Sunday, November 23, 2008

Animas Forks

I decided to take the truck and run up to Animas Forks, an old Ghost Town above Silverton. It is supposed to snow later in the week, so this is probably the last chance I had to drive up there. The town sits at 11,200ft and the road is not maintained in the winter season.
The snow was very dry, and it crushed into a sand-like consistency under the tires. I *REALY* did not want to get stuck, so I parked just below the townsite and walked up. It was pretty cool to poke around all alone up there, and to think what is was like for those old miners back in 1884. The Mill that was built there at one time had a 12,000ft long cable tramway to haul ore from the mine down to town. Amazing. The mill itself cost $500,000 to build in 1884. Adjusted for inflation, that's like $700 Billion dollars or something.
The air was cold at 11,000ft, but the Colorado sun was warm in the southern sky. Comming down, the ice on the road was glistening with a fine sheen of water. I took it real slow, and had to stop to help two dudes in a front-wheel drive minivan from Arizona get their vehicle turned around. They *almost* parked it up there for the season.

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