New Colorado haunts
Sept. 6, 2015

Cañon City, Arkansas River . . .

Even with our combined time spent in Colorado over the years, we find that we have missed exploring the south-central region of the state, an omission we are partially rectifying.  Our route homeward landed us in Cañon City for a few days, plenty enough to convince us that a longer stay is in order for the future. 

At an elevation barely higher than Prescott, the small city boasts an ideal climate due to its unique siting.  A big draw for tourism there is the Arkansas (pronounced like the state here) River that flows through town and is host to a myriad of white-water rafting enterprises.

The highway west of Cañon City follows the Arkansas for many miles, giving us ample opportunity to see its popular rapids, primarily Class III & IV, some up to Class V.  Gentle stretches were few and far between.  The waterway is also renowned for its trout fishery; we saw many trying their hand at pulling in a nice catch.

River walk, town doin's . . .

Cañon City fully utilizes the Arkansas River as it flows through town with a lengthy trail riverside and nice parks shaded by huge trees.  Every Tuesday, there is a market set-up with local farmers selling their produce, musicians playing and arts and crafts booths.  We met many friendly folk there.

An extended historic district includes a great many nice older homes from the area's early mining days; the 1885 Robison mansion outshines them all. 

Tunnel trail . . .

It took a while because it is not widely known to the current populace, but we finally discovered the original purpose of the tunnels on Tunnel Trail, one of our hikes at Cañon City: they were excavated to allow for a pipeline to bring water to the townspeople from higher up on the Arkansas.  What a project that must have been!

To give some perspective on the length of this tunnel: that's Chris at the other end.

Another of the many sills, lava inflows, in that region.

Railroading . . .

After skipping the Royal Gorge bridge traverse as an overcharged commercial enterprise, we opted to see the canyon from below via the railroad, clearly a better choice.  For nearly three hours, we gaped and gazed from an open-air car at the river as we followed it through the canyon’s precipitous walls and at the towering rocky cliffs closing us in.

The bridge is spectacular from below, too.

At one point, the gorge is so constricted that the rail line has been built on a bridge suspended over the river.

A pipeline that carried water to Cañon City in days past was built of wood and suspended through Royal Gorge.  It is in an advanced state of deterioration from weather woes and rockfalls.

We saw lots of rafters - one went into the drink right before our eyes but was pulled back into the boat by her friends in the pool below the rapids - and one intrepid kayaker.

Skyline Drive . . .

We were advised that Skyline Drive was the place to view the town, both by locals and by Sara, who had traversed it at some time in the past.  Despite her reassurances that I would not be scared, I was.  Unfortunately, once you are there, you have no choice but to finish the ridge drive on the very narrow one-way road with steep drop-offs on both sides.

One pull-out allows vehicles to stop so the occupants can walk to a place where there are dinosaur tracks imprinted into the cliff’s overhang.  That was the big draw for Chris; I’m thinking more like big whoop-de-doo, but really how often does a person see such a thing and after all, I had already risked my life to get there.

Temple Canyon . . .

On one of our back-road explores, thinking we might come at Royal Gorge from the other side of the canyon, we found ourselves on a dirt road leading to Temple Canyon.  As far as we got before dusk set in was a wide prairie-like grassy area - public land interspersed with some private ranches.  Our late start didn’t allow us to pursue the route to wherever it might have taken us, but it is a region I would very much like to return to.  It appeared that the road might continue on through a pass in the mountains.

Prisons, abbeys . . .

Perhaps the oddest thing about Cañon City is the huge number of prisons and penitentiaries -  a full 13 to be exact.  One maximum-security facility there has housed the baddest of the bad, including Timothy McVeigh and the Boston bomber.

One of the structures is still in use even though it dates from Territorial days; a section of it is used as a prison museum, which for some misguided reason, I wanted to see.  I was thinking history, which of course it was, but was unprepared for the exceedingly somber experience it turned out to be.

I think this once lovely house, now abandoned, was the warden's home.

Then there was the Holy Cross Abbey tour.  The building’s exterior was beautifully ornate; somehow, I expected the interior to follow suit.  Instead, it seems all available monies were expended in getting the building built and little was left for finishing inside.  The rooms and chapel are spartan in contrast to the outside.

Just as we entered, the lights dimmed and went out - an omen of what our self-guided tour was to be.  Oddly enough, we persisted in perusing the building utilizing ambient light from windows, not near sufficient brightness to read about exhibits in the hallway, but judging by what we were able to see, it was no big loss, and very little was explained anyway.

Inexplicably, the Abbey had what they called an "Indian room".

Equally inexplicably, this former box grand piano converted into a table seemed to be their pride and joy, worth an entire handout on its own, primarily about how it fell out of a wagon, was reduced to splinters and restored by a penitentiary inmate.

Chris was all a-twitter about this retired engine that is displayed at the Cañon City depot.

He carefully and at great length explained to me all about the unusual drive shaft.  It went something like this: "Blah, blah, blah."

Also exciting, he said, was how these unique upright pistons "Blah, blah, blah."

More birds . . .

During our hikes and drives in the Cañon City region, we added to our trip bird list: Say's phoebe, western kingbird, canyon wren (to be truthful, we didn't see it, but its call during the train ride was unmistakable) & green-tailed towhee.  Those that visited our feeders were black-headed grosbeak, lesser goldfinch & house finch.

Buena Vista . . .

Small town America is alive and well.  We have stayed in, bypassed, blew through, briefly explored and admired untold numbers of burgs, villes, towns and settlements from seacoasts to the Rocky Mountains, and I must say there are hundreds, if not thousands, in which I'm fairly certain I could feel quite at home.  Clearly, none of them approach perfection like our particular slice of heaven in Prescott, and climate-wise, they might not all suit; however, very many of them would be completely comfortable for settling.

We rolled into Buena Vista, Colorado, for a week's stay over the Labor Day holiday; in addition to the obvious grandeur of the mountains all around us, the town has an attractive charm with Cottonwood Creek being the focal point of a well-enjoyed city park.  Folks fishing in the ponded waterway and children laughing at the playground burgeoned into a large part of the population enjoying themselves during the Labor Day fishing derby.

It doesn't hurt Buena Vista's allure that it sits right on the Arkansas River - they have created their own version of a riverside park with hiking/biking trails and plenty of fishing access.  While utilizing those trails, we watched a paddleboarder who had an incredible degree of persistence.  It appeared that he found the perfect spot on the water to practice his balancing technique - over and over, he climbed up on the board and with body twisting and arms waving, attempted to remain upright.  Over and over, down he went into the water, only to try it again.

Amazingly, the landscape right around Buena Vista and our out-of-town RV park so resembles portions of our Yavapai County that if I were set down in the midst of it and told I was back in Arizona, I would believe it.

If you told me this photo was taken at Granite Mountain, I would have no reason to disbelieve it.

The presence of a large river is a dead giveaway that this is not in the Prescott area.

The collegiate peaks . . .

Mount Harvard, Mount Princeton and Mount Yale are the primary peaks along Buena Vista's western skyline.  Our forays upward included a jaunt to Cottonwood Pass at 12,126 elevation.  That is high enough for me that exertion there translates to headache and light-headedness.

Cottonwood Lake is peacefully beautiful, and appears to be a prime fishery.

This section of Cottonwood Creek flows freely, but many miles of it in the valleys climbing toward Cottonwood Pass are a meandering maze of beaver ponds, occasionally marked by a pyramid-like stick lodge.

Trees struggle to survive just below timberline . . .

. . . yet shorter species thrive.

Storms build quickly in the high country and just as quickly pass.

Our view from the trailer was awesome, at least until the Labor Dayers arrived to obscure some of it.  New trip birds in that region include black-billed magpie, mountain bluebird, Brewer's sparrow, pinyon jay, western scrub jay, Clark's nutcracker & golden-crowned kinglet.

Various critters joined us; some small like this one that came to live inside . . .

. . . and this one, a bit bigger, that dined gluttonously on bird seed the pinyon jays threw out of the feeder.

Chris was the hero of the day when he used his hoe to scoop this very sizable bull snake out of the road where it had coiled up in response to cars driving over it.  I recognized it as a snake as we straddled it.  By the time we got back to it, others had stopped and hailed Chris for removing it from harm's way.  It was one of the heftier specimens I have seen.