Brief by Central Staff
Geography – October 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
If you ended up giving directions to lost drivers trying to find the Colorado Trail, blame the Rocky Mountain News.
The Aug. 16 edition of the Denver newspaper had a long article about the Colorado Trail, a 470-mile path between Durango and the southwest metro suburbs. The article also had a suggestion for a day hike along the trail in the Leadville area.
Now, if we were telling people how to get from Denver to Leadville, we’d suggest I-70 west to Wheeler Junction, then south over Frémont Pass on Colo. 91.
The News, however, started the trip in Canon City, with advice to go west on “Colorado 24.” There isn’t any such relevant highway, but the writer probably meant U.S. 24 — except U.S. 24 goes west from Colorado Springs, not Cañon City. And it doesn’t “follow the Arkansas River Valley” until it crosses Trout Creek Pass.
So maybe the writer intended to give directions from Johnson Village. After all, from there the highway does go to Leadville. But then it turns northeast at Malta, rather than “northwest.”
Let’s hope that the rest of the directions were correct, so that there weren’t lost hikers, too.
