Junction State 11 (Kremmling)—Breckenridge—Hoosier Pass—Alma—Fairplay—Junction US 24 (Hartsel);  89.7 miles, State 9. Graveled road for entire distance; Hoosier Pass dangerous during winter. Supply points widely separated.

This route crosses the Continental Divide between Middle Park and South Park, and passes through several of the oldest mining towns in Colorado, offering some of the finest scenic views in the State; fishing is good in many of the streams.

State 9 branches southeast from State 11 (see Tour 7B), 0 miles, 2.8 miles south of Kremmling (7,322 alt., 261 pop.) (see Tour 7b).

Although this is high mountain country, the road follows a neck of comparatively flat land for many miles. To the west (R) are the distant crags of the Gore Range; to the east sprawls the long amethyst-colored chain of the Williams Fork Mountains; their delicate tones blend into the green and gray of the lowlands. The area is sparsely settled; deer, elk, and small animals are frequently seen. The route follows the Blue River Valley, bordered on both sides by wings of the Arapaho National Forest.

DILLON, 37.3 miles (8,600 alt., 92 pop.), a mining settlement, is at the junction with US 6 (see Tour 1b).

BRECKENRIDGE, 46.8 miles (9,579 alt., 436 pop.), was at one time the center of a group of gold camps claiming a population of 8,000. The first gold was panned in the Blue River in 1859 by a party of prospectors who erected a blockhouse as protection against Indians, and remained until deep snows drove them back to Denver. Their rich finds precipitated a rush the following spring, and for a decade this was one of the richest placer-mining fields in the State. Water was conveyed to the diggings by 50 miles of ditches and flumes. When the placers gave out, lode mining began, and many properties here are still producing.

Bayard Taylor, novelist, poet, and correspondent of the New York Tribune, rode into the camp in 1865, "over ditches, heaps of stone and gravel, and all the usual debris of gulch-mining." He found the town's one long street lined with log houses and covered wagons. Taylor was a guest at a hotel kept by Alex Sutherland, who, "taking the bugle with which he blew the signal for the immortal Light Brigade charge at Balaklava, made the notes of Teas upon the Trencher' ring out over the shanties of Breckenridge."

The road crosses the northern boundary of ARAPAHO NATIONAL FOREST, 48.3 miles, a preserve embracing 761,730 acres of Federal and 89,514 acres of State and private lands.

HOOSIER PASS, 57.8 miles (11,542 alt.), usually kept open during winter although ice and snow make motoring difficult, slits the high barrier of the Park Range, which includes some of the loftiest peaks in Colorado. To the west (R) are the glittering summits of MOUNT BROSS (14,170 alt.), MOUNT DEMOCRAT (14,142 alt.), MOUNT LINCOLN (14,284 alt.), the highest peak in the range, and MOUNT CAMERON (14,233 alt.). The pass marks the boundary between Arapaho and Pike National Forests.

In a mountain-shadowed hollow at the western edge of South Park is ALMA, 65.6 miles (10,300 alt., no pop.), one of the earliest gold camps in the region, still the center of a rich lode-mining district. Almost destroyed by fire in 1937, the town has been rebuilt.

According to old-timers, an attractive dance-hall girl appeared in Alma during the early boom days and became a great camp favorite. One young admirer fashioned a pair of silver heels for her slippers. Dancing through riotous nights in her slippers, she became known as Silver Heels, and in time her real name was forgotten. When the camp was ravaged by smallpox, and the women were removed to the comparative safety of Fairplay (see below), Silver Heels refused to leave. She stayed to nurse the stricken and comfort the dying. Her work done, she vanished. Some years later a richly gowned woman, always heavily veiled, visited the town to walk among the graves of the plague victims. Her visits, repeated annually for several years, aroused much comment and speculation. Although her identity was never disclosed, the miners were certain that she was Silver Heels returning to mourn her friends; and her reason for wearing the veil was to conceal pock marks that marred her former beauty. MOUNT SILVERHEELS (13,825 alt.), northwest of Alma, was named in honor of the "Angel of Mercy of South Park."

Right from Alma on a dirt road to the approximate SITE OF BUCKSKIN JOE, 2 miles, a mining camp named in 1859 for Joseph Higginbottom, "Buckskin Joe," who first discovered gold in the vicinity. For a time it was the seat of Park County. Late in 1860 the town was officially rechristened Laurette for two sisters, Laura and Jeanette Dodge, the only women in camp, but it continued to be known by its first name. The camp owed its few years of prosperity to the Phillips Lode, a thick iron-gold deposit at the grass roots, opened and worked like a stone quarry. It is said to have been discovered when Harris, a hunter, shot at a deer and found that the bullet, missing the deer, had plowed through grass and sand to uncover rich gold-bearing quartz. So much gold was taken from the mine that Harris is reported to have stored it in his cabin in pots and pans, even in a pair of old boots. Later, he took in a partner, Stancil, and together they built three dance houses and a theater in which a Negro minstrel company played continuously. Soon the camp had a newspaper, a band, several quartz mills, and a population of more than 1,000. H. A. W. Tabor (see Leadville) established a store here early in the 1860's, and purchased a number of claims, all of which proved worthless. By 1865 the camp was almost deserted, and in 1866 the county seat was removed to Fairplay. Nothing remains to mark the site, now private property.

In 1861 "Father" Dyer, known throughout the region as the "Snowshoe Itinerant," arrived to preach on street corners. A man of fifty, Dyer had spent many years as a miner and preacher in Minnesota and Wisconsin. In spite of his years he carried mail from Buckskin Joe to Cache Creek, a distance of 40 miles, and to other distant mining camps, stopping to preach wherever men would listen. Within two months he traveled more than 500 miles, his collections totaling $43.

At 65.7 miles is the junction with a dirt road.

Right on this road to the NEW LONDON MINE, one of the most productive gold mines in the United States. The route continues over MOSQUITO PASS (13,188 alt.), 8.9 miles, a high traverse of the Park Range, once known as the "highway of frozen death"; hundreds perished along it in the late 1870's, during the mad rush to the booming camp of LEADVILLE, 155 miles (see Leadville).

West of Alma the route skirts (R) CHINAMAN'S GULCH, a deep ravine along the South Fork of the South Platte, so named because many Chinese, imported in early days to pan gold, were quartered here. Huge gold dredges have heaped up unsightly mounds through which the shallow river winds its muddy course.

FAIRPLAY, 71.3 miles (9,964 alt., 221 pop.), is another of the State's old mining towns. A group of prospectors, affronted because miners drove them from the rich placers at Tarryall (see Tour 15a), settled here in 1859 and named their camp Fairplay in disparagement of their rivals.

Near the center of town a monument (L), erected by citizens in 1930, marks the GRAVE OF PRUNES, a burro. Brought into South Park in 1867, Prunes is said to have worked in every mine in the Fairplay-Alma district. Robert Sherwood, an old-time miner, who died in 1931 at the age of 82, was buried at the rear of the monument as he had requested.

The burro, the butt of endless gibes, often called "the Rocky Mountain Canary" and "the Colorado Mocking Bird" for its raucous bray, played an important part in the exploration, conquest, and settlement of the West. Although occasionally perverse, the burro was strong, sure-footed, and willing, and if given his head, could extricate himself from almost any predicament. His nose ever found water and the trail of man or beast; his huge ears were extraordinarily keen; he required little food and could abstain from water for astonishingly long periods. Companionable, nursing no grudges, and apparently enjoying human society, the burro was half-brother to the prospector, who regarded him warmly and cursed him roundly. Thousands of these shaggy little animals were brought into the State during mining days to transport provisions, tools, and equipment over narrow trails to remote and all but inaccessible mountain camps; they hauled ore cars and furnished power for early windlasses; and long trains of them brought ore from the mines to the nearest mill or shipping point.

At 72 miles is the junction with US 285 (see Tour 15a).

South of the junction the highway traverses rolling grassland studded with occasional clumps of pines and aspens, and broken by hills. Crossing a tributary of the South Fork of the South Platte, 76.5 miles, the road winds across the high mountain valley of South Park. This is good cattle country, and much of the State's hay crop is cut on its broad smooth meadows.

At 88.7 miles is the junction of US 24 (see Tour 5b), 1 mile west of HARTSEL (8,875 alt., 50 pop.), (see Tour 5b).