El Paso County Park – Paint Mines

This park is not very large.  I think if you wanted to just walk the trails, you would end up walking a shade over three miles, and you could probably do it in about an hour.

However, if you wanted to explore the nooks and crannies of the place, I would allow 2-3 hours, including walking in and out of the place.

I remember reading about this park sometime back in 2005, when we still got the daily paper.  I saved the article but forgot about it until our visiting relatives proposed it for an excursion. They went, but  I was working, so Melisa and I visited the site on our own the Friday before Memorial Day.

It should be noted both Melisa and I like our driving excursions.  It’s definitively the case for the journey being the worthwhile experience in addition to the destination.  Unless, of course, we get behind one of the many Colorado drivers who-make-my-blood-boil-and-force-me-to-pass-them-with-a-mighty-roar-from-the-Tahoe’s-powerful-V8 . . . I’m alright, I’m alright! (breathe, breathe)

Soon enough we are rolling along hilly roads on the way to Calhan, Colorado, a small town along Rt. 24 heading from Colorado Springs to Limon.

They don’t really belong in this gallery, but just before the park, we saw some horses with young colts, and I snapped some shots.  I will be adding them to the Feathers and Fur collection, but for now, some of them are included in this post and the associated gallery.

There are a few more shots in the SmugMug album.  Yes, I’m shamelessly catering to all the females, and their love for this sort of thing, to generate traffic at my SmugMug site.

Anyway, we got into the park, and started the walk down to the mines (I’ve always wanted to say that).  The gallery has lots more stuff relating to the walk and what we saw, but I wanted to include this shot here . . .

Again, nothing to do with the Paint Mines other than this Mangalor is looking right at them painted rocks.

Regardless, there are many shots like this next one (but each is different) at the SmugMug Gallery.

You can read a bit about the park by clicking on this link to get to a PDF write-up of the site (LINK).

One final thing I wanted to mention.  We saw some beautiful butterflies that seemed to have an affinity for feces.  That’s right, I said feces.  I did not feel like looking up why they did, but here is proof.  there are three different kinds of butterflies on this magnificent turd.

As usual, click on any of the pictures to go and see the full gallery.  The gallery is fairly large, mainly to show as much of the rock formations as possible without repeating myself too much.

For readers near the area, I would advise a trip to the site.  It be neat.