Gold Camp Road (September 2009)

Written by ceddammit

A couple of months ago, ThrowBack Thursday (TBT) took us to the lower end of Gold Camp Road (GCR). As you may recall, that journey up Gold Camp Road ended when we reached a tunnel that was closed due to a cave-in. Today, we’ll pretend we went through that tunnel. In reality, there’s a trail that bypasses the closed tunnel; either way, today’s trip begins at the other end of the closed tunnel.

As I explained during our previous visit, Gold Camp Road was built on an abandoned railroad grade. This route was originally traversed by the Colorado Springs & Cripple Creek District Railway. This railroad was commonly called The Short Line, as there were two other railroads that ran from Colorado Springs to the Cripple Creek Mining District, and they were both much longer routes than this one. Unlike the lower and upper stretches, this middle stretch of Gold Camp Road is closed to automobiles. However, it is open to ATV’s, hikers, and bicycles. So, in late September 2009, I strapped my bike onto the back o’ my car and headed down to Th’ Springs.

NOTE: Being an old railroad grade, this road is not steep. However, the grade remains consistent for several miles. This makes for an unrelenting slog when biking uphill. When biking downhill, it’s easy to reach seriously high speeds without pedaling at all. This is fun, but can also be quite dangerous, as there are some deceptively sharp curves and lots of loose gravel. I died three times on this ride.

Looking back through the closed tunnel
The trail that bypasses the closed tunnel takes you past this small waterfall.
Looking back down at the “upper” end of the closed tunnel.
One of the old railroad cuts
I call this type of rock “Pike’s Peak granite”. It’s much more crumbly / gravelly than the varieties of granite that prevail in the rest of the state.
In places where Pike’s Peak granite was unavoidable, the traditional vertical rock “cuts” were replaced by rock “valleys”
It’s September 20th, so autumn has begun!
This rock formation is a great example of non-Pike’s granite.
Another of the old railroad tunnels
This tunnel provides excellent shelter from the weather. I know because it started raining while I was pedaling through.
I call this type of rock “Estes Park granite”. It makes for much better scenery than the gravel that comes from Pike’s Peak granite
Is this merely a rock formation, or the fossilized remains of an ancient Transformer?

From this point on up to the Cripple Creek Mining District, I just drove through and did not stop to get any more photos. I think this was due to a combination of running low on daylight and the mostly one-lane road being quite busy. I hope to get back up there on a future Colorado trip, as there is some amazing scenery along the 22 miles of GCR’s upper stretch. But for now, that’s all I’ve got.

Next week on TBT: Boulder County’s “Switzerland Trail”

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