17th May, 2009 Grand Junction to Idaho Springs, Colorado

17th May, 2009 Grand Junction to Idaho Springs

Just when you thought you had seen everything, today was awesome, from Grand Junction we travelled East over the Rocky Mountains, summit being 10,603 ft. Up through small Ski resorts (no shortage of money here if the homes etc are anything to go by), such as Rifle, Glenwood Springs, Gypsum, Eagle, Edwards, and Vaili. We followed the Colorado River up the Valley - a raging torrent with many rafters enjoying the rapids, untill we reached the summit, a big climb towing the RV but on a fantastic two lane highway (each way). At the top we went through the tunnel and started coming down the mountains. Still lots of snow on the tops as the photos show.
We drove down to a place called Georgetown (Old Gold Mining town) where we looked for a place to stay (Sorry NO), so we drove 12 miles further down and booked into Idaho Springs (another Gold / Ski town).
That afternoon we toured the old Argo Goldmine and mining tunnel / processing works, it is closed now due to flooding in 1943, but an engineering marvel, they drilled and dynamited their way through 4.16 miles of rock in 1897 - 1910. We got to do some panning as well and are now the proud owners of a couple of flakes of gold.
If you plan to visit the Argo - DON'T, its run down and you are left to yourself to tour the buildings, there are more interesting mines.
Back to our camp, after a walk through town, very historic, an open fire with toasted marshmellows and out of the bush wander 7+ mule deer, came about 60ft from our RV - nice end to the day.

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