Just what the future holds for Crystal City, none can say. The people who own it prefer to keep it as it is, a cool, peaceful relaxing haven. But with the road over Schofield Pass connecting Crested Butte with Marble and Carbondale open, and with the known mineral deposits there, it may again become a thriving mining center. The Crystal River continues on its way through its narrow canyon, sometimes on a level with the highway, sometimes hundreds of feet below it. Half way between Crystal City and Marble the river passes Lizzard Lake, one of the most beautiful in Colorado. It is supposed to be the crater of an old volcano. It is quite shallow around the edges for several feet out, then drops abruptly to unknown depths. The Game & Fish Department keeps it well stocked with trout and even amateur fishermen can land their legal limit. This is one of the highly mineralized spots in the valley: gold, silver, copper, etc. [Illustration: THEODORE (SGT.) JACKSON—ready to start on a pack-trip from Schofield Park into the high country. —_Photo courtesy_ Theodore (Sgt.) Jackson, Delta, Colo.] [Illustration: DICK CarSCADDEN—packed and ready to start from Crystal City on one of his guided treks into the wilderness. —_Photo courtesy_ Dick CarScadden, Aspen, Colo.] _MARBLE, A Lovely Little Hamlet_ In a Lovely Glen, named for a Lovely White Calcium Carbonate—Marble (_Elevation 7,950 Feet_) The Crystal River next reaches the valley where the town of Marble is located. The Spanish explorers, Escalante and Dominquez, may have come into this territory in 1541, but they left no permanent records. The “Forty-Niners” were supposed to have come this far off their beaten trail on their way to California; gold pans and other mining equipment were found near Prospect Ranch by Bill Gant who trapped beaver in this valley in 1859. Benjamin Graham prospected in the Elk Mountains in the early 1860s. These early explorations are legendary and no accurate information is recorded. Neither the Ute Indians who silently followed the trails of mountain sheep, elk, deer, and bear through the parks and meadows, green with succulent grasses and gay and fragrant with wild flowers, nor the early prospectors who tramped the mossy banks of the limpid streams, snaring the sunning trout from their pebbly beds, tracking the beaver and marten for their warm pelts, or roaming the mountain peaks in search of precious metals, realized that the white rock that stood out on precipitous mountain sides was more valuable than all the animal pelts and precious metals they sought.