June '08    Page 7               | back | index | forward |

Saturday, June 28

We took off today with camping gear, expecting that we might want to tent camp tonight if we found the right place. We enjoyed our trip on the dirt Gold Camp Road earlier, so we decided to do another today - the Phantom Canyon Road to Victor.  We left Colorado Springs south on 115 to Penrose, then US 50 west to C0 67 north.  This last road starts off paved but soon turns on to dirt road called Phantom Canyon Road. This goes through a canyon of the same name, really a rail bed for a narrow gauge railroad used in the late 1800's to haul gold ore from Victor and Cripple Creek. 

Some great views along this road:

Lots of lowers along the road...

The dirt road ends in Victor but continues as CO 87 to Cripple Creek and beyond.   We came to Cripple Creek just in time for the Donkey Derby Days annual donkey races.  We also stopped again at Womack's casino for great steak sandwiches.

In Cripple Creek, we headed west and north on County Road 1 to the Florissant Fossil Beds, a national monument.  Here, large trees were buried in lava dust along with small animals, insects, fish and leaves.  A little further up the road is a commercial venture where you can pick on the shale for yourself at $10 per hour! 

At the end of County Road 1, at the village of Florissant, we headed west again on US 24 to the village of Lake George.  Here we headed south on County Road 96, a dirt road into Eleven Mile Canyon.  The South Platte river runs north through the canyon, and provides for catch and release trout fishing.

The regular campgrounds were full, so we headed for the primitive sites a few miles into the canyon, and then southeast on Wagon Tongue Gulch Road (unpaved and uneven).  We found a great campsite and soon had firewood secured and lit, and Patty was having her marshmallows.

A busy day!

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