Matchless Mine

Rating: 
Round Trip Distance: 0.2 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 10,504 - 10,513 feet
Cellphone: 3-5 bars
Time: 30 mins.
Trailhead: E. 7th Street
Fee: $8/person
Attractions: Historic silver mine

The Matchless Mine, located in Leadville, Colorado, is the location of Baby Doe's Cabin. Silver King Horace Tabor made a fortune from the mine beginning in 1878 which was later squandered largely through acts of philanthropy and bad investments. His second wife, Elizabeth Bonduel McCourt Doe ("Baby Doe") lived at the mine after Horace's death in 1899 until her own death in 1935 at the age of 81.

Blue Lake

Rating: 
Round Trip Distance: 6.2 miles
Difficulty: Strenuous
Elevation: 10,390 - 12,173 feet
Cellphone: 0-3 bars
Time: 4 hrs.
Trailhead: Bridal Veil Power Station
Fee: none
Attractions: Scenic alpine lake

Blue Lake is located up the Bridal Veil Falls Basin just south of Telluride, Colorado. With its crystal clear blue water the lake is nestled above 12,000 feet in a glacier cirque surrounded on three sides by bare rocky ridges and peaks that all tower above 13,000 feet. Along the trail hikers are treated to numerous cascading waterfalls, wildflowers and several mining ruins. Blue Lake is a favorite among both locals and visitors to the Telluride area.

Uneva Mine Canyon

Rating: 
Round Trip Distance: 3.2 miles
Difficulty: Moderate
Elevation: 4443 - 4972 feet
Cellphone: 0-1 bars
Time: 2 hrs.
Trailhead: Uneva
Fee: none
Attractions: Scenic canyon & mining ruins

Uneva Mine Canyon is located in the San Rafael Swell between Green River and Hanksville, Utah. Situated between Moonshine Wash and Three Finger Canyon the Uneva Mine Canyon was home to a uranium and vanadium mining operation that began back in 1955. Besides the Uneva Mine there is also the remains of several mine shacks that served as quarters with a hopper that sits part way up the canyon wall below another shaft. Uneva Mine Canyon is sometimes combined with Three Fingers Canyon to create a rugged loop.

Brown Mountain

Rating: 
Round Trip Distance: 9.7k/6 miles
Difficulty: Strenuous
Skill level:
Elevation: 9,728 - 11,232 feet
Elevation gain: 1,793 feet
Cellphone: 0-3 bars
Time: 3 hrs. 30 mins.
Trailhead: Ironton Park
Fee: none
Attractions: Scenic views, amazing downhill

Brown Mountain is in the Ironton Park Nordic Trails area south of Ouray, Colorado. The trail begins near the junction of the Townsite Loop and the Saratoga trails. From there it follows Forest Service Road #884, aka The Brown Mountain Road, as it climbs past a number of abandoned mines that are strung out along the route. This is one of those trails that you can bite off what you think you can chew and go from there. For this post we bit off a big chunk of the mountain and didn't turn around until we had climbed past the 11,200 foot mark.

South Pipeline

Rating: 
Round Trip Distance: 1.3k/0.8 miles
Difficulty: Moderate
XC Skill level:
Elevation: 10,006 - 10,067 feet
Cellphone: 0-2 bars
Time: 45 mins.
Trailhead: Ironton Park
Fee: none
Attractions: Scenic trail

South Pipeline is in the Ironton Park Nordic Trails system south of Ouray, Colorado. The trail begins at the end of the Silver Belle trail where it follows an old slurry tailings pipeline that ran from the Idarado Mine to a tailings pond in Ironton Park. The deep chasm of Corkscrew Gulch had to be spanned by the pipeline consequentially splitting it into what today are known as the South Pipeline and North Pipeline trails.