Trail Creek Road
We already had a great day, with an awesome picnic at the top of Saxon Mountain and some fun in the Spring Creek Rock Garden. We wanted to check out another trail in the area, so we worked our way down from the top along South Spring Gulch and then turned to do Trail Creek Road.
It was sprinkling a little when we started the trail, but then it was pouring. Luckily, the dirt doesn't get too slick when it gets muddy so we were fine even though it was a steep descent in spots.
We also got lucky when the rain slowed and then stopped as we got to the Lamartine Tunnel area. There are quite a few old buildings that have collapsed or are soon to collapse, so there was some good exploring. We all got out to wander around. But where was the tunnel? We saw a filled-in hole in the side of the mountain that might have been a tunnel, so we decided to call that the tunnel. Who knows?
Dominik and Nate had to go, so they left while we were still exploring. We finished our visiting and hanging out, and then the rest of us headed down. We didn't get too far before we saw some people, with Dominik and Nate up a spur a little way from the trail. It turned out that they were on their way by and the people flagged them down for a tug as their Jeep was high centered. The guys got them going again, and they were just leaving as we were headed by. We were one, big group again all the way out.
The rest of the trail is fairly easy as it goes by residences and lots of mining buildings in various states of disrepair. Then we saw many passenger cars parked along the road, just before we came to the Phoenix Mine. They offer tours of the mine, and lots of people were checking it out. We'd need to do that some other day.
It didn't take long to finish the trail, and we were soon back on pavement. Most of us went to the parking lot behind Beau Jo's in Idaho Springs to air up, and then we had dinner there. It was a great day of exploring and visiting after the long winter, and we were ready for a fun 2015 season.
