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Published: October 2nd 2009
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It seems that the weather is favouring us and the storm that was to drop snow and rain, stayed further to the north. Our route today took us first to Royal Gorge. The Royal Gorge (also known as the Grand Canyon of the Arkansas river) is a canyon on the Arkansas River near Canon City, Colorado. With a width of 50 feet at its base and a few hundred feet at its top, and a depth of 1,250 feet in places, the 10-mile-long canyon is a narrow, steep gorge through the granite of Fremont Peak. It is one of the deepest canyons in Colorado. In 1929 Canon City authorized the building of the Royal Gorge Bridge, which at 1,053 feet above the river is the highest suspension bridge over water in the world. We didn venture into the theme park where the bridge is centered because all I wanted to do was to photograph it. Its possible to take a cable car, to walk, or drive across the bridge but somehow the cost of $25 just to walk or drive across the bridge seem a bit much. I took several photos, one which captured the red cable car crossing the gorge
alongside the bridge and several other photos looking down into the gorge.
We continued on and passed through two old historic mining towns, Cripple Creek and Victor. More than 100 years ago, Cripple Creek attracted tens of thousands of gold-seekers in search of their fortunes. The Gold Rush is part of Cripple Creek’s colorful history, and today, visitors can choose from a variety of heritage-rich experiences such as descending 1,000 feet underground on a gold mine tour or by visiting one of Cripple Creek’s museums.
Cripple Creek’s history extends back to the days of old, when mountain men explored the area and Native Americans lived off the land. The area would see many changes as the Gold Rush put Cripple Creek on the map. Soon, major transportation systems and railroads were developed and the gold camp grew. While World Wars and Labor Wars have aided in the decline in the number of mines currently in operation in Cripple Creek, the Cripple Creek & Victor Gold mine is still in operation today. In recent history, gaming was introduced into Cripple Creek in 1991 and it has become one of the major industries of Cripple Creek. There are approximately 20 casinos in
this small town.
The town of Victor has a similar history and has many picturesque old building and museums.
Although the day was sunny, the temps were in the 40s and 50s and the winds quite strong. We had lunch today in the car outside the Victor police station/Visitors center. It wasn an outdoor picnic type day.
We continued on for a drive through Phantom Canyon, one of the roads on the Gold belt Scenic Route. One of the first five such routes designated by Colorado, the Gold Belt Tour National Scenic Byway is an excursion along the southern edge of the Front Range in historic mining country. The Gold Belt route is named after the old Florence and Cripple Creek Railroad’s Gold Belt Line.
Phantom Canyon Road, which follows the historic Florence and Cripple Creek Narrow Gauge Railroad route, linked the Cripple Creek District gold camps with the towns of Florence and Canon City during the mining boom at the turn of the century. Phantom Canyon is the only one of the Gold Belt Tour roads that we traveled today. The canyon is magnificent with very steep walls, lined with fall colours mixed in with the pines. Much of
the underbrush was also changing colour and just added to the fabulous scenery. The strong winds has brought down many tree limbs along the canyon road but fortunately they were relatively small and this dirt road was still passable.
From Phantom Canyon, it was back to the hotel in Salida. Tomorrow we plan to go to The Great Sand Dunes National Park.
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