Roadtrippin' Colorado Style

Alright, here we go. Looking west on Highway 24 as we enter the Manitou Springs city limits. Check out the freakin' huge mileage marker doing double duty as the VMS's id tag.

Off-centered merge sign here. This is the eastern interchange of US 24 and Bus US 24. The rock cuts necessary for this stretch of roadway are pretty impressive, too. And yes, the picture quality will increase as we go along.

Another shot of the rock cuts above Manitou Springs. Turning right takes you to one of many tourist traps in the Pikes Peak region, the Manitou Cliff Dwellings.

This sign used to be just a standard traffic light sign with a signal that flashed only when the light was about to change, but I guess that meant people had to think. The replacement happened within the last year.

Starting to snake through Ute Pass ("the pass," as us locals call it) now. Bicyclists are welcome on the road here, but I don't think I'd ever do it. Shoulders wide enough for a bike are a fantasy for a few miles, and the traffic is doing 45+ on a tight-cornered road. Not my idea of fun.

This lone sign telling us to Share The Road is chillin' at the end of a wide curve. Even though it's on the small side for a sign, it's still quite visible.

Rockslide mitigation work has already happened on US 24. This is the result. Theoretically, the screens force all falling rocks to fall directly against the rock face and land on the shoulder of the road. Haven't had the dubiious honor of watching this work yet.

Here's a closer look at the mitigation efforts, as well as how close the rock walls actually are to the road through here. Don't cut that corner!

After the narrow canyon part of Ute pass, the rest of the pass is wide and open. Here's the turnoff to take yourself up to the top of Pikes Peak via the Pikes Peak Highway. The North Pole is a Christmas-themed amusement park on the slopes of the Peak. Also, notice how CDOT closed off access to the right by using a guardrail. The original guardrails (and paint: look closely!) were left in place behind it!

CDOT seemed to be confused when giving orders for the line through here. Curved? Solid? Dashed? Who knows??? The current option is dashed, by the way.

Now that's advance notice for the curve, isn't it? Yes, that's the curve the sign is referring to.

Damn traffic. Damn dump trucks in my blind spot. This is in Woodland Park, by the way. And while this speed isn't necessary, I do recommend going the posted limit through here. WPPD don't have much to do up here.

Since I've already documented 24 from Woodland Park to Divide here, I've skipped ahead to this point. I caught crews replacing the wire span lights at the intersection of US 24 and southbound CO 67.

I was tempted to ask the guy pulling wires (he's behind the barrel in this pic) if he thought his boss would miss one of those signals, cause, you know, I could use one. Problem was a State Trooper was still on scene from when he had to direct traffic during the switch.

A shot of the southwest side of the intersection now. Cool, huh? Here's a shot of the intersection before, from the Highway 67 trip.

Okay, pass one, Ute Pass (elev ~9100 feet) is done with. We went over it just after the intersection from the last pics. Nothing too special. We're about 5 miles from that now, and the road starts to wind a bit here.

Cool looking rock formations alongside the road. This is a few miles before Florissant. The housing division in the area is called Druid Hills, don't know if that referrs to these or not.

This stretch of US 24 has its fair share of wooden bridge railings still. And they're all in great shape.

Okay, all you traffic and civil engineers out there: explain this one to me. This curve has an advisory speed of 30 mph...

... but can handle far greater speeds than that. Why is that? My only guess is that it's the first curve for a while. Maybe it's signed that low to wake people up?

Look to the right of the curve sign two pics above. See that blurry white object? That's one of these. They're all along this segment of highway 24. And they have to date back to the time when this was a state highway, around 1940, I believe.

Approaching the Wilkerson Pass summit now. That's the visitor center on the left, and a slightly ominous sign on the right. How close are we to the pass summit? Very. See that blurry green sign in the background? That's it.

Here's the top of Wilkerson Pass. We're about to descend into the South Park area. Yes, this is where the show got its name from. No, I won't be killing Kenny.

The South Park area is a mostly flat plateau/valley/some geological term smack dab in the middle of the state. The slight blue glimmer just to the right of the leftmost hill is the western edge of the Eleven Mile Reservoir.

This is one lonely stretch of road, but not as lonely as it is about to become. FYI, there is a North Park area of Colorado, too. Look for the town of Walden on a map of the state. It sits right in the middle of it.

Here's the paint crew that sign was talking about earlier. It's the truck and one follow car behind that. For the next few miles, you can see the spots where the cars ignored the Wet Paint signs quite well.

Here's a very weather-beaten Park County road sign. Don't ask what the number is cause I can't read it.

Here's the tiny hamlet of Hartsel, Colorado. CO 9 intersects with US 24 on both sides of the town. Growing up I can remember hearing the rhyme "Hartsel Fartsel and his red hen" over and over. Still don't know where the 'rents got that from.

The US 24/CO9 multiplex is marked once. Considering they're only together for less than a mile, I think that's pretty good. Also visible is a bike route marker. Normally this has the number 76 in the blank spot. Some kind of bike "interstate"? I've only seen it along CO 9.

CO 9 and Bike I-76 veer off to the north just to the west of Hartsel. Since most traffic on this part of 24 is Colorado Springs residents on their way to Summit County, Breckenridge, Arapahoe Basin, and other ski resorts, they turn right here. US 24 is quite lonely for the next few miles.

See? Proof. I normally pass one car on this stretch of US 24. Today was a busy one: we'll pass 4 cars. Whee!

The main access road to Antero Reservoir. Through the drought in recent years, Denver Water completely drained Antero in order to put more water into Cheeseman and Chatfield reservoirs. This area was closed off at that point. The only thing telling you this is a spray painted piece of plywood saying Reservoir Closed. Nice. And the call box is still functioning. Good thing, since cell phone coverage is spotty at best out here.

Two lone reassurance shields. (The other is on the other side of the road.) That's about it for sign scenery out here.

We're approaching US 285 now. See that grey strip that veers to the right in the center? That's where 24 curves to meet 285 in a T intersection.

A closer shot of that curve. Before 285 was built, all traffic veered east on 24, hence the No Left Turn sign. Of course, this has been the configuration for quite some time now, so I wonder if the overkill warning signs are necessary anymore.

This region of CDOT is in love with the narrow version of the FHWA-series font. It's on all of their new LGS's. We're going towards Buena Vista, by the way.

These two highways are also marked well. Mile markers show US 24's mileage, which is regulation. However, 285 carries far more traffic than 24 does. I'm surprised a rule wasn't bent out here. We're also on a long grade up to the top of Trout Creek Pass, elev 9,346. The pics I took at the top didn't come out at all.

It's a long, almost straight descent from Trout Creek Pass until we hit this point. Things get kinda windy for a while now.

Another shot of the zig-zag approaching. Don't know why my camera had such a hard time with this snap. Hmmm...

Chaffee County went county road happy. Every intersection on US 24 going into Leadville is a county road at least. Here's number 307. See that cut right behind the CR sign? That's CR 309...

...and it's barely a one-lane dirt track. And if you don't have any spare signs laying around, I guess you can use a CR shield for anything!

Can't go around a hill? Blast through it! The peak in the background is Mount Princeton.