How does the light shine on the road to Crestone

Everyone is helpful, everyone is kind

On the road to Shambala
Everyone is lucky, everyone is so kind
On the road to Shambala

___ Daniel Moore

Don Luis Maria Baca Ranch. 

Top of cockscomb peaks rise above "Shambala"

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

Crestone, a small village near the bottom, on the western slope of the Sangre de Cristo Range, at the north end of the San Luis Valley, was originally part of Navajo country, and is still considered holy ground by the Hopi and Navajo. Today, it has also been called Shambala, as it has risen as an international spiritual center.

Crestone is named for the 14,000-foot peaks that lie just east of the town: Crestone Peak and Crestone Needle. The Crestones, as they are known collectively, in turn, took their name from the Spanish word crestón, which, according to Walter Borneman and Lyndon Lampert's book A Climbing Guide to Colorado’s Fourteeners, means: “the top of a cock’s comb”; “the crest of a helmet”; or, in miners’ jargon, “an outcropping of ore”.

It developed as mining town around 1900, but little pay dirt was produced. In the 1970s, a large land development, the Baca Grande, was established to the south and west where several hundred homes have been built.
The Crestone area, which includes the Baca Grande and Moffat, Colorado, is known as a spiritual center with several world religions represented, including: a Hindu temple, a Zen center, a co-ed Carmelite monastery, several Tibetan Buddhist centers, and miscellaneous New Age happenings. Much of this spiritual development was catalyzed by the couple Hanne Strong and Maurice Strong in the 1970s, who set out to make it an interfaith center, and who established the Baca.

The song, 'Road to Shambala,' written by the songwriter Daniel Moore, and first released by the Texas songwriter B.W. Stevenson, was ultimately made popular by the band Three Dog Night.

Moore told Songfacts: "Regarding the song, 'Shambala,' it was written entirely by myself, Daniel Moore, in the fall of 1972. It was recorded by Three Dog Night in December of 1972. It was recorded by B.W. Stevenson in Late February, 1973 and released two weeks before the Three Dog Night version was released. During those two weeks B.W.'s version sold 125,000 single 45s. Then Three Dog Night released their version and sold 1,250,000 single 45s."

The word "Shambala" has a spiritual meaning in the Buddhist religion, and some Tibetan Buddhists believe that it is a mystical land hidden somewhere in the Himalaya mountains. The song's writer, Daniel Moore, told Songfacts the following story:
"In 1972 my brother, Matthew, called me and informed me that he had received a letter from Dorothy Beg at Lake Pleasant, Massachusetts that told him where and who he had been in his past lives. He had sent a letter to her requesting this information. After recounting several past lives the letter ended with, 'My messenger tells me to tell you, 'Let your light shine in the halls of Shambala.'' In the phone conversation at that point Matthew said, 'Shambala, what the hell is that?'
So I did some research and found dozens of references to the word Shambala, the 5000-year-old word originating from Sanskrit. Some were weird, some were goofy but the one I liked was found in Alice Bailey's Treatise On White Magic. It basically said that there was a gigantic cavern under the Gobi Desert that has a replica of every evolving human being. And when that replica begins to light up or glow (meaning you are cleaning up your act and becoming more spiritual minded or raising your consciousness to a higher level), there is point where your replica gets bright enough to warrant a spiritual teacher being sent to you.
I remember getting excited about the sound of the word, 'Shambala.' Before I wrote the song, I called a friend, Eddie Zip, who I'd been working with and telling him, 'That word Shambala has a magic sound to it, you ought to put together a band and call it Shambala, you couldn't lose.' We had just recorded one of his songs titled 'Don't Make God's Children Cry.' We were getting - ELEVATED!
I wrote the words and melody, a cappella, driving on the Ventura Freeway in about 10 minutes. I got home, picked up my Martin guitar and had the music finished in five minutes; a pretty good 15 minutes.
The recording session of my demo in 1972 was with Dean Parks and Jim Varley. Dean (playing bass) was sitting with me (I was engineering, playing the acoustic guitar and singing live) in the control room. We were wearing earphones with the speakers turned off, and 50 feet away at the other end of the studio on the other side of the glass with earphones, was Jim Varley playing drums. Twenty-eight years later I had Greg Beck overdub an electric guitar and that is what you hear on this recording. That's the only time Dean Parks and Greg Beck have played together, according to Greg.
Three Dog Night heard the song through a publisher, Lindy Blaskey, who was working at ABC Dunhill Publishing. He called me and was very excited because he had gotten such a positive reaction from Three Dog Night and their producer Richie Podler. Anyway, they cut it, it was their single and it was a hit. Bless all of their hearts.
In the Guinness Book of World Records, under Prophecies, there is a reference to Shambala where it says, 'Any one who furthers the name, 'Shambala' shall be rewarded 100 times.' And so it is."

President Grant’s cabinet established the second Baca Grant and is pictured in Harper’s Weekly.

First settlement in Crestone area occurred after the American Civil War with the granting of the Don Luis Maria Baca Grant No. 4 to the heirs of the original Baca Grant at Las Vegas, New Mexico. Title to the grant at Las Vegas was clouded by a second grant of the same land. The Baca heirs were offered alternative lands from the public lands of the United States. The square tract selected is 12.5 miles (20.1 km) on a side south of Saguache County Road T south of Crestone. The Bacas deeded the land to their attorney, but it soon passed by tax sale to a third party. The ranch headquarters were on Crestone Creek to the southwest of Crestone. The Baca Grant was one of the first large tracts of land to be fenced in the West and in its heyday was the home of prize Hereford cattle.
In addition to ranching there was some mining in the area to the east and south of Crestone of small shallow iron oxide copper gold ore deposits. In 1880 the town of Crestone was platted by George Adams, the owner of the Baca Grant.

In 1900, with the help of Eastern investors, George Adams ignited a minor boom, reopening one of the more promising gold mines and building a railroad spur to the town and the mines along the Range south of town. However, lacking good ore, the boom was short lived. A long period of decline followed.
By 1948 Crestone had declined to its post-war population of 40, mostly retirees and cowboys who worked on the Grant, as the Baca Grant was called. Many of the old cabins were used as vacation homes. By 1971 the Baca Grant came into the ownership of a corporation which subdivided a portion of the Grant, creating the Baca Grande, a subdivision originally platted for about 10,000 lots. At great expense, underground utilities were installed and roads built. However, sales lagged and by 1979 the development was considered a liability by the corporation. Maurice Strong, owner of a controlling interest and his fiancée, Hanne Marstrand, visited the development and "fell in love with it." They were inspired to create a world spiritual center and began granting parcels of land to traditional spiritual organizations.
The population gradually began to increase and by 2006 several hundred homes had been built and a number of small spiritual communities had become established. As the Baca Grande contained no provision for business uses, Crestone became the business center of the community and having enacted a small sales tax was in a position to finance further improvements.