I have ridden its length many times in cars and have ridden much of it on horseback. Sitting a saddle while riding alone in Phantom Canyon, listening to the mountain breezes whistling through tall trees and rocky crevices, seeing the shapes and shadows as the sun advances overhead, and especially riding it after dark, which I have done, one can see how people could get spooked and unnerved. One might liken the experience to trying to make love to a grizzly bear: Although it may be a unique and colorful experience, it is nonetheless a tad unsettling. Phantom Canyon wagon road was a twenty-five-mile-long real wagon and horse trail that became the Florence and Cripple Creek Narrow Gauge Railway in the 1890s, and which still exists today as a winding, scenic hard-packed road available for cars without trailers to travel between the old mining towns of Victor and Cripple Creek, on the western slope of Pikes Peak, and Florence, which, at 5,000 feet elevation, is 4,500 feet lower.
What do You think about The Rider Of Phantom Canyon?
