Paris Mill and Sacramento Creek

 Saturday we went on a hunt for a couple of things.  First was to head to Paris Mill, a restored (at least to stop the erosion) mill which processed gold, silver, and lead started in1895 and closed in 1951.  Colorado placed the mill on the Most Endangered Places list and a massive funding drive started in 2001 to restore and stabilize the mill and by grants and donations, the state of Colorado placed the mill on the National Register of Historic Places by 2020.  The mill is located at 11,003 feet elevation. 

As they passed I could hear them huffing and puffing

Some amazing houses

This was a weird one

Sign for duathlon - yikes!

We could not figure out how to get on the county road out of Alma - the street was blocked off.  There was a 30K, 5K, and duathlon, plus a 5K family run which started in town and went up past the mill, where they turned we don't know because we just went to the mill.  We could have gone further, but why?

And we climbed

Found the sign, where's the mill?

There behind the trees

Came around front (snuck in)

I think it's a tram - how they hauled ore down

And bikers coming down

Passed a number of bikers (not sure if they were doing the duathlon - first bicycle, then run, then bicycle which the legs are: 10K/20K/5K which is standard but we don't know what the race organizers determined the lengths to be).  We did not see any runners and can you imagine biking over 11,000 feet?  Wow.  As we were climbing up the road, Dave saw a sign to his left and hidden in the trees was the mill.  It is open during the week, but closed weekends.  We snuck in and took pictures.

I applaud these people - at 11,000 elevation!

This guy came in 6th

I think the run part was down there

Going up to Pennsylvania Mountain 

An abandoned mine

On the way down we passed bikers again, not sure what leg they were on.  As we got back down into town, we had to pass the finish line and a young man had just come in and I heard the race official say he was number 6 to cross.  

It was early so we decided to head up the Sacramento Creek road, just a ridge above Fairplay.  The Goat did great on those bumpy dirt roads.  Saw some amazing homes, not sure if they live there full time.  We traveled as far as we could (the road was blocked off to private property) and set up lunch in an amazing spot.  Looking directly north (in front of us) was Pennsylvania Mountain at 13,005 feet.  Still snow capped, just majestic.  Spent a couple of hours there, eating lunch, just staring.  Taking lots of pictures.  Just so peaceful.

Homes hidden away

Pretty?

Out lunch spot - and the Goat

Ansel Adams Jr - Dave getting close to beaver dam

This was amazing - stayed almost 2 hours

Our lunch friend - he stayed  by pond

Pond behind us.  It had horseflies size of a dollar!

Say bye bye - I want to paint this

Road ended where we lunched - it was private

Always looked for moose, elk, deer - never saw 

To end the day we decided to go look for the High Creek Fen Preserve. Sitting at 10,000 feet, the fen is from the last Ice Age.  It's the only fen known to exist in the southern Rockies.  A  fen is a type of wet meadow or marshland fed primarily by groundwater that is constantly flowing to the surface. We had been to Brown's Lake Bog near Columbus, Ohio and was quite impressed.  We were surely disappointed here.  We parked the car where we were told, walked about 1 1/2 miles in, then I gave up and Dave continued another 1/2 mile and he said it was very dry.  Nothing to see.  Lots of tracks of various animals, a few flowers, that was it. Oh well.

Way out there???

Goat way back at the beginning, ugh

Only pretty thing we saw - Indian Paintbrush

Dave way in the distance (black spot by yellow band)

Arkansas River Watching

Yesterday we traveled south and east to a town called Salida where they are known to have a family friendly swimming area and also some rapids that rafters come to hone their skills.  The Whitewater Park in downtown Salina offers kayaking, paddle boarding, surfboarding, and body surfing as well as swimming along the banks.  The river is extremely clean and every summer there is the famous Ark Boat Races and the Olympic sport of whitewater slalom racing which makes paddlers negotiate a series of gates suspended over the river.  The gates were not strung, they only put them up on high water and during the races.

View dropping down to BV

I called this guy Hotdog

Girl surfing, then gave up and floated down

However, we did see a couple of nuts playing in the rapids and also a girl who was trying to surf on the rip tides more up stream.  She gave up after awhile and floated by.  Some real hot-doggers were showing off for us.  We bored easily so decided to drive back to Buena Vista and go to the Railroad Bridge recreation area and sat with a wonderful view of the River.

Our lunch spot at Railroad Bridge RA

Here come the floaters

Had a great viewing point, watching the floaters come by.  I texted a picture to Rob, nephew, who was with us in 2018 when we floated down the river on rafts.  He said he shuddered when he saw the picture, brought back nightmares!  Been there, don't ever want to do that again.  At this point in the River, the classification of the rapids is Class 4, meaning narrow passages, multiple obstacles, rapids here tend to be longer, steeper, and more "technical" which translates to turns, spins, and lateral moves across the current. Having capsized 2 times on our 'tame' trip, I cannot even imagine floating on the river where we had lunch.

Rafters had stopped for lunch

Brings back (NOT GOOD) memories

These nuts were tagging along with the others.