Part II of the road trip from Cotopaxi to Denver was on the ‘back’ road or Highway 285. The town of Salida is known as the “crossroads” or as its citizens prefer, the Heart of the Rockies. Downtown Salida is home to Colorado’s largest National Historic District with 136 preserved buildings from a wild west past. Fairplay is pretty much a one-store crossroad where coffee and tacos are served with T-Shirts, fishing tackle, and winter jackets.
Colorado is riddled with “ghost towns.” Abandoned after the mining boom became a bust, people vanished from these once-thriving communities and left a bit of the past behind for us to see today. St. Elmo is a real ghost town founded in 1880 and lies in the heart of the Sawatch Range, 20 miles southwest of Buena Vista and sits at an elevation of 9,961 feet. Nearly 2,000 people settled in this town when mining for gold and silver started, now totally deserted. It was quite a drive to see it.
Como, at 9,800 elevation, was a major hub of the railway for the Denver, South Park & Pacific Railways with up to 26 trains passing through town each day. Still a few folks there, but it has a ‘ghostly’ feel to it!
The Collegiate Mountains have several peaks, each named after an Ivy League school. Near Princeton Peak is one of the largest hot springs facilities in Colorado. Warm water flows in a stream down the mountain into huge pools! It is the ideal place to recharge but we were just passing through.
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