Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
were paid in gold. In z5 years or so the mines produced $8o0 million worth of gold and
made a lot of people rich. Jack Dempsey lived in Victor and started his career there.
Today only a couple of working mines are left and the population is barely a thousand.
Victorhadtheairofaghosttown,thoughatleastthestreetswerepaved.Chipmunksdarted
among the buildings and grass was growing through cracks in the sidewalk. The town was
full of antique stores and craft shops, but almost all of them were closed, evidently wait-
ing for the summer season. Quite a few were empty and one, the Amber Inn, had been
seized for nonpayment of taxes. A big sign in the window said so. But the post office was
open and one cafe, which was full of old men in bib overalls and younger men with beards
and ponytails. All the men wore baseball caps, though here they advertised brands of beer-
Coors, Bud Lite, Olympia-rather than brands of fertilizers.
I decided to drive on to Cripple Creek for lunch, and then wished I hadn't. Cripple Creek
standsintheshadowsofMountPisgahandPikesPeakandwasfarmoretouristythanVict-
or. Most of the stores were open, though they weren't doing much business. I parked on
the main street in front of the Sarsaparilla Saloon and had a look around. Architecturally,
Cripple CreekwasmuchthesameasVictor,butherethebusinesseswerealmost allgeared
to tourists: gift shops, snack bars, ice cream parlors, a place where children could pan for
gold in an artificial creek, a miniature golf course. It was pretty awful, and made worse by
the bleakening weather. Flurries of snow were still swirling about. It was cold and the air
wasthin.CrippleCreekisnearlytwomilesup.Atthataltitude, ifyou'renotusedtoit,you
feeluncomfortablybreathlessalotofthetimeandvaguelyunwellallofthetime.Certainly
the last thing I wanted was an ice cream or a game of miniature golf, so I returned to the
car and pressed on.
At the junction of US 24, I turned left and headed west. Here the weather was superb. The
sun shone, the sky was blue. Out of the west, a flotilla of clouds sailed in, fluffy and be-
nign, skimming the peaks. The highway was of pink asphalt; it was like driving along a
stripofbubblegum.TheroadledupandovertheWilkersonPassandthendownintoalong
valley of rolling meadows with glittering streams and log cabins set against a backdrop of
muscular mountains. It looked like a scene out of a deodorant commercial. It was glorious,
and I had it almost all to myself. Near Buena Vista the land dramatically dropped away to
reveal a plain and beyond it the majestic Collegiate Peaks, the highest range in the United
States, with 16 peaks over 14,000 feet along a stretch of 30 miles. I fell with the highway
down the mountainside and crossed the plain towards the Collegiate range, tall and blue
and snow-peaked. It was like driving into the opening credits of a Paramount movie.
