Category: Uncategorized

Categories
Uncategorized

Mineral Belt Trail, Leadville, Co.

One of the several ore cart and mining engines along the Mineral Belt Trail

Freezing to death in your bed in a cabin at your once million dollar mine is a very sad way to go, rest in peace Baby Doe Tabor. The Matchless Mine, the source of Baby Doe’s rags to riches to ruin story and the location of her death bed is just one of the fascinating historical artifacts one travels by on the Mineral Belt Trail. This 11.6 mile paved loop from Leadville follows an old ore train rail bed up through the silver mining district of this bygone era.

The Matchless Mine cabin, Baby Doe’s last resting place. It’s a squalid, meager cabin with newspaper insulation.

Perhaps you have heard of the Tabor Opera Houses in Leadville and Denver or of the Tabor mansion in Denver, all still standing buildings today reflecting the riches of Horace and Baby Doe. But mines run out of ore , fortunes can be squandered, and the unwound player piano eventually silences its joyful tunes. Baby Doe survived Horace by 36 years, dying penniless at her mine.

As one starts on the trail from the low point, stunning vistas of Mt. Elbert (left) and Mt. Massive (right) tower in the distance (both “fourteeners” I have climbed). Fun fact, Mt. Massive was to be named “Gannett Peak” after famed Henry Gannett (as story for another time), but the locals would have nothing to do with changing the well-known name, alas, I must resort to climbing Gannett Peak in Wyoming some day instead.
The wildflowers were out in abundance on this trip. Here is clump of Fireweed.
I can’t resist snapping a shot of Alpine Asters, they are always so pretty

The Mineral Belt Trail is among our favorite paved or graded bike trails for its combination of wildflower and aspen leaf viewing, stunning vistas, and fascinating historical artifacts. If one starts at the low point of the trail at the southwest part of town, you can travel through Leadville and near the historic train station first before heading up to the mines.

As one climbs the trail, more mining history comes into focus. Here is an example of a hydraulic water mining jack. Before this was introduced, miners would die of silicosis, the fine rock dust kicked up by the jack coating their lungs and eventually suffocating them from within. The water expelled from this jack tamped down the dust created when drilling rock.

The trail has many signs discussing the history of the area and mining as well as old drills, ore carts, engines, and of course multiple old mine structures and the Matchless Mine itself before one starts heading downhill for a meandering roller coaster ride through the pines on your bike. Take note of the photo captions for more historical facts and a bit of cryptozoological oddity to ponder!

There are multiple old mining structures right next to the trail. These structures were used to crush and sort the ore for smelting down in town. This paved trail is actually the old ore train bed that serviced the mines of Leadville.
Open wide, incoming! Do you suppose the miners had a little fun at the end of the day and used this ore chute for a slide? Weeeeee, ouch!!
What do you do when you have competing mines and competing ore trains to your respective sites and the rail lines have to cross? Well first you have a war, in 1899 the competing railroads used rails as battering rams against each other and heavy ore carts to secure their crossing as they ripped up the competitor’s rails. Finally the war was settled and this was the outcome, a massive overpass for the trains, one crossed under, the other crossed over. Problem solved.
View from the top of the trail. That’s Turquoise Lake in the background and parts of the Matchless Mine in the foreground.
Suzie can’t resist a free ore cart ride. Luckily its downhill from here, with just a little push, bye-bye Suzie! Brakes? What brakes? See you at the bottom.
We heard a wretched and mournful howling as we headed back downhill. Who is to say what it was, lurking in the woods. Squatchy!
Right at the end of the trail loop you will find the old general store, complete with a two hole outhouse! How posh!

Update 9/24/19

We would be remiss to not include an image of the fall colors on the Mineral Belt Trail which are always glorious, so we revisited the trail to get a few shots.

Suzie heading through the corridor of color on the Mineral Belt Trail

A piece of history I neglected to include was about “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” who also got her riches in this area from mining as did the Tabors. The nearby Little Jonny Mine in made “Leadville Jonny Brown” and his wife Margaret (aka Molly) Tobin Brown ridiculously rich, but their rough western ways kept them shunned from the upper crust of society until Molly famously survived the sinking of the Titanic and gained notoriety as the Unsinkable Molly Brown.

This is a 1912 photo of Molly Brown and Captain A.H. Roston of the Cunard Lines commemorating Brown’s rescue from the Titanic sinking.

Also included is a shot of the Pyrenees deep mine superstructure.   This area had some of the deepest mines at the time, some 1247 feet deep. This structure used to be completely enclosed to enable mining in all seasons.  It had an elevated trestle to push processed rock off to a tailings pile after sourcing lead out of the ore (hence the name of the nearby town, Leadville). Silver and gold was also mined here.

The Pyrenees mine superstructure.

As usual leave your comments and feedback below and thanks for enjoying our adventures with us!