DESTINATION Generic 83 Photosets
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| Colorado Midland Railroad, CO | | -
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| | Colorado Midland Railroad, CO | | | |
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Colorado Midland Railroad, CO
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| no partners | | Driving up and down Ute Pass there are numerous tunnels ok 8 to be precise in some spots several hundred feet above the highway. Turns out these were built in the 1880's by the Midland railway company. It was the first standard gauge railway that ran across the continental divide and ran from The Springs to Leadville. In fact it ran through what is now our back yard which is why we have the walls from an icehouse on our property. Anyway it ran until 1918. The tracks are gone. We didn't pick the best place to access it so we had to cross fountain creek on pallets and scramble 3-400' up a lose slope to hit the railroad bed. This was more difficult as I was carrying 26 lbs. of toddler. I didn't bring a carrier as this was an impromptu hike. We didn't go to all of the tunnels but looped into Manitou and climbed down a canyon and followed the exit ramp up along rainbow falls back to the car. Some of the tunnels are so long that you cannot see light in either direction from the middle. Micah thought they were  and enjoyed the walk. The last one was walled up in the middle with a broken chain link fence and appeared to open up at someone's house so we turned around at this point and exited down canyon. There was a visible retaining wall as we went down canyon that was pretty impressive. I'll have to go back and hit up the tunnels in the other direction as they are doing a massive amount of flood mitigation on the highway that would be interesting to see from above. It feels good to get out.  |
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