Colorado Explored – Golden Loop & Phantom Canyon

On the coat tails of last week’s blog about Cripple Creek and Victor this week is more about the area just south of Victor. This route, Hwy 67, is part of the entire Golden Loop Parkway that takes your on a scenic tour of the area, visiting everything from modern day mining facilities to ghost towns from the days of the Gold Rush.

There are several roads you can loop around through but the most fascinating to me is Hwy 67 south of Victor through Phantom Canyon. Portions of this road were first built in the late 1800’s and used by people of the time to transport goods and mainly gold to the regions south of the Cripple Creek and Victor areas. In fact two main railroad companies of the day used Phantom Canyon to move some of the 21 million ounces (more than the California and Alaska gold rushes combined) of gold from the Cripple Creek and Victor mines to the city of Florence (south of the canyon).

Depending on when you travel to this area and weather it might be wise to have a truck or at least something with more ground clearance than an all wheel drive sports sedan. I’ve made the trip several times in my car, but there were other times where roads were rutted out and washed through due to water coming down the canyon from heavy rains or snow.  It is a very narrow dirt road for the most part and there will be areas you will wish and hope that no one is coming at your from the opposite direction.  But the scenery, plants and flowers and wildlife are amazing.  Throughout the canyon the road has an elevation change of 4000 feet and signs along the road depict old towns in the canyon from the mining days.

Take your camera, pack a lunch and enjoy the drive!