Took a little man for a drive on Saturday to hit Paint Mines Interpretive Park near Calhan in El Paso County. It’s about an hour and thirty minute drive from Denver and not too far outside of Colorado Springs, which has a lot of neat places and other hikes to check out.
The area has approximately four miles of trails with minimal incline and I think we ended up doing around three miles. As you walk through the 750 acre park, you’ll be greeted by unique geographic formations (hoodoos, y’all!) that have beautiful exposure of clay and various types of rock which give them their pink, purple, chalky white, rust, and orange hues. This site was completely unique to anything I’ve seen before in Colorado and well worth the trek to check it out.
Apparently the mines were harvested by the Native Americans to make paint pigments and pottery. Excavations in the area have uncovered centuries old artifacts like arrowheads and petrifies wood tools. We, however, did not stumble upon any.
The park is free to enter and there was plenty of parking when we arrived. It’s actually kind of nice, but you can’t see any of the geological formation’s from the parking lot. So as you hike it kind of surprises you with the colors and beauty that pop up. I am already anxiously anticipating my return for sunrise or sunset. It was overcast when we went, and it gets my little picture taking gears grinding when I think about how amazing it must be to experience at sunrise or sunset. Feels.
When we went the trail was MUDDY. And I don’t mean casually muddy. I mean get your hiking boot sucked into squishy quicksand-like mud, muddy in some areas. For me anyways. The munchkin did really well in his snow boots, but I definitely had some very close calls to having my booty covered in a nice layer of trail mud, which would’ve made for a fun car ride home 😂.
It’s posted in several places and, should be common sense, that climbing on the Paint Mine formations is prohibited. Just looking at them you can tell they’re crumbly AF. But, sadly, I saw more than one person scaling them to get a shot of their girl for the gram, and it’s honestly frustrating that people care so little about their impact in an obviously delicate area.
Please, please, please do your very best to leave it how you found it or places like this will not exist in the near future. And that makes me sad. Don’t make me sad, people 🖤. If you need more information on how you can be mindful of your environment, check out the seven Leave No Trace Principles (information can be found at https://lnt.org/why/7-principles/ ). There’s some great information on their site and honestly it boils down to respect and common sense.
I plan to do a post about LNT here shortly because there are so many little things we can all do to minimize our impact in the front and back country. And it’s incredibly important that you make that effort. A big thank you to those of you who already practice LNT and spread the word to those around you, you are very much appreciated- keep up the outstanding work protecting our happy place ❤️!
Until next time, happy hiking 🥾❤️✌🏼!
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