Animas Forks

Animas Forks Pioneer Paper

The first prospectors wintered in the Three Forks of the Animas looking for Gold and Silver in 1873. In 1875 the name was changed to Animas Forks. In the early 1920's the price of Silver dropped so they stopped mining and all that's left is a ghost town.

Road To Animas Forks

Frozen Ice and Snow

Ice Bridge

Animas River

Old Silver Mine

A Bigger Ice Bridge

Pretty River

Nope It's Not A Beaver Dam

A Beautiful View

A View With Some Old Houses

Beautiful Mountains

Time To Rest A Little

Since we've been working for three days and also doing our sight seeing, we're just a little tired. We're going to rest up today and hopefully get more use to the higher altitude.

Tomorrow we're going to Animas Forks which was the sight of an old Silver mine operation. There is no more mining but the remains of the original buildings are still there. We're looking forward to going but will have to take it slowly since the elevation increases to about 12,000 feet and we've never been that high up.

Silverton Colorado Page Two

Shops on Main Street

There was just a little too much to be included on one page. We really enjoyed seeing Silverton and can't wait till the stores open for the summer trade. The town has a population of about 525 but during the winter it drops to about 50.

Silver ore car

Yes It's Hot

Quaint Shops

1882 Grand Hotel

Yep That's Snow

Nice Home In The Snow

Miner's Union Hall

1882 Original Jail

Original Hotel and Red Light District

Silverton Colorado

County Court House

Silverton was settled in 1874. The name of the town came from "Silver By The Ton". Today there is no silver mining. It's a tourist town and a lot of people come here each winter to snow sky. The buildings are colorful and quaint.

Main Street and snow

City Jail

Nice Home
Old Hotel
Snow Drift
Good Cafe

Colorfull Shops

Start to Work and Also see some sights

Today, we will begin our workamping duties of cleaning the rest rooms, laundry and lounge. We start at 9PM and maybe have to work a couple of hours.

Today however we're free to go sight seeing. We're going to try again to make it to Silverton.

Beautiful mountain

Road into Silverton

We stopped to the girls could pay in the snow

Snow bound RV

Silverton from the mountain pass

Silverton Tourist Information Center

The town and buildings of Silverton will be in the next post.

Time for a day's rest

We thought it would be a good idea to take a day or two off from sight seeing to rest up. We're not quite use to the higher elevation and dryer climate yet and don't want to rush it. We have all summer to see all the sights.

We'll rest up and get to know the other workampers better. Also in a couple of days maybe the roads will be better, the last time we were on them they were slick and had some patches of ice in spots.

More Sight Seeing

Today we thought we would drive part way to Silverton. Silverton is an ex-silver minning town and we've been told it's well worth the short drive, 45 miles. We've also been told that the highway in the upper mountain range may not be fully open.

A herd of Elk not far from the RV Park

A year round hot spring

Pretty mountain view

Isn't that pretty?

Recently cleared road

Small waterfall

Beautiful snow covered mountain

Another water fall

"Rocky Mountain High"

Highway to Silverton

Durango Colorado Alpen Rose RV Park

We got all setteled in and the manager Bob told us that we'd be cleaning the bath rooms, laundry room, lounge and game room. We'll be working three days on and three days off. We will start work about 9:00PM and work for a couple of hours or until we were finished. We'd be off during the day before we had to work that night so we could go sight seeing or what ever we wanted.

For all the hard labor we were going to get a full hook site with 50 amp service, cable TV, free laundry, free breakfast and free propane. Sounds great.

We were told that we would not begin work for a least three or four days in order for us to get adjusted to the higher altitute and climate.

We decided to take a short drive north from the park with Lee and Carma and see what the snow looked like.

Vallecito Lake

This big lake remained frozen till early May