The trails around St. Elmo and Pitkin have quickly become some of my favorite. Filled with wonderful history from the mining ad railroad days. For thew 2018 Ghost Town Run, I took the club back to this area for a wonderful weekend filled with adventure and great friends. Sadly, one of my favorite parts, the Alpine Tunnel is still closed on the west side due to a massive Winter Avalanche a few years back taking out a section of the Palisades- narrow section of road built up with stones. Hopefully it’ll be reopened soon. Here are pics from the trip.

A Midnight drive over Hancock Pass, with a full moon to light up the valley. Bliss.

Views from camp. Morning light over Middle Quartz Creek.

Camp.

In St. Elmo at our meet up spot.

St. Elmo: Originally settled in 1878 as “Forest City”, but after objections from the Post Office (to many towns with that same name), St. Elmo was incorporated in 1880. St. Elmo provided for the miners working in the many mines nearby, soon reaching a population of more than 2,000 people. In 1881, St. Elmo became a station on the Denver South Park and Pacific Railroad. The town boasted several merchandise stores, three hotels, five restaurants, two saw mills and weekly newspaper called the “Mountaineer”. Along with the Saloons, dance halls and bawdy houses that come with a booming mining town. The main mines around St. Elmo were the Mary Murphy, Theresse C, the Molly and the Pioneer. With the Mary Murphy mine shipping 50-75 tons of ore per day. Altogether, over 150 patented mine claims were located around St. Elmo.

Anton Stark brought a herd of cattle to the Railroad in 1881 and was so taken by St. Elmo, that he and his family quickly took up residence. While Anton became a section boss for one of the local mines, his wife Anna ran a General Store and the Home Comfort Hotel, said to be the cleanest in town, the meals the best and the supplies at the store more plentiful.

But with the closure of the Alpine Tunnel in 1910, and many of the mines playing out, St. Elmo was on the decline. The Mary Murphy mine continued till the ’20’s and the Railroad ran until 1922, with most of the locals riding the last train out of town, never to return.

Romley and the Mary Murphy mine: Originally called Murphy’s Switch, Romley existed as a railroad town for the Mary Murphy mine. Romley had a population of 1000. When the mines played out in the late 1920’s, most of the residence packed up and left town. Producing some 220 thousand ounces of Gold, back then worth $4.4 million, The Mary Murphy mine was worked continually from the time it was founded in 1870’s till the early 1920’s.. Two Ariel tramways connected the Mary Murphy to Romley, with each bucket holding between 200 and 400 lbs of ore. Miners would jump into the ore buckets on the way up to avoid walking the three mile walk to the entrance of the mine. It’s believed that the Mary Murphy mine got it’s name from a nurse who helped take care of one of the mines owners, John Royal.

At the Mary Murphy mine. Still a bit to explore.

Inside the Tramway house.

Along the old Railroad grade of the Denver South Park and Pacific Railroad. Stopped here to check out the old town site of Hancock.

Hancock: Originally a construction town for the railroad workers building the Alpine Tunnel from 1880-1882. Hancock eventually served as a focal point for several mines in the area to load their ore onto the railroad heading east.

There were three sets of tracks at Hancock. Making the road fairly wide. Trains had to do all their switching here before going through the Eastern Portal of the Alpine Tunnel, as the location of the east portal prohibited anything but straight through movement. There were train switches and a “Y”; several pieces of track linked together in a shape of a Y. This gave the helper locomotives the ability to turn around and return to St. Elmo. Several mines were located back behind Hancock. Traines would load ore here and head down to the Smelters located in Nathrop and Salida.

All that’s left of the old town site Hancock.

Starting our way up Hancock Pass.

Colombian Monkshood.

Higher up on Hancock Pass. Almost to the top.

Looking back towards St. Elmo.

At the top of Hancock Pass, 12,208ft and the Divide. A bit windy at the top that day!

Most of the group.

Making our way down Hancock Pass towards Pitkin, CO.

Lunch stop at Sherrod Loop.

Fireweed.

Old Culvurt.

Sherrod Loop. This “U” was created to help keep the tracks clear of snow. By having a 228 curve the tracks of the Denver South Park and Pacific were able to stay on the sunnier Southern side of the Middle Quartze Creek Valley.

Williams Gulch water tank. Restored by the Mile Hi Jeep club back in ’76.

The Steam Trains of the Denver South Park and Pacific Railroad would use these water tank to fill up with water as they made the climb to the Alpine Tunnel.

Old inscriptions on another water tank.

While stopped in Pitkin, CO, we found out the camp fire ban had just been lifted. We enjoyed this well into the night.

Night time views over Middle Quartze Creek.

Group shot at Cumberland Pass, 12,015ft.

Looking back towards Pitkin.

Mountain vistas.

Honeybadger spotting.

Mirror Lake.

A good place to stop for lunch.

Working our way up TinCup Pass.

TinCup: After a summer of prospecting in Leadville, Jim Taylor, Gus Lamb and Charlie Gray made a Winter camp South of Leadville, CO in the early fall of 1859. Taylor, eager to find a route over the Continental Divide, followed a band of Ute Indians until he reached the summit of Red Mountain Pass. Where he saw a large river below the pass, winding it’s way through a park, with a herd of Buffalo grazing in the grass. That night back at camp, Taylor told his companions about the find. The trio decided to try there luck the next day prospecting the new found river, while camping that night at the head of Taylor Canyon.

The group would spend the next day searching for their horses that wondered off the night before. Tracks from their horses led the group back into the park, south of the river along Willow creek. A day of searching found the men and their horses six miles south of the river in a forested area that would become TinCup. Before the trio made camp, Ben Gray stopped at the nearby stream for a drink of water. With the creek gravel looking promising to Gray, He scooped up some of the gravel and was rewarded with gold color. So began the town of “TinCup”.

The group at the top of TinCup Pass, 12,154ft.

Looking back towards TinCup.

Views from TinCup Pass.

End.