South Platte Canyon (Spring 2013)

Written by ceddammit

Welcome back to Voyages with Parkinson’s, better known (to me, anyway) as TremorTravel.com! For this week’s ThrowBack Thursday, we continue the Colorado Camera Craziness that was the spring of 2013. This week, we visit the canyons of the forks of the South Platte River. These are among my favorite of Colorado’s many canyons, and you’re about to see why. First off, the South Fork of the South Platte…

Welcome to Walt Disney Canyon!
Any tree that can grow out of solid rock is my hero.
Don’t look now, but I think that rock is eyeballin’ you…
…oh, yeah. It’s totally checkin’ you out!
This tree is a super hero!
Close-up of a dead stick. Exciting, eh?
Another heroic tree, possibly hundreds of years old
Some day, that big boy will come rumbling down the hill. Don’t be there.

We have now reached the point where the north and south forks come together to form the South Platte River. For decades, ending in 1940, there was a railroad that came up the South Platte (Waterton Canyon) and continued up the North Fork of the South Platte. There was a stop right here, at the confluence of the forks. And at that stop, stood the South Platte Hotel. Oh, hey! It’s still there!

The ol’ South Platte Hotel
A close-up in case you want to read the sign by the door
Check out the rustic flagpole on top of the hotel.

Now we move up the North Fork of the South Platte. This was the main line of the Denver, South Park, & Pacific Railroad (DSP&PRR). In the days before automobiles were common, the railroad ran special day-trip trains on weekends; city folk from Denver would ride the train up into the mountains, have a picnic, maybe do some fishing, or just frolic in the mountains, then hop back on the train to head home at the end of the day. One of the popular picnic grounds was at the base of Dome Rock, which can be seen in the next photo…

Dome Rock, popular picnic spot in the 1890s
This guy is EATING a FENCE. What a dumb ass!
Impressively flat-faced formation – result of a rock cut during railroad construction?
I’m seriously, you guys…
…how do trees do this?

We end our day at the unincorporated community of Buffalo Creek. The road diverges from the old rail route here, and the canyon opens into a wide, flat-bottomed valley. Not much of Buffalo Creek can be seen from the old railroad grade, as it was not a railroad town – it actually pre-dates the railroad. But there is a little bit of antiquity along this stretch of the road…

That’s it! I gots no more! Tune in again next Thursday, when we will return to Central City – but this time we’ll do the FULL tour.

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