We've both been doing a lot of work lately. Dave is busy with his two consulting jobs and I've been busy preparing for the upcoming American Society of Criminology (ASC) meetings to be held - in all places - in St. Louis, Missouri this year.Still we have eeked out some time to get out and play a little in the waning good weather. We soloed the third flat iron early one day this past week (I woke up about 1/3 of the way up it).
Today we decided it was time to get and play some more. We decided to mountain bike up to Gold Hill. It would be my first time mountain biking here.
We left the house on the mountain bikes and headed to Gold Hill. The ride took us through the madhouse of people heading to a Buffs football game (Gack). Then we headed west along Canyon Boulevard turning up 4-mile Canyon.
We headed to Wall Street (a town that looks little like the Wall Street in NYC) and stopped for a snack at an old mining site. The building there looked to have been influenced by Aztecs or something. It is quite a beautiful structure though it is clearly fallen into disrepair.
Wall Street is TINY. I can't even find a listing for it on my favorite city website: http://www.city-data.com/. Maybe no one actually lives there?? Wall Street is home to the "Assay Museum". According to one source I found, "At the turn of the twentieth century, hard rock mining in Boulder County was in full swing, and the area known as Wall Street played a prominent role in this chapter of our community's history. The assay office was the place where prospectors would take their ore samples to find out whether or not they had potentially "struck it rich." So important was the determination of the assayer that the results of their work could, and often did, make or break a prospector." (see http://www.bouldercounty.org/openspace/resources/culhistory/wallstreet/assay_museum.htm).
Shortly after our snack we found a snake attempting suicide by placing himself square in the middle of the road. Dave thwarted his suicide attempt and put him in the grass. We snapped a few photos while he fiercely tried to bite Dave.
We then got onto the Switzerland Trail and made our way to Gold Hill. Here the terrain got rough. My understanding is that this was as easy as a mountain bike trail gets. My kidneys may not survive a harder trail! After some good rattling around, and no crashes (two near-misses though), we approached Gold Hill. Right before getting there, we passed a sign. Something didn't seem quite right about it... After reading it, I finally understood and was very careful to "Watch Childern". Or something.
According to Wikipedia, Gold Hill (elevation 8,300) has a population of 210 (2000 census) and is "perched" on a mountainside above Left Hand Canyon in Boulder County.
Gold Hill was originally a mining camp and it was here where the first major discovery of gold was made during the 1859 Colorado Gold Rush. During the height of the gold rush, it's population grew to about 1,500. It has since "fallen into decline." It has since been revived as a quiet isolated haven, with no paved streets.
We headed into the General Store and had a yummy spinach and feta croissant and a cookie. Then it was all down hill from here. It really was - all downhill. Fast, steep and fun.
Mountain biking seemed more tiring per mile. Though this trip was only 41.2 miles round-trip, it felt more like an 80 road bike trip. We'll be taking the bikes with us to Cochise soon. Should be fun to get in some more miles...
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