Our first weekend in Salida was filled with adventure and activity! Lots of hiking, shopping and getting out of the cabin. Let’s read on, shall we?
Friday, I woke up way earlier than I wanted- 3:00 in the morning, even on my keep-my-ass-asleep gummy. I did hit the sack pretty early the night before so I suppose it should have been expected.
As the morning wore on, I started getting sleepy so when Brandy woke up at about 7:00, I laid back down for a short nap, waking up just under an hour later to Ash pouncing on me, trying to wake me up.
I got up and got dressed, then looked on AllTrails for a hike for him and me to take while Brandy worked. We settled on Skull Trail and Spartan Trail.
Morning Hike
AllTrails has this trail listed as a moderate 2.7 mile loop trail with 262 feet of elevation gain.
In the summer of 2021, this is a hike that Ash and I would have practically ran through. We took much longer and much more strenuous hikes than this, though, at this point, being so far out of practice, and in our advancing age, we considered this a pretty challenging trail.
The trailhead was a short 15 minute drive from the campground. The last mile or so was a dirt road and the last quarter mile or so was not well maintained. The dirt parking lot had a pretty tremendous dip leading in to it from the road.
The lot was pretty large, my best estimate giving about 15 or 20 spots, about 7 of them were occupied after I pulled in and parked. I strapped on my pack full of water and leashed Ash up and we were on our way just after 8:30.
The sun was shining and it was nice and warm by the time we headed out onto the trail. Of course, we were on the trail for minutes before Ash decided he had to poop, right in the middle of the trail. I picked it up and tied the bag to a carabiner on my pack and we continued on our way.
The trail was indeed pretty challenging but not to the point of failure (at least, not on my part.) We only touched double digit grades going up a couple of times, and even then, only very, very briefly, but there were times when we stopped to gather ourselves and take a drink of water before pressing on.
The trail seemed to be a very popular mountain biking trail. There were several occasions that we’d have to step off the trail to let a biker pass us by. One time, a couple passed us and let us know that there were more coming so we waited. Soon a couple more bikers came past telling us there were still more. We continued to wait then a solo biker came through and said there was one more behind him. Soon, the last man approached, panting heavily, pushing his bike up the trail. He indicated he was the last one so Ash and I fell in behind him only to round the bend and find the entire group resting in a large shady patch. There would be no point in us passing them only for them to pass us again as soon as they mounted their bikes so we just waited patiently for them to resume their ride.
On one of our resting occasions, I reached back to grab a water bottle I had tucked away in the side pouch on my pack and my hand came back covered in dog poop.
Gross.
I took my pack off and found that the bag that I’d been carrying for a mile or so had developed a hole and was leaking poop. It got on that water bottle and on my hand but thankfully, I didn’t see any on my pack or anywhere else so that was a plus.
I did my best to clean my hands with the tools I had at my disposal (which at that point were water and a bandana), we took our water break and we pressed on.
As we approached the halfway point, we found ourselves in another parking lot with a couple of cars in it. The trail passed right through this lot and as we were getting ready to continue on, we spied an unleashed dog coming off of the trail on the other side of the lot, no human in sight. I waited for a moment to make sure the dog wasn’t lost or anything, then the dog’s human came riding up on a mountain bike behind her. Good, dog’s not lost, we move on.
Soon after this point, we found ourselves heading downhill again, undoing all of the elevation gain we’d achieved up to that point. Ash requested breaks more and more frequently, which I honored, and for the most part, waited until he indicated he was ready to move on. When we were about a tenth of a mile from the trailhead though, he laid down and did not want to get back up. We were mere minutes from getting back to the truck but he just didn’t want to go… until I asked if he wanted to go see his mama. Immediately, his ears perked up and he jumped up, raring to go, until he realized he still had more trail to hike. He started slowing way down again and just before we got back to the parking lot, I denied his request for a rest. We were practically there now.
After just under 2 hours (one hour and 17 minutes of actual moving time), we ended the hike, got back in to the truck, cranked the AC and made the short drive back to the campground.
At the end, the trail was pretty great. It afforded some pretty nice views of the Collegiate Peaks, of Salida, and lots of the desert landscape I’ve come to miss from New Mexico.
I took a few pictures from the hike which, as always, can be found in my Photo Diary.
Later That Day
After the hike, Ash and I returned to the cabin and after Brandy logged off early from her day, we headed back to the Salida River Trail. I threw on a pair of swim trunks I’d picked up from a Buc-ee’s on one of our recent adventures and we headed to town.
On our way down F Street, we passed by a house with an International Harvester Scout, bright orange with white graphics down the side and up on to the hood. The machine looked like it was in fantastic shape and brought to mind memories of when my dad had a canary yellow Scout. His didn’t have back seats and I remember me and my sister sitting in the open back cargo area on the wheel wells as we rode in it.
After parking at Sands Lake, we took a short stroll to the same place we’d dipped in to the water on our previous visit to the area. The water was nice and cool as I waded out further toward the center of the river. As we settled in, a couple of young black women came floating by on a pair of tubes. They yelled, “Hi!” to us, we answered back and I said, “That looks relaxing.” They replied, “It’s not!” and they floated away laughing.
We chilled for a bit longer then headed back to the truck. We took the long way around back toward town, stopping at a dispensary on the way, then we continued on highway 50, past our campground, and on to Canon City once more. Brandy wanted to the New Horizons Thrift Store on the outskirts of town. As soon as we walked in, I picked up a bag of corn puff snacks (similar to Buc-ee’s Beaver Nuggets) and polished it off before we even left the store.
Brandy picked up a few things and we headed back out, stopping on the way back to grab a picture of what we’ve come to call Gorilla Rock, a hill that Brandy showed me that resembles a gorilla.
We got back to the cabin at around 6:30, I took a gummy, Brandy laid down and that was pretty much the end of Friday…
An Adventurous Saturday
We were up nice and early Saturday and were out of the cabin just after 8:30 am. Our first stop was Alpine Park in town where a good-sized farmer’s market is held every Saturday throughout the summer.
The first booth we got to was a food truck selling, among other things, breakfast burritos. I grabbed one and an iced chai latte. Both were mid, at best.
We strolled around, Brandy picking up a bunch of produce for the remainder of our stay here, including some broccolini (which I’ve never made but am excited to), mixed greens, radishes, tomatoes, zucchini and more.
We took our bounty back to the truck and drive deeper into downtown Salida. We parked and started up and down F Street, poking into the few stores that were open before 10:00 am. Among the shopping, she found a place that sold artisan bath bombs so she picked up a butt-ton of them, then we found a store where I picked up a couple of books telling stories from national parks and long trails (SUPER looking forward to reading those!)
Come 10:00, the thrift stores that she wanted to visit opened so we started hitting those. She picked up a few more things, as did I, then we headed back to the truck to move it a little closer to our final stop in Salida: Boathouse Cantina, a restaurant with a balcony overlooking the Arkansas River. We were lucky enough to snag one of those tables and watched swimmers, rafters and anglers in the water as we ate.
Buena Vista
Once we’d finished lunch, we hopped back in Clyde and headed to nearby Buena Vista (pronounced “BYOO-nuh VIS-tuh” by the locals.)
We pulled into town a little after noon with no plan in mind. Just strolling their downtown was really all we wanted to accomplish, and so we did. I did find a couple of 3XL shirts that I am/will be able to fit into… finally! We didn’t come away with much from this side of the trip. We started to feel a little worn down so we decided to cut this part of the trip short and start making our way back to Salida. With no deadline (except getting back to Ash), we decided to explore a back route out of Buena Vista and boy, did it not go according to plan…
At first, it was fine. Nice, paved road through the back side of downtown Buena Vista, then residential areas, then it got a little more rural. The pavement gave way to a gravel road. The houses became set back off the road more, surrounded by the desert dust and brush, the fences around properties now log fences. Then, the houses almost entirely disappeared and were now replaced by regular recreation areas for camping, launching rafts and so on.
Soon those became more sparse, and the gravel road became more pitted and narrower, then, before we knew it, we happened upon the Midland Tunnels.
Like the Gilman Tunnels in the Jemez Mountains, the Midland tunnels were originally railroad tunnels and were used for carrying supplies to early pioneers in the 1880s, and just like the Gilman Tunnels, are only wide enough for one car to pass through at a time, even on a bidirectional road. This meant that when we got to the tunnels and there was already a car in them moving toward us, we had to wait for them to finish their part of the journey before we could begin ours.
The oncoming car passed through the last opening so we dragged Clyde through the fissures, in total, I think there were like 5 separate tunnels to drive through.
We continued on, passing more scattered campgrounds and some wonderful desert landscape, as well as the Arkansas River, always in our periphery in this part of Colorado. I was intrigued by how turbulent the water was in this part though, much more so than downstream in Salida. There, the water moves, but there are no rocks or boulders creating the rapids we saw while leaving Buena Vista.
The road continued on for a super long time. Often times, we were flanked by a sheer wall up a cliff side on the right and a sheer drop to the rushing Arkansas River to the left. On more than one occasion, I thought to myself, “I sure hope no one is coming around that corner…”
Finally, after what seemed like hours (it was really, maybe, like half an hour, tops) we got to a bridge that carried us over the river and back to the highway that took us back to Salida.
On our way back into town, we stopped at the dispensary (again) and another thrift store before heading to the grocery store to pick up a few things for the upcoming week. Before you knew it, we were back in the cabin, Ash happy to see us. I took him for a stroll then took our laundry to the on-site laundry room, spend a couple hours doing that, then took a gummy and watched a movie with Brandy before heading to bed.
Pictures from this adventure can be found here.
Sunday’s Soak
Sunday morning we got up and out of the cabin nice at early, once more just after 8:00. We stopped at the Salida Coffee Caboose for a Mexican latte and a breakfast burrito then we made our way toward the St. Elmo/Mt. Princeton turn off of US Highway 285. Right around 9:00, we found our destination at the Mt Princeton Hot Springs, a resort built around the natural, non-sulfurous hot springs emptying into the Arkansas River.
The resort offers a $5 per person day pass to gain access to the hot pools (one kept a little over 100°, another at just over 90°) and the river that rushes by down a treacherous set of boulders.
We arrived, paid the fee for the day passes and headed out to the pools. The 90° pool was our first stop. It was a comfortable temperature, warm, I would describe it as. We swam about for a bit then headed over to the warmer pool. As I dunked in, I felt a tremendous amount of relief in my aching back and knees. The hot water embraced me and soothed my weary body. As I stood up so that my upper torso was out of the water, it was exposed to the wind which made it cold so I immediately dunked back down, just leaving my head above the pool’s surface.
The heat was a bit much for Brandy so we made our way down to the river. She had sandals on, I was wearing flip flops. She kept her sandals on but I kicked off my flip flops before making my way down to the sandy river bottom. The floor of the waterway was covered in small rocks and pebbles that did not feel good stepping on so I put my flip flops back on and traversed the stony bottom to a pool where Brandy and I relaxed for a while longer.
The water here was cool but was intermittently warmed as water from the natural spring flowed into the pool where we were soaking.
St. Elmo
After a good soak, we headed back up to the truck and made our way further west to the ghost town of St. Elmo. We had visited St. Elmo a little over a year ago, as the first stop of our 2024 Summer Tour, on our way to Gunnison with Ash and Sue in tow. On that trip, as we arrived, it started raining, and Ash was in the truck so we didn’t get a chance to really explore much. With just me and Brandy this time, and very cooperative weather, we had the chance to stroll a bit more casually this time.
We parked near the General Store at the entrance to the town, then walked up the street the rest of the way, ducking into the buildings that were open and snapping pictures the whole way. We headed up County Road 162 to the nearby St. Elmo School building where a carefully recreated schoolroom from the 1880s was on display behind security glass. We took a couple more pictures there, then headed back over Chalk Creek to Main St then back up to the general store where Brandy bought a ring, and we grabbed a couple of bags of seeds to feed the chipmunks that run rampant around the store.
The chipmunks are acclimated to humans- as soon as I sat down with the seeds in my hand, they started climbing all over me, over my shoulders, up my legs, hopping on to my outstretched hand… It was fascinating watching them shell the tiny seeds, eat the kernels and leave the empty shells in my hands.
As I dumped a handful of the shells on the ground at my feet, I noticed that empty seed shells were more prevalent than the gravel in which they laid.
After sitting, letting the rodents crawl all over us for a bit, we dumped the rest of our seeds in large piles and headed back to the truck for the drive back to Salida.
Lunch Stop
On our way back to town, we stopped at Iron Chest Steakhouse, a restaurant that shares a building with Western Recreation Industries, both of which are housed within the Colorado Outpost.
We ordered a started of fried green tomato caprese and split a prime rib sandwich. That was my first time trying fried green tomatoes. Combined with the mozzarella, the arugula, the olive oil, and the balsamic vinegar, it was pretty tasty.
The sandwich was pretty damned good too, the beef was tender and the bread was nice and soft. It was served with an au jus, but if it hadn’t been, it would have been fine.
After lunch, we headed into WRI, shopped around for a minute, Brandy picking out a hoodie and a t-shirt, then we made our way to Walmart before heading back to the cabin for the rest of the relaxing day.
I do have a separate Photo Diary album for the adventures on Sunday, check that out here.
Great Weekend
All in all, it was a pretty fantastic weekend that definitely warranted its own 3,000 word post. We went to a lot of places and did a lot of things in those three short days, just adding to everything we were able to squeeze in after work during the week.
The second week in Salida wasn’t nearly as adventurous, but my next post about our amazing weekend in Gunnison will be something else!
Until Then!
-Phil