Category Archives: 104-Colorado Springs, CO

104-Colorado Springs, CO, 194-Comfort, TX

The Cave Without a Name

The Cave without a Name is a natural limestone solutional cave in central Texas.   It is about 60 feet below the surface and has numerous formations.  It has several fairly large rooms as well as narrow passages. There was one passage of about 20 feet where you have to bend at the waist, but it was wide so I didn’t get too claustrophobic.

The cave is privately owned and operated.  When it was first discovered and opened to the public the owner didn’t know what to call it, so it was called Cave without a Name for several years.  Then the owner held a contest to give it a name and offered what was a large reward in that time (about the 1920s).  He renamed it but the local people and a lot of tourists thought it was a new cave and were not happy to find it was the same cave they had previously visited.  So, the owner put the original name back.

Here are some pictures:

104-Colorado Springs, CO

We toured a gold mine at Cripple Creek – 1,000 feet down!

After we took the train trip in Cripple Creek, we went to the Molly Kathleen gold mine. As we drove up, we saw the gallows(head) frame from which the elevator skips are lowered into the mine 1000 feet below. There are two skips, one over the other. They were made to lower 9 miners per skip. We were only able to load 6 of us in(very tightly) and once loaded we could not shift or move our hands.It takes approximately 1 min, 45 secs to descend. There is a bell system to let the operator know when and where to lower the skips. This mine was discovered in 1891.
When we arrived at the bottom, we started the tour. We saw how miners drilled holes in the walls for dynamite to remove large chunks of gold bearing rock. One miner knelt and held a star bit resting on his shoulder while his partner struck the end with a sledge. If you were the holder, you had to trust that the driver had good aim because if he missed you were dead. The miners worked 12 hour shifts. There were few breaks and lunch was while working.
Years later, pneumatic drills were used. They were very noisy. No wonder miners were deaf. There was also a pneumatic tram to scoop and load the ore into a tram.
We also saw different minerals that also are in the mine. Several copper outcroppings, some sulphur and iron as well as Fluorite. These veins are typically indicators of gold bearing rock.
Mining continues until 1961, when the local mill for ore processing closed. After a few years, the owners decided to give tours. No gold had been extracted since, except the samples given to visitors(you need a microscope to see if you have any actual gold).
Here is the website for the Molly Kathleen: http://www.goldminetours.com/goldminetours.com/History.html

And here are pictures we took:

104-Colorado Springs, CO

Cripple Creek Steam Powered Railroad

We decided to take a trip to visit Cripple Creek, a gold mining town west of Pikes Peak. Gold was discovered here in the 1890’s. There are numerous mines including one right in town. The town is mostly old buildings circa 1896 as most wood buildings were destroyed in a fire that year.
In order to get gold ore from the mines around town, they built a narrow gauge rail line from town to the mines. Standard gauge for railroads is 4′-8 1/2″. This line is 2 ft.
The engines are coal fired steam. The actual engines used date from the 1920’s since the originals no long exist.
Along the line, we saw many old abandoned mines. Mines would stake a claim and dig down about 10 ft. Then they would take samples to be assayed. Assayors would determine how much gold was in the rock then the miner would determine whether it was worth his time to continue mining.

Here are pictures we took:

104-Colorado Springs, CO

Air Force Academy; could have been Jeff’s alma mater!

Well, we arrived at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Bringing back memories of 1964. I got an appointment to AFA(Same initials as Admiral Farragut Academy- my HS alma mater). To think, I could have been a “Doolie”( Freshman at Air Force) The real highlight of the visit is the Cadet Chapel. Quite impressive.
In the photo of the Quad, you can see the grid where Doolies must walk or run. They are not allowed on the white areas in between the grid.
The campus is quite large with mountains to the west and the plains to the west. Most of the academics and barracks are located arounf the quad. There are approximately 4400 cadets including women here.

104-Colorado Springs, CO

Pikes Peak – you can drive to the summit at 14,115 feet!

While in Colorado Springs we planned to drive to the top of Pikes Peak. The summit is 14,115 feet which scared me because I’ve been getting pretty queasy and light-headed at around 9,000 ft. But, I read that a study had shown that Sumatriptan helps with the effects of altitude sickness and I have a supply for my migraines. So, I took one this morning and we headed out.

The scenery is beautiful and the drive is very steep and windy! It’s just 19 miles from the gateway entrance to the summit, but that 19 miles take you from about 6,500 ft to 14,115 ft in less than an hour!

At the summit I was a bit light headed so I chose to stay in the car. Jeff and Laddy walked around the saw the 360 degree view. At the top it’s basically a big pile of loose rocks, because over time the soil has washed away with the snowmelt and wind, and the rocks also have fractured and broken up. There’s no vegetation right at the summit although just a bit lower there is some moss and grass. A bit lower there are lots of pine trees and aspens and underbrush and grasses.

There’s lots of wildlife on the mountain, but we only saw a marmot who sat on a rock and checked us out.

While not the highest peak in Colorado, Pikes Peak is one of the ‘Fourteens’, meaning it’s one of the few mountains that tops 14,000 feet.

Here are some pictures we took:

 

104-Colorado Springs, CO

Garden of the Gods

Within the city limits of Colorado Springs there is a park called “Garden of the Gods”. It’s a very unique area containing vertical rocks sticking up out of the ground. Most are quite red but a couple are gray.

The park is owned by the city and admittance is free! The only cost is to watch a 15 minute movie that goes back 1 billion years to tell the story of how the area and the rocks were created.

The short story is that the rocks were originally horizontal bands of soil at the bottom of a shallow ocean that were very compressed over long periods of time. Then, when the sublimation that formed the Rockies occurred, the horizontal bands were pushed into vertical bands, and the harder bands have not eroded like the other bands did.

There are several hiking trails that go around the rock formations. We hike a 1-mile trail going to a formation called the “Siamese Twins” because there are two towers standing together and joined.

There’s also a very unique dinosaur fossil that was discovered in one of the rocks. It’s the only one of it’s kind in the world! It resides in a museum in the east, but there’s a cast of it at the park and a recreation of what the dinosaur might have looked like.

All in all, a very interesting and informative park! Here are some pictures:

104-Colorado Springs, CO

Florrisant Fossil Beds – fossils and petrified wood buried in volcanic mudflows

The Florrisant Fossil Bed National Monument isn’t very well known, but it is very interesting.

Thirty-four million years ago this part of Colorado was a lake with a warm, temperate climate. There were many types of insects, birds, fish and mammals. This was also the home to a forest of giant redwoods, some estimated to be 500-750 years old and 250+ feet high.

But, there was a nearby volcano that erupted and spewed out ash and mud flow that buried the lake and 15 feet of the surrounding forest. The lake had a surface layer of a type of algae that, combined with the ash/mud flow, served to cement the insects, mammals, plants, birds etc. and eventually produced a huge assortment of fossils in the area. The stumps of the redwoods became petrified over time.

In the late 1800 settlers came into the area and started to find the fossils and stumps. Some of the settlers collected and preserved a wide array of fossils and turned them over to scientists who came out to see the area. But, other settlers opened their land to tourists who dug up lots of fossils and broke apart many of the stumps for souveniors.

In the 1930s area residents started petitioning the government to protect the area. But, it wasn’t until 1969 that the area became a national monument and the remaining fossils and stumps were protected.

Now the area is a grassy meadow and forested land with many trails that visitors can walk around the view the remaining petrified redwood stumps and a museum that displays many fossils and a history of the area.

Here are some pictures we took: