Idaho Springs Travel Guide

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Just above tree line, you'll be able to walk the tundra and into the sub-alpine forest of Bristlecones. These trees have been known to reach 3000 years of age.

Mountain goats share the byway road with motorists and are spotted at various points en route to the summit. They are not always friendly. These guys let me take their picture, but when I stopped to get a shot of a lone mountain goat, he almost charged my car. These kind of incidents are almost never covered by rental car insurance, even if you pay extra for the supplemental damage portion. I almost became an example of what happens to tourists when they do stupid things around wild animals. Be careful!!

Favorite thing: The Colorado School of Mines operates an experimental mine/underground classroom [Edgar Mine] at Idaho Springs (turn right up 8th Ave. while heading west on Colorado Blvd.)..guided tours are available: midMay-midAug (303)567-2911. The Argo Gold Mine, Mill and Museum (off I-70 at 2350 Riverside Dr. tours: (303}567-2421. Another local site worth seeing is the monument to George A. Jackson, who made the first discovery of gold in Colorado on 7 January 1859 at the site of the monument on Chicago Creek where it flows into Clear Creek (located about one quarter mile southwest of I-70 on Chicago Creek Road) [SR 103]. This road will take you to Echo Lake where you can take SR5 to the top of Mount Evans (14,260 ft). In Idaho Springs are located the Bridal Veil Falls (overflow from the town water reservoir) with a historic waterwheel that used to operate mining stamp mill. Also 'Locomotive 60' a relic of the early mining days, along with its coal tender and a passenger coach stand on a section of the original narrow-guage track in the downtown business district (the train made its first run in 1886). The Indian Springs Resort, formerly Radium Hot Springs is on the site of a natural hot springs that the Ute and Arapahoe Indians considered a place of gods and spirits and was presumably the dividing line between their nations. Both tribes used the hot springs and considered this site neutral ground. It was more of a geyser until 1894 when it sank away and several small springs bubbled up in its place. There have been several establishments at the site since it was first used by the miners and the Utes (a rather exotic facility for an early mining camp!) It was reported that Augusta Tabor, H.A.W. Tabor's first wife, before Leadville and Baby Doe, was the first white woman to use the springs. Mrs. Tabor, according to her own diary, was the first white woman to arrive at 'Jackson's Diggings' which was called briefly Sacramento in 1859 when she arrived (later it became Idaho Springs). Augusta opened up a bakery out of the back of the wagon they brought to Sacramento while H.A.W. worked the sandbars of Clear Creek for gold. In 1863, a Dr. E.M. Cummings opened a public bath house at the site (log and wood frame); he sold it to Harrison Montague who replaced it with a stone bath house 'Ocean Bath House' and later advertised it as the 'Saratoga of the Rocky Mountains'. In 1883 the Natatorium was built with baths inside and out and an indoor swimming pool. In 1902, 'Big Five' further developed the site driving tunnels into the mountain under the hotel as they exist today. It was sold in 1911 to Surety Investment Company of Chicago, who still owns the property. In l931 it was incorported under the name 'Radium Hot Springs' and most recently changed to 'Indian Hot Springs'. Over the years the registers of the hotel contain a great diversity of names: Frank and Jesse James, William Bonney, Sarah Bernhardt, Walt Whitman, H.A.W.Tabor, the Vanderbilts and the Roosevelts and many more.