Today is the last full day of the meet and most of the group has already started to head out. Jon and Ed had a plane to catch yesterday and Adam and Jackie have started their trip back to Canada. Korey and his family started their trek home and even Tom has already split. Jason & Norah had plans with his parents so that just left Mike and us to go explore for the day. Since we hadn’t traveled southwest of the campground, it was decided we would head in that direction. We traveled down CR-67, through the Casino town of Cripple Creek and mining town of Victor. At point CR-67 became a dirt road and we turned off onto another dirt road CR-861. That came to a dead end at a reservoir which appeared to be quite a popular area for camping, swimming and boating. There was a gate that prevented us from going any further so we turned around and headed back to CR-67 to continue on it. CR-67 wound down through a series of switchbacks into beautiful Phantom Canyon, along a path that used to be a railroad line, passing through old 19th century railroad tunnels that were chiseled through the hill sides. The road pretty much paralleled the river, which cut the winding canyon, with the road crossing back and forth across small bridges and through rock formations. I found some humor in a bridge sign that listed a 38ton weight limit for tandem tractor trailer trucks, because I seriously doubt one could ever make it that far down the road from either direction.

While in the canyon, the GPS showed two Geocaches that were along the route so we decided to check them out.

The first was The Phantom (Traditional Cache)

Because of the think brush, a stream that need to be crossed to reach the cache, which was on the side of a fairly steep hill, Ingrid stayed with the trucks while Mike and I searched for the cache. Mike quickly found it.