Colorado’s Paradise Cove, Cripple Creek, Victor and Florissant (Whew!)

Although not a long drive today, we have a lot to see. If we didn’t stop along the way, the whole trip would be about 3.5 hours, but we do plan to stop, and our first stop is Paradise Cove. Paradise Cove is not a name one would naturally associate with Colorado. Sounds more like it should be in the Caribbean or along some sunny, warm coast. Be that as it may, it is here in beautiful Colorado.

Just outside Guffy about 12 miles (you remember Guffy from our earlier post, don’t you) on highway 102 is a small national park managed gorge. There is parking lot that holds about 2 dozen cars (at $9 each) and a porta-potty, that’s pretty much it. Since we were there after September 30, there wasn’t a fee to park, and there wasn’t the normal summer crowd of hundreds of hikers and swimmers. This place can be unbelievably popular during the hot months of summer.

Today, it’s more of a hiking area that we older folks enjoy. No cliff divers (really jumpers, not divers) today. Good thing too, not a lot of water in Colorado these days. The trail is easy to find and actually a pretty easy one for us novice hikers. There is a little elevation change during the hike but not anything to worry about. The whole trip takes about 50 minutes if you don’t spend a lot of time enjoying the rocks and the gorge.

OK, so here are some pictures you can ooooo and awwww over while we press on to our next stop, Cripple Creek, Colorado.

Cruising along highway 102 we enter Teller County and turn onto highway 11. We’ll need to go around Mount Pisgah to get to Cripple Creek so it’s hwy 11 to hwy 1 and straight into the town. Only about 15 miles from Paradise Cove so roughly a 25-minute drive. As we enter Cripple Creek, there is a war memorial for those who have lost their lives defending us against terrorism. This is a simple memorial that is humbling to those who take the time to pay their respects for those listed on the stones. These brave men and women made the ultimate sacrifice for you and me, and they didn’t even know us. If you’re going to Cripple Creek, stop by.

If there is such a thing as a “typical” Colorado gold town, it would be Cripple Creek. Surrounded by more than 500 gold mines, the town produced some 22 million ounces of gold in their heyday. Back in 1890, a man named Robert Womack hit it rich when he discovered gold in Cripple Creek. Many prospectors followed and soon Cripple Creek was a bustling gold town of more than 10,000 residents. One particularly lucky man was Winfield Stratton who founded the Independence mine, one of the largest gold mines in history, producing over 200,000 ounces of gold in 6 years!

But all was not peaches and cream in Cripple Creek. By 1903, the miners had formed a union to seek better working conditions and pay. When they went on strike to force a change (usually with violence), the National Guard and Pinkertons were sent in to break up the union. What followed is known as the Colorado Labor Wars (yes, “WAR”). Bombings, sabotage, and even killings took place at many mines killing both miners and militia. In the end, the owners won and many miners were deported, starved out or just left the area to find work elsewhere.

Today, the remaining mining activity in the area is mostly with small underground mines and one very large strip-mine, the Cripple Creek & Victor Gold Mining Company. This massive mine operates without stop, 24 hours a day, 7-days a week and is THE richest gold mine in Colorado, producing over 322,000 ounces of gold in 2019! At roughly $1,400.00 per ounce, that’s $450,800,000.00! But it comes at a cost, the mine is “open pit” type and has forever scared the land. The artificial mountains created by this type of mining can be seen in the background of some of our pictures.

But Cripple Creek has another source for their gold. One that doesn’t run out very easily and is much easier to mine, casinos! Today the streets of Cripple Creek are lined with casino after casino, plenty of places for you to strike it rich, or make a donation to the Colorado State Historical Fund.

If you’re not the gambling type, Cripple Creek has plenty of other activities such as, the Cripple Creek Ice Festival, Gold Rush Days, The Donkey Derby and the Top of the World Rodeo. Or you can visit the Mollie Kathleen Goldmine and take a tour 1,000 feet below ground. There is also a narrow-gauge railroad that will give you a 40-minute ride through the mountains, stopping occasionally for photos, if you’re there between May and October. But the piece-de-resistance would be the 2-hour tour of the CC&V mining operations, only costs about $12 to see the largest gold mine in Colorado.

Enough about Cripple Creek, now on to Victor! According to the town’s website, no one knows exactly how Victor got its name. Some say it was named by the Woods family after a miner who lived there, others say it was a name drawn from a hat. However, Victor got its name is irrelevant, what is relevant is that Victor had about 500 gold mines surrounding it in the late 1800’s and those miners needed a place to stay. Welcome to Victor!

During the gold rush of 1892, three men, Warren, Harry & Frank Woods, arrived at what would soon become Victor, Colorado and bought some 137 acres of land. That land was platted and became the town of Victor bringing the Woods family about $50,000.00. At that time the town was known as, “The City of Mines” because of the 500+ mines located in and around the town.

I say in the town because around 1894, the Woods family decided to build a hotel in Victor. The excavation uncovered one of Victor’s best-known ore veins, the Gold Coin vein. This mine gave the Woods brothers funds to expand into other areas. They built a hydroelectric power dam and sold power to Victor, Cripple Creek and Pueblo; built and operated the First National Bank of Victor and the Golden Crescent Water and Light Company.

But the best-known resident of Victor was Winfield Stratton. Winfield came to Victor as a carpenter looking for work. What he found was more than even he could have imagined. This carpenter found a paying gold mine that turned out to be one of the largest in Colorado history, the Independence mine. That was 1891, by 1894, Stratton had become Victors first millionaire earning close to a million dollars a year until 1899. In 1899, Stratton sold his interest in the Independence Mine for $11M and retired from mining.

One would think that Stratton, with all that money, would buy luxurious homes, yachts, travel to far away places, have several luxury cars, etc. but that wasn’t his style. Instead he lived in a modest styled home in Colorado Springs and donated money to major public projects around the area. He bought the Colorado Springs street car system and spent $2M upgrading it to become the best in the U.S. He donated money to build the county courthouse, money to build a baseball stadium in Colorado Springs, he built the Independence building where he had an office, and most generously gave money to those down and out, including gold moguls like Robert Womack and Horace Tabor. He also built the Myron Stratton Home, named after his father, as a place for aged poor and dependent children. Stratton was quite the philanthropist.

Back to Victor. A fire in 1899 destroyed most of the wooden structures, but they were quickly replaced with brick structures. Today most of these buildings still exist as shops and stores for tourists and locals alike.

The area here is covered with abandoned mines. Some have been restored, most are in a state of decay but there are several you can reach by a short hike. We decided to hike up to the Vindicator mine just on the edge of town. Short hike of about a half-mile with about 200’ change in elevation. Fun hike and a really large abandoned mining complex. If you look closely in the pictures, you can see the tailings from the CC&V mine in the background.

We also walked over to check out the Theresa mine just next to the trail parking lot. Both of these mines have several buildings, lots of machinery and well-marked / groomed trails for an easy stroll into history.

Now that we’ve had some time in modern history, time to see some ancient history. Florissant is our next stop and the Florissant Fossil Bed National Park. About 22 miles away lies the fossil bed of an ancient lake, Lake Florissant. Some 30-50 million years ago (the Eocene period), Florissant was covered by a great lake, had warm temperatures, and was home to a forest of redwood trees. Yep, the same family of redwood trees that grow in California and Oregon!

Over millions of years, this area saw volcanic eruptions, mudflows, snow storms, a changing environment that trapped animals and insects along with plants in thin layers of shale, ash and mud. During this time a giant mudflow, called a lahar, buried the redwood trees and everything else in Lake Florissant under 15 feet of ash and mud.

What happened next is obvious, fossils.

Our stop here will be to see the many fossilized trees outside the visitor’s center. No one is allowed inside due to virus concerns so we’ll need to come back when this is all over and see some of the insect and animal fossils inside. But for now, let’s look at some petrified redwood trees.

That’s today’s trip. The whole enchilada took about 8 hours with stops for hikes and to check out the towns. Not a bad drive, all paved roads and little traffic. Doing a little research for our next trip so more to follow. Happy trails to you.

BTW- in case you aren’t familiar with the U.S. National Parks pass, here’s some news. You can buy a yearly pass to ALL national parks for $20.00. This is good at any national park for 1 year. But, DON’T THROW YOUR EXPIRED PASS AWAY!  What you can do is keep your expired pass until you decide to buy a lifetime pass and send it in for credit towards your lifetime pass fee. OK, a lifetime pass costs $80.00. You can buy yearly passes each year for 4 years, then send them in for credit towards a lifetime pass and not pay a penny! All the money you spend on annual passes will be applied to a lifetime pass. AMAZING!!!!!Imagine driving into Yellowstone $35/car – FREE, Grand Teton $35/car-FREE, Yosemite $35/car-FREE. Get the picture?