used this time to prepare for the winters on the plains. Women made tepees called “nuu-kani” from elk, deer and buffalo hides stretched over lodgepole pine or aspen cut with sharpened animal bones or stones.

According to author Gail Beaton in “Colorado Women,” tanning hides was a laborious and time-consuming chore. After scraping the inner surface with a bone or antler, women washed, soaked, rinsed, and wrung out the large hides. After several days of drying in the sun, the tedious task of stretching began. Heavy hides were softened with stone rubbing by hand by the women and young girls. Lighter hides were chewed to soften them for hours by the women.

Moving was always the women’s responsibility. The tepee poles, formed into a triangular travois, were tied on each side of a horse with the hide stretched behind. Often the extended poles would drag on the ground from the heavy loads, making a broad track. Over the years, these “lodgepole trails” became wilderness highways that guided gold prospectors and early French trappers.

Those trails often evolved into freight wagon roads. Trail Ridge Road, a nationally designated All American Road, goes through Rocky Mountain National Park and roughly follows the Ute trail, the path that Native Americans took thousands of years ago to cross between what is now Estes Valley and Grand Lake. Trail Ridge Road is the country’s highest continuous paved road.

There is evidence of man-made rocks formations being used as game drives along Trail Ridge Road that were strategically placed to trap animals in specific areas to be hunted, as well as wickiups in lower elevations, which nomadic people used for shelter during the summer, according to the Rocky Mountain Conservancy.

Arapaho people called that trail located on the ridge as “taienbaa,” meaning “where the children walked” because it was so steep that children could not be carried, but had to walk. The Indian Peaks Wilderness honors the Indigenous tribes of Grand County, including the Apache, Arapaho, Arikaree, Kiowa, Navajo, Ogalalla, Pawnee and Shoshoni. 

Penny Rafferty Hamilton, Ph.D. is the author of Arcadia Publishing’s “Around Granby” and “Grand County” history books.