Sep 6: Denver to Craig

I decided to leave Denver and head out west to visit the town of Craig in Moffat County, CO, as that is where the Museum of Northwest Colorado (originally called the Moffat County Museum) is located. The museum incorporates a Moffat Road Railroad Display that features photos and memorabilia about the Denver, Northwestern & Pacific Railway, founded by David Moffat. I'm looking to see if I can find something about David Moffat's Scottish ancestry. On the way, I’ll be passing through Granby, CO, and they have something called the Moffat Road Railroad Museum. However, I saw it from the “California Zephyr” when I went out to Grand Junction, and I’ve looked at their website. I’m not convinced that I’d feel fulfilled by visiting it or that it’d have much in the way of David Moffat ancestral material, so I’ll bypass it.

Well, I might have made a planning error around my departure from Denver, as I decided to start my road-trip west by going up to Lookout Mountain (7,500 ft) above Golden, for a goodbye view of Denver. But I had not considered the smoke haze originating from Canadian bushfires, that ruined the view just as it had when I was on Pikes Peak. My bad, I was disappointed and decided to move on, resisting the temptation to visit both Buffalo Bill’s museum and his gravesite, and the Triceratops Trail. And then I compounded my planning error by taking the Lariat Loop option down off the mountain.

This road descended 1,300 ft in 4.3 miles through numerous hairpin curves, and connected me with US-6 up Clear Creek Canyon. This was going to be exciting! The canyon is said to be one of the narrowest, steepest and most dramatic in Colorado, and is internationally known as a rock-climbing area. 12 miles in, I passed Mayhem Gulch Trailhead, the start of the new, dual-use Peaks to Plains Trail, which will eventually stretch all the way between Golden and Idaho Springs. I drove past several miles of newly constructed creekside paved trails and steel bridges crammed into the canyon. The quality of the infrastructure was amazing.

I took the loop up to Black Hawk, advertised as the largest gambling center in Colorado with 10,000 slot machines, poker, Black Jack and roulette in nearly two dozen resort/spa casinos. From Black Hawk, it was a one mile climb to the historic mining town of Central City which, in the 1870s, apparently had a population of 30,000 and was the largest gold rush boom town in Colorado. I drove through slowly, as the town is a treasure trove of beautiful brick and stone Victorian buildings.

So, why was all of this a planning error? Because it used up time and took me away from Interstate 70 by which I’d have been able to visit the Georgetown Loop Railroad, yet another narrow-gauge ex-mining Coloradan railroad with spectacular construction and scenery. I’ll just have to satisfy myself with their website and various YouTube videos, and add it to my ‘next time’ list.

So, now committed to the alternative route to US-40, I pressed on. I did get onto a brief portion of I-70 before I had to swing off onto US-40 which would take me all the way to my destination. Craig is about 200 miles to the northwest of Denver and might take around 4½ hrs if you didn’t stop (which I do). So, wanting to get there well before sundown, I can’t afford the time to visit the Georgetown Loop.

As if the lower Clear Creek Canyon on US-6 wasn’t enough, there were plenty more mountains to come. My route on US-40 continued along the upper Clear Creek valley (more a gorge) before commencing a steep and sinuous climb over the Continental Divide at Berthoud Pass (11,315 ft). What followed, was an equally steep and partly sinuous descent into the Fraser Valley, where I drove through the expensive-looking ski resort town of Winter Park and across the western portal of the Moffat Tunnel without even realising it! I came to my senses as soon as I realised the Union Pacific Railroad was running parallel to me.

My drive continued down the Faser Valley to Granby, where I was just in time to view the eastbound California Zephyr from the overpass as it departed the Granby station. Onward I pressed; sometimes alongside the Colorado River (from where we’d been ‘mooned’ about 20 times when passing aboard the westbound ‘Zephyr’ nearly 2 weeks ago) and sometimes across rolling tracts of alpine prairie. Through Hot Sulphur Springs I went (tempted to stop and try them out), then Kremmling, an historic ranching and hunting mountain gateway at the confluence of the Colorado, Blue, and Muddy Rivers. Once again, I encountered the Continental Divide at the relatively low Muddy Pass (8,772 ft) and almost immediately, a crossing of the Park Range and Rabbit Ears Ranges via Rabbit Ears Pass (9,429 ft) to the large and famous resort town of Steamboat Springs. This skiing mecca is so-named because 19th-century French trappers were reminded of the sound of a steamboat by the perpetually gurgling and steaming "chug-chug" sound of a nearby natural mineral spring.

I finally drove into Craig at 5:30 pm after a fascinating and scenic road trip. David Moffat had long held a dream of connecting Denver and Salt Lake City, UT, via a railroad across Colorado, but Craig was as far as his Denver, Northwestern & Pacific Railway (the famed ‘Moffat Road’) reached before the company’s bankruptcy and later, his death. It is therefore fascinating to learn of a current State government proposal to reinstate passenger rail on this route. https://www.codot.gov/projects/coloradomountain…

I’ll check out the Visitor Centre on Sunday and the Museum when it opens on Monday. After that, I intend to head for Cheyenne, WY, as Chicago beckons and I must return to Traverse City, MI, by late Sep.Læs mere