Since 2003, the hotel has been empty and sagging in disrepair. Since then, many owners have tagged in to try to reposition the hotel to its former greatness. The hotel flourished until the 1960s when rapid changes in ownership coupled with poor management brought it to its financial knees. The Royal Gorge, river rafting, world-class fishing, The Whitewater Festival. It’s so rare to have this many things to do so close. In Cañon City, you have world-class activities all within 10 miles. It has stood for 137 years on Main Street and has watched Cañon City become what it is today. Charles Bronson, Tom Mix, and Burt Lancaster have all stayed in its rooms. In the silent film era, it was home to The Chicago Film Studio, which filmed the escape of visitors and employees when the building caught fire. It has housed the ticketing office for a local airline, a bus terminal, and the headquarters for the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. The hotel has had four names and too many owners to count. Cloud sits majestically on its lonely corner at 7th and Main, a beautiful Victorian building that was once dismantled and then lovingly transported, brick by brick, in horse-drawn wagons, and on short-gauge railroad train cars from its original home in Silver Cliff, Colorado to its current address. Find out more about the Our Gang 4 Wheelers club online.In Cañon City, Colorado, the Hotel St. Spectators are welcome, too, but bundle up: This is a frozen lake in the dead of winter we’re talking about. If that sounds intimidating, you’ll be surprised at how easy it is, not to mention how friendly and welcoming the other entrants are. If you’ve got a 4WD or AWD vehicle, earn your official Colorado stripes by taking it out on a frozen Georgetown Lake during the five-weekend racing season in January and February.
Jeep trips can also be combined with a trip aboard the Royal Gorge Railroad so you can enjoy even more of Colorado’s winter splendor without having to battle the elements. While snowshoeing or cross-country skiing through a snowy landscape can be spectacular, driving can be a blast, too - especially when you're seeing the Royal Gorge or Red Canyon Park from inside a capable 4x4 as the heater blazes away.
The free park opens in mid-December call 970- 325-4288 for updates. And a visit to scenic Ouray is always worth the trip. But if that sounds a little too intense, the canyon has a tranquil, otherworldly feel that’s worth taking in even from the ground.
Reach the Denver Curling Center at 30.ĭownhill skiing can’t hold a candle to the singular thrill of clambering up the more than three miles of cumulative vertical climbing terrain along the iced-down walls of the Uncompahgre Gorge.
Sure, you can go curling year-round at the Denver Curling Club’s facility off Interstate 70 in Golden, but something about it just seems more fitting for winter. While league competition is only open to members, you can sign up for an instructional mini-league for new curlers to learn how to work the brooms and stone in order to qualify. You can learn how through a clinic at the Frisco Nordic Center, where you can also learn the basics of cross-country skiing. If what you like least about downhill skiing is how hard it is to take your dog along, try skijoring: skiing while pulled by your dog - or your horse, if you have one. Departures run evenings in November and December get details at 30. But its Holiday Train through “Santa’s Lighted Forest” has a magic of its own, especially when you're inside enclosed, heated coaches that will help you forget that you and your little ones caught the train at something called Devil’s Gate Depot in Georgetown. The Georgetown Loop is perhaps one of the most cinematic ways to relive Colorado’s rich mining history, and to see Clear Creek County’s spring and summer splendor. Georgetown Loop Railroad Georgetown Loop Railroad