In this episode of the OutThere Colorado Podcast, Spencer and Seth chat about a long lost town, Spencer's trip to meet some Colorado kangaroos, how an iconic scenic road will be closed for summer, the state of the snowpack, and more.
[00:00:09] Welcome to the OutThere Colorado Podcast. Once again, I'm Spencer McKee here with Seth Boster. It's true, I am Seth. And we've got many things to talk with you about today. Got a big scenic drive closure coming up. Got some history about a little town that Colorado used to have. And yeah, pretty major trail that's being developed. But first, how was your weekend, Seth?
[00:00:35] I was dog-sitting this weekend, which is not a complaint nor a celebration. It's just fine. I like dogs. Love my dog. Love my dog's friends, including in this case, little Bernie. I have a little golden doodle named Lucy who loves a little dog of a variety I am not quite clear on, but his name is Bernie. Shout out, Lucy and Bernie. And they had fun. I think they probably had more fun than me, which is, that's good. And watch the Nuggets. Well, there you go.
[00:01:03] Yeah, go Nuggets. As we speak today, the Nuggets are bound for game one against the mighty Thunder. Yeah, and this is Monday, by the way. Yeah. Let me record this. Happy Monday, everybody. Hopefully they keep pushing on. Yeah, that's going to be a tough one, man. Yeah, it will be. It will be. But either way, they at least made it out of that first round. Yeah. So that's good. The fun continues. Good thing. Yep. Yep. Yeah, this weekend I did a lot of yard work. So kind of a, at least on the front end of the weekend, a little bit boring.
[00:01:30] But then went to Stellina's in Colorado Springs, like kind of a little bit east of downtown. You've been there? No. Incredible. Like I had this lasagna. Hold on. I have heard of this. You look at the ingredient list, too, because they put that on their menu, and it's like their pasta is house-made, and it's just flour, water, and salt. And then this lasagna, they kind of laid on its side, and it's layered like seven times. Like it was good. Stellina's. Is this kind of like a sit-down dinner kind of thing?
[00:02:00] A little bit more casual. Okay. But yeah, I mean, the food is, I would put it on par with like your sit-down dinner type food. Cool, yeah. But yeah, a little bit more casual. You kind of like order from a counter, and then it's like this, it's a nice little aesthetic space. Yeah. They have gelato, too. Ooh. I did not try that. Apparently very good. Big fan of- Video producer Tim says the gelato is very good, so yeah. What's the place I like on the west side? Italian. Why am I blanking on that? Oh, gosh. Boy. And then-
[00:02:30] Perviccinis? Perviccinis. There you go. Yes, Perviccinis. Like Perviccinis, and I like red gravy downtown. Yeah. Okay, I got to add another one here. Yeah. Yeah, I got to check out Stelina's if you're in the Springs. But then on- So on Sunday, finished up the yard work that I still had remaining, and then headed up to Wheat Ridge, Colorado for a kangaroo ranch. What? Did a little meet and greet with some kangaroos up there. People, if you've heard of Zoo Chateau before, it's kind of like this ranch in Golden where they have kangaroos. Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah.
[00:03:00] Yeah, and it's on Saturdays and Sundays right now at least, they are bringing those kangaroos or two of their kangaroos to Wheat Ridge for some human socialization. And they do yoga. They do kangaroo yoga. I did not do that. But with the meet and greet, it was pretty awesome. They, they're so soft and so, so friendly. And they just like come up and kind of want pets, you know. Almost like a little like dog-like in a way. Yeah.
[00:03:28] In that aspect where they like, they just want to cuddle, you know. No way. After feeding them a little bit, just like hand feeding them, they put them, they like put these pouches out and the kangaroos just like happily get in these pouches. And then they hand them to you and you just hold them there like you're holding a baby. Oh, man. And the kangaroo just like looks at you while it's in this pouch. No way. It's like this like hand sewn pouch that they have. So, yeah, pretty, pretty cool, pretty cool little situation going on up at the kangaroo ranch.
[00:03:55] Now, and was that like a special occasion or is that like a daily, weekly, you know? So, yeah, with the meeting greets and yoga, I believe it's, I believe they have sessions on Saturdays and Sundays. Yeah. They just, they just opened back, I want to say it was like March, but really got, really got swinging like last month. And they've never really had, so it's always been this ranch that you go to in the same family.
[00:04:21] But the, I believe it's, I want to say the daughter of the family is kind of spinning off into her own venture. Yeah. And trying to, you know, educate the public about the kangaroos they have. So. Okay. Yeah. So pretty, pretty interesting situation going on there. And I mean, I, I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed meeting with kangaroos. Yeah. So have you ever, so going way east of there, have you ever gone to the wild animal sanctuary? I have not. We've covered it a lot, but it looks pretty awesome. Yeah.
[00:04:51] With the mile in the sky walkway is what they call it, right? Where it's like this elevated, elevated walkway that goes above like lions, tigers, bears. Oh my. Oh my. And it's designed because, it's designed in that way because it's supposed to be less invasive. Yeah. Whereas like predators aren't used to, this is just what I've heard about it. Yeah, yeah. So predators aren't used to looking up toward the sky for like, you know, like it's not like we have pterodactyls coming down to take out bears or whatever.
[00:05:19] So by putting the humans above these animals, it makes them less threatening and it lets these, these animals maybe live a more natural life. Exactly. And they have, they have a massive, massive area. Yeah. They call them habitats. Yeah. I mean, the enclosures they call habitats. I was there late 21. I was just, I did a story in 2020, it looks like. And I was out there. Yeah. That is quite the place. Yeah. Seeing 33,000 acres. Yeah. Yeah. So.
[00:05:48] I'm just catching back up. That's wild. They have a couple other areas in Colorado too, I think, if I remember correctly. I don't know if that's clumped in. Way southern Colorado that's like not public. Yeah. Yeah. There's like a non-public area. Yeah. Yeah. So. Well, and they brought in, they kind of got some, some back in 2020 here again, they kind of got a lot more attention turned to them because they brought in some of Joe Exotic's tiger. Mm-hmm. Yeah. As you remember. From Tiger King. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people remember that show. Yeah.
[00:06:18] I got to meet the, the owner. And I remember first, first meeting him and he was like surrounded by these massive Irish wolf hounds. Have you seen those things? Oh yeah. Yeah. Huge. And it looked like he was like floating like on a cloud. Like these dogs just surrounded. Dang. There had to be, there had to be like six of them. And then there was like a little bulldog just leading the way of these dogs. That's pretty wild. Yeah.
[00:06:46] And he like drove around the property with all these dogs and like this glorified golf cart, as I'm recalling in my mind. Dang. That's a, it sounds like a fun life to live. In Keen, Keenisburg? Is that, is that? Yeah. Keenisburg. Keensburg. Colorado. Yeah. I mean, out in the middle of nowhere. We'll give you the spelling here just in case you want to go check that place out too. Lions, tigers, bears. What else was I seeing out there? Yeah. That's a K-E-E-N-E-S.
[00:07:15] B-U-R-G. Yeah. So wild animal sanctuary. Check that out. Quite a place. Yeah. And then yeah, Kangaroo Ranch is the other place if you want to check out their, their actual like physical, physical spot instead of the ranch. So yeah. Do some yoga with kangaroos and then pop over to Keenisburg and stand 20 feet above a massive lions, tigers and bears. Oh my. It's quite a facility. I mean like the visitor center is like, you know, it's like.
[00:07:45] It's like a national park kind of feel to it. Really? Yeah. That's cool. It really did. Yeah. Nice. I need to get up there. It's a bit of a drive, I believe for, from Colorado Springs. Yeah. And it's, uh, there's not much else out there as I'm recalling. Yeah. About an hour and a half. So yeah, that's, that's doable. Oh yeah. Very doable. Make a nice Saturday. No doubt. No doubt. Well, hey, uh, on a different note, you want to tell us about somewhere where you cannot be driving this summer? Yeah. Mount Blue Sky. Yeah. Mount Blue Sky.
[00:08:12] So as people, uh, might recall, I'm just pulling up my writing on this to jog my memory. But as people might recall, um, Mount Blue Sky was closed last fall, kind of at the end of when people would have been driving it. Right. Um, for reconstruction of an upper portion of that stretch, right. Kind of towards Summit Lake there around 13,000 feet. Um, if you've seen it, you probably know it.
[00:08:40] You and I were talking about it, Spencer, like, you know, just that rolly, you know, it kind of has that rolly roller coaster feel to it up there. It's obvious that it's, uh. Something's up. In disrepair. Something going on. It's like literally wavy when you're getting up to those top stretches. It's like, you can see the road rolling in front of you and then kind of like crumbling off a massive cliff on the side. Yeah. So, exactly. The Federal Highway Administration spokesperson put it this way. The roadway was originally built across an area of shallow groundwater, which caused
[00:09:10] disruption to both surface and subsurface water flow, leading to degradation of the underlying permafrost. This caused major damage to the roadway, including settlement and cracking. So, that's the focus to go in and reconstruct this stretch, pave this stretch, um, um, do some vegetation and some other stabilization to the mountainside there. And so, that's expected to close, um, all through this summer and expected to open again by, in time for summer of 2026. Yeah. There you go.
[00:09:39] Um, so no Mount Blue Sky driving this summer. Um. Which is one of the most popular tourist drives in the state, too, I would say. Or at least it's, you know, it's one of those that people will come to Colorado and have that on their list. In reach of Denver, right? Yeah, in reach of Denver. People who fly into Denver, you know, that's right up on the itinerary list. Yeah. Drive up above 14,000 feet. See all the mountain goats up there. Yep. That are, like, it's well known for the mountain goats and the good views. Yep. And right over there by Beardstadt, too, for, for those, uh, trying to place it on a map.
[00:10:08] I thought to call, uh, the, uh, manager of the Pikes Peak Highway. Mm-hmm. And kind of wondered if this could mean anything for the Pikes Peak Highway. Right? The other paved road. Yeah. Up to a 14,000-foot summit. And he had mentioned that they're kind of preparing for anywhere between, like, a 20% to 30% increase in traffic. Yeah. Makes sense. Which could be pretty significant for that road, as people know. Yeah. Also very popular. And they've tightened down some of the, like, access points there in recent years, too, where you need, like, the timed entry. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
[00:10:38] Can you park at the top now, or do you still have to, like, do they stop you? So, if I'm recalling right, if you've got, the way that timed entry system is set up, so it's for people driving themselves, right? You have to go and reserve a spot online in advance. And it's kind of structured in a way to where they feel like there's adequate parking at the top, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Like, they're allowing certain numbers of people in to the point where they can reasonably expect to be able to park at the top. Mm-hmm. And then, in the past couple, who am I recalling this right? Last summer? Or did it just debut last summer?
[00:11:08] Maybe a couple summers ago. Before the shuttle. Yeah, yeah. The shuttle. So, they've, they, that's the latest, where, that's kind of the latest crowd control or what have you measure, where you get to mile seven, you can park there, and then hop on the shuttle. And then drive, yeah. And last summer, that was just going straight to the top and back. Mm-hmm. And now it is going to stop at other points along the way. There were some people who were, like, you know, wanting other options there. You know, get off at Glen Cove, or just like, if you're driving, you might pull off and hang out at Glen Cove.
[00:11:37] You might pull off and have Devil's Playground. Super cool. Yeah, Devil's Playground. Super cool. Yeah, shuttle's stopping there this summer. Yeah, and that's one of the coolest things about driving that road specifically, is that they do have all the little marked locations on Blacks Peak Highway. Right. And then for locals, you know, I mean, locals have that interest of, you know, when they started this timed entry, there was a lot of outcry among locals, like, hey, you know, what if I'm watching the weather? What if I, there's a crag I want to go climb? Yeah.
[00:12:04] And, you know, I'm wasting my time with that timed entry, or I realize the night before I'm good to go, but there's no room for timed entry. Yeah. The answer to that was this, come drive yourself before 9 a.m. Got to have a season pass. Yeah. That makes sense for some people, though. That seems like it. The regulars. It's very much geared toward those regular climbers and hikers going up to Elk Park or coming down from Devil's Playground, what have you, to where they'd want to drive early anyway.
[00:12:32] So if they drive through before 9 a.m., they're good to go with that season pass without a timed entry. Yeah. Very cool. Well, and then also you can always do the, again, Pike's Peak. We'll go back to Mount Blue Sky. Yeah. Pike's Peak, you can do the Cog Railway up, or you can hike up Crags and Bar Trail. But yeah, as far as Mount Blue Sky goes, people can still hike up that peak this summer. Right. And kind of a unique opportunity to get up there with no crowds.
[00:12:59] I mean, normally when you hike Mount Blue Sky, a lot of people started, was it Echo Lake or, yeah, right there, a couple thousand feet shy of the summit. But you start up there and you kind of wrap around, then at the top you're greeted by a bunch of tourists and cars and, yeah, just general development. So kind of a unique opportunity this summer. For sure. But yeah, what'd they have to say about hiking and biking? Right.
[00:13:27] Well, so biking, no go. No biking. Same with walking the road. You cannot walk. Right. They're closing that road entirely. And yeah, like you mentioned, Echo Lake. So for people who haven't been in a while, I mean, to orient you, it's the stretch. What is that? Technically Mount Blue Sky, is that technically Highway 5? Am I right in thinking of that? I'll look that up. Double check me on that. But it's that stretch, right? So like you can drive up to Echo Lake and everything's good.
[00:13:52] It's just where that entrance station is, right, that fee station for the Forest Service, there to the summit, that road is getting closed. Okay. Wait, Echo Lake, what's the higher one up on the mountain? Summit Lake? Summit Lake. That's what I'm thinking about. Off the road there. That's where most people start. Yeah. So Echo Lake is... Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I take back what I said. It's Summit Lake is the one that's a couple thousand feet shy. I was going to say, it's a hall. It's a hall from Echo Lake.
[00:14:19] And they're kind of hyper aware of that, I was sensing, this summer. They being tourism people and first responder people and official people, you know, they're kind of worried, are people going to drive to Echo Lake? Realize they can't continue driving to Summit? Oh, we'll just walk to the summit. So, I just saw, they just emailed signage that they're going to be putting up around Echo Lake, kind of telling people, hey, this is not a walk in the park. If you're thinking you're going to go on to the summit, got to know what you're doing.
[00:14:49] So, they're hoping they don't get in any tough situations there this summer from just unaware tourists, you know, driving up there. Yeah, I'm looking at 14ers.com too right now. So, the Mount Blue Sky Route, Westridge from Echo Lake is 17 miles round trip with more than 5,500 feet of gain. So, to put that in perspective, the hike from Summit Lake, which is the one near the top, is 2,000 feet of gain and 5.5 miles.
[00:15:17] So, much, you know, significantly longer. Yeah, but Echo Lake is a, as they put, as the tourism director there, is like, you know, we want people, that's an expedition. We want people to know that's an expedition. You know, that's how they want to try to frame it. Yeah, we were chatting about it too. One of my, or one way that's pretty fun to access it as well, if you're ready for Class 3 climbing. Sawtooth, yeah.
[00:15:41] Yeah, it's Sawtooth Ridge, which basically means climbing up Mount Beardstadt and then dropping down across the Sawtooth Ridge. And then you can go on and ultimately summit Mount Evans. Then you have to come back. So, that's another long day, but people looking for something there. There's also a cut down that goes through this, like, marshy willow land area. I've never heard anyone say a good thing about that route. So, maybe just do Sawtooth both ways. But either way, there are still options.
[00:16:11] But yeah, and you hit it on the head. I mean, it is kind of a unique time to go up there and have some solitude for once on Mount Blue Sky. Yeah, yeah. It'll be interesting how enticed people are not to do that this summer. Yeah, it'll be a pretty unique opportunity for sure. Yeah, and the other thing, so this kind of relates to 14-year climbing, but I was looking at some projections about snowpack and when that is expected to kind of dwindle away.
[00:16:37] A lot of the projections right now are pointing toward mid-June, a little bit earlier than normal. Right now, Colorado's snowpack is in the fifth percentile with data going back to 1987. So, 95% of other seasons have had more snowpack right now than we have. Yeah, that's in perspective. Yeah, we're at 53% of what the median snowpack amount is. So, pretty significant drop-off there. That said, though, big storm coming in this week.
[00:17:07] Supposed to hit the hardest Tuesday into Tuesday night. Mapping from the National Weather Service right now shows that 72 inches of snow could land on Pikes Peak. Wow. Yeah, between 60 and 72, if the high end comes to fruition. Otherwise, it's like 48 and 60 if there's more likely kind of middle-of-the-road scenario happens. But still, that's a speed of snow. I-70 did it? I-70 was somewhere in the range of like 24 to 30. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, on some parts of it.
[00:17:34] Basically, this storm's kind of supposed to hit that southern part of Colorado more, but also a lot of the central mountains, but a little bit more narrow in the central mountains when you're looking at the mapping. So, it'll be interesting to see. I mean, snow that significant will at least impact, have at least an impact, you know? Sure. Yeah. And I think the Arkansas River Basin, which is home to Pikes Peak, I believe it specifically is at like 40% of the norm. I was going to say.
[00:18:02] Whereas Glen Cove, where we were just talking about on Pikes Peak, is at about a third of where it normally is in terms of the snow water equivalent. So, yeah, so pretty dry. And have you seen any of the drought maps recently? I have not. It's a little bit concerning because there's already a good amount of drought kind of creeping up. I know Southwest has just been parched, man. Yeah. Yeah. There's a bit of drought, and I'll pull this up to get the latest update here for you.
[00:18:32] But Pikes Peak getting a bunch of snow, man. I was thinking the other day, like, you know, my first moved here, I kind of remember seeing snow up there on Memorial Day. Oh, yeah. It feels like past few Memorial Days. Yeah. It looks like it's a pretty bald rock. Yeah, not as much. And, I mean, this storm also, it should pretty much stop in the mountains. We're going to get a lot of rain down the springs along at 25.
[00:18:51] But, yeah, we have so this year drought is at or 61% of the state is either abnormally dry or in drought. Last year, this time, it was 41%. So, you know, significant uptick there. Drought's the worst right now, yeah, on that western Colorado side.
[00:19:16] Kind of over there by Grand Junction and then southwest Colorado, too. So, northern Colorado is actually not having too much drought, minus a little bit creeping in from Wyoming. But, yeah, so interesting stuff. But, yeah, so speaking of, like, how can I connect this last topic to the next one? We just bounced, man. Nothing has to be connected.
[00:19:41] Thinking of the word snow and how it starts with an S, how about you tell us about the town of Sopris? Maybe there's a water connection there. Maybe there's a water connection. There's snow. Snow, water, yeah. Yeah. Southern Colorado. Town no longer. Yeah. So to speak. A town underwater. Colorado's own Atlantis. Nah, that would be an exaggeration on my part. But, you know, there's a few stories around Colorado.
[00:20:10] These big, famous bodies of water that we drive by without realizing. They kind of came at the cost of communities, you know? Like, I can't remember the name of it. But Blue Mesa, right? Largest body of water in Colorado. They're ranching communities where we now see Blue Mesa. The dam came and the government came and bought people out and waved the flag of eminent domain. And up came the dam and the flood and the town's no more. Dillon, of course, the town of Dillon, right?
[00:20:40] For Dillon Reservoir in Summit County. Yeah. Yeah. That's an example. You know, it was a community of sorts there. But Montgomery, too, right? Out in... Montgomery. Tell me about Montgomery. Montgomery Reservoir. I don't know if I know that one. Yeah, there's a town. It's over in the Mosquito Range, so like by Hoosier class. There was a town. I forget if it was a town or just mining operations, but it was beneath that. And then you can still go out there and see some of those structures. You can still see it. Huh? That's cool. Similar deal.
[00:21:11] Yeah, and those two in Blue Mesa. Sapinero and Cebola. Okay. Okay. Not to be confused with Cebola. Gosh, I thought one story with an I, but maybe not. Cebola. Star Wars. Wow. May the fourth be with you. Nice. You got the Phantom Menace reference in this one. Nice. I saw that was on the TV yesterday. Ooh. Cebola. Totally forgot about Cebola. But yeah, so Sopris. I kind of found this little history to be interesting because, you know, I'm familiar with like, you know, other towns that were kind of ranching communities.
[00:21:41] This is a case that was like, you know, it was once a pretty bustling mining center, you know? So we're talking about Trinidad Lake, all right? Yeah. Southern Colorado, now Trinidad Lake State Park. Kind of really adjacent to these historic coal fields right around there. In fact, if you're driving 12 for the Highway of Legends, one of my favorite drives, you look left and you see those Coke ovens, right? Yeah. A row of Coke ovens.
[00:22:09] You also find, I think that's where like the Ludlow Massacre, right? That's north. Or is that a little bit north? Trinidad on I-25. Okay, yeah. But in that area, the coal mine wars, which people don't even know. Exactly. Very much related to this story of Sopris, for sure. So yeah, Sopris came to rise in the late 1880s, named for, I'm sure people are familiar with, the mountain, right? That's actually, as far as I know, that's for Richard Sopris, who was a mayor of Denver
[00:22:39] and spread his influence around the state. And Mount Sopris, you can see it from Glenwood Springs. Exactly. Between Glenwood Springs and Aspen. Yep. The name of the town came for his son, actually, who was thought to own large swaths of the land there where Sopris rose. Later came under the ownership of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, and the coal boom was on. And houses were thrown up to meet a big wave of mostly Italian immigrants.
[00:23:08] Sopris was occupied by mostly Italian families, other people from Sicily, others from around the world. But very predominantly, I mean, you read through the names and it's like Italian people, you know, very much gave rise to this town. So yeah, late 1880s. Population estimates, it looked like maybe around 2,000 people maybe within the first decade or two of the 1900s.
[00:23:36] And it lasted for almost 100 years up until the flooding from the Purgatory River was just wreaking havoc after havoc in Trinidad. And they decided we got to control this river. And along came the dam and Trinidad Lake and Sopris was no more. But there's still, you know, people who grew up in Sopris are still around. And I was able to connect with quite a few people who grew up in Sopris and have very
[00:24:04] sweet memories of Sopris, grocery stores, saloons, soda fountains, and just school was very active. Like a functioning town. Totally. Yeah. You know, life was all about school and church. Yeah. And, you know, there was one, I met one guy who grew up there and he later met a priest in Trinidad and he mentioned Sopris.
[00:24:32] And the priest, you know, bent down on one knee and crossed his chest and it was in reverence to what he thought was like a holy place. Like that's how people who grew up there have come to regard their sweet childhood there, you know. So how'd they pick this area to just kind of like essentially wipe off the map then? Yeah. Well, so it's, it was along the floodplain. Yeah. Of the river, you know. Yes. That makes sense.
[00:24:58] Engineering led to one thing after another, led to, yeah, this, this, this valley is going to get filled to control the river. Yeah. Dang. So, yeah. Southwest of Trinidad there. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, to your point about the labor wars, I mean, Sopris was very much, you know, at the center of that at that point, you know, so you mentioned the Ludlow massacre. That was what, 1914? Double checking. 1914 is what I got.
[00:25:28] Yeah. For people who haven't looked that story up, maybe we talk about that next week. Very tragic. That'd be a good topic to include next week. Or get into it now if you want. More than 20 people were killed. Yeah. I saw estimates, I think maybe 25, maybe more than that. And mostly women and children. And so this was a striking mining settlement north of Trinidad where miners were striking along with their spouses and their children. And that was the majority of casualties.
[00:25:57] And majority of casualties came from a tent that got lit on fire too. Good point. Which had four women and 11 children hiding in it. So, yeah. And yeah. Yeah. Very tragic. Two of the women died at all of the children suffocated is what I'm reading online. Totally tragic. Yeah. So in the next year, in 1915, John D. Rockefeller, the, you like how I took the R out there? I did. I like it. Rockefeller.
[00:26:21] The top man of the Colorado fuel and iron company. Majority owner. He was a community center. He came to Sopras. He came to Sopras and visited Sopras as kind of like a show of goodwill as he was trying to mend relationships at that time. And he called for like a gym to be built and a library and a community center. And so that's where a lot of, you know, community building came. New homes. Yeah. New homes to be built.
[00:26:47] But, you know, nonetheless, I mean, Sopras, you know, there was tragedy years to come. And Sopras, 1922, there was a nearby mine explosion that killed 17 people. And so strikes continued there for years. And I talked to, you know, there's people with memories of friends and family who were kind of on either lines of like the union and being a little nervous about the union, you know, causing some conflict just within families even.
[00:27:15] But mostly people remember like just how close everyone was. Like I read this old account that like the grocery stores pretty much ran themselves broke by giving food to people who needed it, you know? Yeah. Dang. Was that the Hastings mine explosion? I am not sure. Because I know there were a couple there, but this one, the Hastings mine explosion, just while we're on the topic of this, just because like this is something that rarely seems to get talked about. Yeah.
[00:27:44] 121 people were killed in that mine. And that was where? 1917. Okay. In Los Animas County near Trinidad. Huh. And then I think a couple years later, it was either a couple years later, later or before, there was, I think, another fatal explosion in the same mine, I want to say. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Previous explosion, 12 miners. You seeing anything about a Valdez mine? Mm-mm. There was a lot of workers in the Valdez mine in Sopris.
[00:28:13] Many mines, many tragedies. I'll look that up. Many tragedies, yeah. The crazy one with the Hastings explosion is essentially, there was an explosion that trapped people in there. Mm-mm. Um, so they just couldn't get past the blockage. And essentially what they think happened was the mine inspector, um, had a safety lamp, right? Mm-mm. And when he was trying to reignite the flame of the safety lamp, sparking the match is what caused that explosion to happen.
[00:28:43] So. Wow. Literally the person who's in charge of inspecting and keeping the mine safe. That's crazy. Um, signs seem to point to maybe he was to blame for that. So. Yeah. Yeah, there was a. That's reported by the Denver Post, too, so pretty legitimate source there. So, yeah. I had a woman tell me she's like, I think, uh, I think 82 now. She would have grown up there in like the 40s and 50s. And she said she remembered her dad being nervous quite a bit, you know, just because you'd go in and no one was really sure if they were going to come out, you know?
[00:29:12] They would go like in the dark before sunrise. They'd work through the day until sundown. You know, they were, they'd work in the dark all day. They weren't getting much light, right? Yeah. And I read this account from this one guy who said, you know, we worked on our hands and knees all day. There's no ventilation. Couldn't stand up because the ceiling was so low. And we used to chew tobacco to keep the dust out of our mouth, you know? Uh, dang. Just kind of life behind these strikes and these labor.
[00:29:42] War wars that really did kind of help shape labor rights as we know it today. Southern Colorado was very much an epicenter for that. Yeah. And Sopris is kind of a lost piece of that history, you know, in my mind. Dang. So kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. More coverage on Sopris coming out from Seth. You'll be able to find that in the Gazette and Dentrizette and on out to Colorado. But yeah, look out for that. That'll be coming out here sometime soon. Yeah. Next couple of weeks or so. Yeah. Got to get some photos.
[00:30:12] Pretty wild stuff. Lots of good historic photos. But yeah, quite a place. Who would have known? So here, I wanted to mention this story. We cover, on Out There Colorado, we cover a lot of accidents that happen in various parks and recreation spaces, just around the country sometimes, if there's kind of a notable takeaway in it that hopefully our audience can kind of learn from and hopefully they're a little bit safer on the trail as a result.
[00:30:37] One of these stories that we covered involved two people that had hopped or are believed to have hopped a railing at Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. The two people aged 45 and 58 were basically spotted on the other side of this barrier with this scenic overlook, apparently, and then fell. And they fell 380 feet to their deaths. Wow.
[00:31:05] With authorities essentially indicating that, yeah, you got to stay in these areas where you're allowed to be. But obviously that situation's tragic and, you know, it's a very, very sad situation. But one of these, one detail that emerged like a day or two after the breaking news report was that the couple had a cat with them in a soft carrier during this fall. 12-year-old cat named Mirage. The cat survived. Named Mirage?
[00:31:35] Named Mirage. The cat survived and essentially walked away pretty much unscathed. Oh my gosh. 380 feet. Oh my gosh. And the carrier was described as dirty and torn. And that's about it. The cat reportedly was acting a little bit sore. It was in the carrier? In the carrier. Reportedly acting a little bit sore but was friendly with the rescuers and vet staff. And was able to eat and drink on her own. Wow. Or she was able to eat and drink on her own.
[00:32:04] So there weren't any crazy injuries apparent. Like, you know, look at the photos and the cat looks like a cat, you know. And they were doing an x-ray. I didn't see what the results from that x-ray were. That had not been released yet. At the time, I was reading up on this. But yeah, this cat survived a 380-foot fall. Wow. So pretty wild stuff. And I started looking into this. And cats have been known to fall 30-plus floors from a building onto pavement and survive. Yes. Often with some injury.
[00:32:34] But essentially after... So this is what Science Focus publication says. After seven stories, a cat hits its terminal velocity. And then it can start to distribute its weight to improve its chances of surviving. But that being said, I mean, this cat was in a carrier. So you can't imagine that all these natural functions would take place. Yeah. I am personally very familiar with cats being able to land on their feet. Because I'm sort of ashamed to say I had a cat years ago. Gosh, when was this?
[00:33:04] Eight? Eight years ago, maybe? Seven, eight years ago? Sneak out a window of a... It was like we were on the third floor. Cat landed on his feet. Mm-hmm. We were freaking out. We ran to the vet. We thought, I mean, cat looks fine. Yeah. But I'm like, there's no way this cat's fine. There's just no way. Yeah. There's gotta be... I was very fearful of internal bleeding or whatever. Yeah, wild stuff. The vet was like, no, that's fine. It was probably right around that 30 feet thing. Yeah.
[00:33:33] It is really shocking, too, that they can do that. And I mean, this cat, in this case, too, at 380 feet, 12 years old. Yeah. Like, it's getting older, you know? To imagine that its body's not as healthy as it was as a younger cat, you know? Right? So... I'm recalling the line from Christmas Vacation when the cat... You remember there was like that electrical thing? Oh, yeah. And Cousin Eddie says if it had nine lives, it just used all of them. Yeah, right? Yeah, I don't know.
[00:34:03] So bad. I don't know what 380 feet equates to it. It's got to be at least all those actual cats. I'm not saying anything, but Cali. Yeah. That's amazing. But yeah, so yeah, pretty just, you know, amazing story there. And like I said, obviously extremely tragic with the people involved. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, something noteworthy about this cat. It's making national headlines and some headlines from international sources. I guess so. Wow. Yeah, so we got one more topic today.
[00:34:30] And this is another one from Seth here. The Peaks to the Plains Trail. Yeah. So there again, maybe this is something people have heard about for years now. I mean, it's kind of... I think it gained like some traction in like 2016 when we started seeing some action in Clear Creek County, mostly... Or Clear Creek Canyon, rather. Mostly the western side of that canyon from Clear Creek County.
[00:34:55] But more recent years, there's been a lot of activity around Golden as part of this big, broad dream trail, right? The idea going 65 miles on foot or bike path from Denver, the Denver metro area, from the South Platte River Trail, all the way to the Continental Divide on Leveland Pass. Wow. Would be quite a trail. You go up to the top of the Continental Divide? Toward the top. Toward the top, yeah. I was looking at a map.
[00:35:24] They describe it as toward the headwaters of Clear Creek on Leveland Pass, for sure. Yes. But yeah, the focus, the big focus of that is in Jefferson County through Clear Creek Canyon, where it's just extremely technical. I mean, as you can imagine, like the project manager overseeing it described it to me as like, you know, it's like on a small scale building a highway through Glenwood Canyon. I mean, if you ever stop to think about, gosh, what was building this highway like?
[00:35:54] Oh, yeah. The Glenwood Canyon. I mean, he's very much been experiencing it on a smaller scale in Clear Creek Canyon. And most recently, they put in a series of bridges. So right off US 6 there, if you can kind of picture it. Toward-ish golden as part of the latest segment, this three-mile segment that they're calling Huntsman, the Huntsman segment. It's going to be this three-mile stretch.
[00:36:20] If people are familiar with the Gateway segment that they opened in 2021-ish, I mean, that is really beautiful. And I mean, as far as like pieces of pavement in Colorado, that's got to be up there with some of the most beautiful, you know. And it's become extremely popular. Big parking lot and trailhead right off the highway there close to downtown Golden where you're seeing people running. You're seeing people biking. You're seeing people drop into the creek and float. You're seeing people with their strollers.
[00:36:50] You're seeing climbers access these crags that are more accessible than ever now because of this. So this new segment is going to connect with that, if people can picture that. Yeah, nice. And so just more continued segment going through the canyon there. Oh, I could see that route being hugely popular once it's completed, especially. Just being able to leave Denver and do a 120-mile bike ride. Oh, yeah. I mean, they've kind of billed it as quintessential Colorado. Yeah.
[00:37:18] And this stretch in the canyon, to go back to that, is employing like technology and engineering that the project manager there says, you know, he's like gone and talked about this around the country. Like it's a very – engineers are very interested in like how are you making this work. If people have seen renderings of like those flyways that they're going to do around Floyd Hill, kind of like that. Oh, okay. Where it's these elevated bridges going through the canyon.
[00:37:48] And the guy, his – you know, the way he describes it is like it's going to feel like you're like floating in the canyon. That's kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. As far as pavement goes. Yeah. Very cool and very expensive. Oh, okay. There's kind of been some, you know, talk about, you know, what – you know, how much money are we spending here? I mean, this three-mile segment of Huntsman is like $80 million on its own. Wow. Yeah. That's wild. Very technical engineering.
[00:38:15] These bridges, you know, other trail aspects like trailheads and parking lots. Parking lots are expensive. So there's more to it, you know. I mean, in a lot of people's minds, they're going to do that math like how much a mile, right? To be clear, there's definitely more to it. There's railing and stuff. But nonetheless, there are people who have asked the question, is this really worth it?
[00:38:37] And the answer to that has just been this, you know, quintessential experience that Colorado has envisioned for years now. And if – so just out of curiosity, did the napkin math here. Yeah. If it costs the same for every mile of the trail that's costing for that three-mile segment, it would be – the full cost would be $1.6 billion. Right. Obviously, this is a very expensive section.
[00:39:05] Well, and so – and it's interesting because – so they like to say, when we're talking peaks to plains, the plains is pretty much done. Yeah. You know, you can go from Denver to Golden to Clear Creek Canyon along a network of pavement. And above the canyon, they like to say, is almost done but at least passable with shoulders, highway shoulders that have either been plotted out or could be plotted out. So the focus really has been this stretch. It's about – I think it's about like 13 miles through the canyon itself.
[00:39:34] That is where we're talking extremely expensive. Yeah, and I'm seeing a guess here from 9 News up in Denver from 2024 that here's another 13-mile stretch, which I guess probably includes some of that. Yes, that's Jefferson County's stretch. Yeah, so that's $273 million for that. Exactly, yeah. Quarter of a billion dollars. Yeah. For Jefferson County's canyon stretch pretty much.
[00:40:02] Yeah, I mean, hey, it could potentially become one of the state's like flagship trails in a sense. That's how they like to think of it. Yeah. So the Huntsman, they're planning – half of it's going to be done by the end of this year, and then the other half they're going to open for next year. So my math is right, like from that gateway segment, that's going to be like 8-ish, 10-ish miles out and back of just a really beautiful stretch of pavement in the canyon. That sounds awesome.
[00:40:31] If I could get my bike up there and hit that, that'd be awesome. The gateway is worth its own too because there's also like – they restored this old wooden flume kind of higher up on the canyon in view as you're on the pavement. Oh, that's cool. Which is a dirt trail. Old wooden flume that you could hike also as an alternate through the canyon. Also cool. Thanks. Very cool. Yeah, and people don't realize a lot too like what goes into trail building, especially in a canyon in terms of like just mitigating the rockfall and like all of that risk. The water flow. Yeah, yeah.
[00:41:02] That too. Yeah. Yeah, Clear Creek Canyon can flood. It has, I think, famously flooded a few times if I remember correctly. So it's all about the way that engineering, while it's highly technical and involving very heavy equipment, the idea is to give it – is that on the canyon, it's a light touch when you're – as they like to call it. When you're talking about an overpass, essentially, just certain spots that are getting drilled on the ground.
[00:41:29] But otherwise, it's a path well above ground, well above water flow, not impacting the highway culverts, you know. So that's the reasoning for this engineering, you know, that they have in place. Yeah, sounds pretty awesome. I bet no one tuned into this podcast thinking they were going to listen to this technical engineering job. But it is – I mean, and you'll notice it. If you're around Golden, if you're driving the highway, that stretch of highway was closed, I think, for a better part of a week to put these bridges in recently. So, yeah. Very cool.
[00:41:59] I got to track down some photos of that. Yeah, I'll show you some later, bud. Nice. There we go. Yeah, I think that's all we got on our list today, Seth. Cool. Yeah. So until next time, I'm Spencer. This is Seth. I'm Seth, drinking water. And we will see you out there.