46 



GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. 



CRIPPLE CREEK BY WAY OF THE "SHORT LINE.""" 



The trip from Colorado Springs to Cripple Creek over the " Short 

 Line " affords the traveler an opportunity to see some fine and ex- 

 tremely diverse mountain scenery and to visit one of the active gold- 

 mining districts of Colorado. 



The route extends directly west from Colorado Springs, past some 

 of the big mills that were built to reduce the Cripple Creek ores, and 

 then passes up along the right side of Bear Creek canyon. Here the 

 sedimentary rocks are upturned so steeply that they stand on edge 

 and make great hogbacks across the country. (See p. 40.) The 

 train passes the limy outcrop of the Niobrara and then goes through a 

 projecting point of the Dakota sandstone. Just beyond this ledge 

 the railroad crosses Bear Creek canyon and swings back on the other 

 side. At the point where it crosses the canyon the Dakota sand- 

 stone abuts "end on" against the granite of the mountain. Such a 

 contact is not normal, and it means that the two diverse kinds of 

 rocks were brought into contact by a great break, or, as the geologists 

 call it, a fault, in the rocky crust of the earth, the granite having been 

 thrust up out of place until it rested against the broken edges of the 

 beds of sandstone. This fault is the one that separates the granite 

 from the red sandstone a few rods below the station of the Cogwheel 

 Eoad in Manitou, and its course is marked by Ute Pass, which it pro- 

 duced and through which the Midland Terminal Railway (formerly 

 the Colorado Midland) finds a way to Woodland Park. South of 

 Bear Creek the fault is marked by the base of the mountain, and to it 

 is due the abrupt change from steep mountain slope above to flat- 

 lying plain below. 



The " Short Line " climbs the mountain front, gradually attain- 

 ino- higher and higher altitudes, until it rounds Point Sublime, from 

 which the traveler can look down nearly a thousand feet into North 

 Cheyenne Canyon. The view from this point is shown in Plate 

 XXV, A. Beyond this point the railway winds in a serpentine 

 course around spurs and ravines as it adjusts its course to the contour 

 of the sloi3es. But here and there a mountain spur is so large or so 

 rugged that the cost of grading the roadbed around it would be 

 very great, so the train plunges through the spur by a tunnel that 

 reaches its very core, and in some places it crosses on high trestles 

 rushing torrents that cascade down the steep granite walls, as shown 

 in Plate XXVI. In this manner the train circles around the slopes 



"* At the time this guidebools goes 

 to press the Cripple Creek Short Line 

 is not in operation, no trains having 

 been run on it for two years. It is 

 hoped, however, that operation will be 



resumed and that the traveler will have 

 the opportunity of taking the trip here 

 described. Otherwise his best substi- 

 tute is a trip by automobile to this 

 world-renowned camp. 



