Canon City, CO (08-03-20)

 First, I just need to say that the first N is supposed to have a tilde over it- I searched for at least 2-3 minutes for a way to make it so, and gave up.  That’s ok though, the town didn’t even add it until 1994.  Cañon City.
There, I copied and pasted from somewhere.
Also, we may not have driven down here to go hiking if we knew we would be coming here next, but we booked at the last minute. Our destination from here is a little further north, Loveland CO.

Anyway, Canon city is known for quite a few things- 13 prisons, one of the highest concentrations of mountain lions in the country, and world class fossils, most of which are in museums all over the world.  Oh, and Royal Gorge.












Yep, Royal Gorge is the big tourist attraction here, and there are many ways to experience it- you can cross over it on a pedestrian bridge, a zip line or a gondola, or you can see it from a raft, a hiking trail, or a train. We chose the train and the hiking trail.















The train through the gorge is the same one we had seen on the hiking trail the other day. It’s a two hour trip, which they do 3 times a day.  They offer decent meals for purchase but we went on the 9 am ride and had already eaten. I was most interested in being in the “outdoor” car, so we wouldn’t be near too many people, but when I found out we would have to walk thru 2 cars to get to it, they were nice enough to change our tickets. The train was booked at half capacity so that was nice too.




On the first half of the trip we were treated to a narrative about the history of the area, and we learned the difference between a gorge and a canyon.  A canyon is wider than it is deep, and a gorge is deeper than it is wide.

Anyway, back in the day, the water in Canon City was polluted with chemicals, so a wooden pipeline was built along the gorge wall to bring water down into the city.  The pipeline was 8 miles long and gravity powered. In 1972 the water in it froze for so long, the town decided they needed a better solution.




The second half of the ride was quieter, but we spent the whole time outside anyway, enjoying the fresh air.

One of the other curiosities in the area is Bishop’s Castle. Jim Bishop has been single handedly building this castle for over 40 years.  It’s full of staircases and wrought iron work and even has stained glass windows. The inside is mostly an empty shell.  Or, so Paul says.













 It was also very full of tourists, so I waited outside.  I would love to come back and climb all over it another time though.

After that busy day of tourism, the following day we planned on hiking, and chose Red Canyon Park. It’s owned by the town, and has some camping spots, but it has no actual official,  marked trails. So, although we got out and walked around, we didn’t really do any hiking.















The hiking trail along the gorge is pretty short, and very easy.  There is an amusement park type place along the gorge as well, but its pretty pricey to get in, and there was nothing we wanted to do in there anyway.  So we hiked the short hike, then took some back roads to check out the area.

After a hike or other outing, we often wander around just checking things out. Paul can quite frequently be heard to say "I wonder what's down this road" as he veers off onto a dirt road.

This day we managed to make it over an hour down the road, to Cripple Creek, a small mining town that we have been to before. It was swarming with tourists so we ordered a sub, ate it in the truck, and turned around to go home.

The longer hike we managed to do is called Island in the Sky. We combined a couple of trails and made it 5.5 miles and almost 600 ft of elevation gain.

At some point we stopped for ice cream, but I felt like I couldn’t enjoy it…these people kept staring at me.  Felt like they were judging me