There’s no two ways about it, Spencer Penrose, the legendary founder/owner of the Colorado Springs Hotel, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, really liked a drink.
During Prohibition he threw huge parties so his best friends in New York – personally shipped in by train – could drink litres of ‘cologne’.
The possessor of only one eye, Penrose had two spare glass eyes, one of which was ‘bloodshot’ so it would match his other, real bloodshot eye, when he was properly hungover.
And he kept a personal hoard of booze, the size of a swimming pool – under the swimming pool.
But happily, booze is not the only reason to visit this vast century-old pink-brick Italianate grand dame of a hotel (though the excellent bar does a splendid dry martini with its own cute carafe).
It boasts gleaming pools, lush (if pricey) cuisine, cracking views of the Rockies, an authentic translocated London pub the Golden Bee (once visited by Prince Harry) and the last bottle of wine ever drunk by President George W Bush (who then went teetotal and signed the label – look for ‘bottle alley’ in the basement).
Colorado Springs also makes a brilliant first stop for anyone who fancies a loop around some of the best of Colorado.
Travelling through these parts allows you to take in remote yet elegant dude ranches, remarkable new mountain-straddling railway routes, eerie old ghost towns, thundering bison herds, the world’s biggest hot springs, and living echoes of the Beat generation – plus aliens.
Sean Thomas visits Colorado for a tour of the state’s dude ranches, railway routes, eerie ghost towns, and a trip to Colorado Springs to kick things off
Spencer Penrose, the legendary founder/owner of the Colorado Springs Hotel was known to be rather fond of a drink, reports Sean Thomas
Colorado Springs boasts gleaming pools, lush cuisine, cracking views of the Rockies, an authentic translocated London pub the Golden Bee (once visited by Prince Harry) and the last bottle of wine ever drunk by President George W Bush
From Colorado Springs, your initial meanderings needn’t take you far.
Shortly after leaving the burbs, you come to the quirky ex-mining town Manitou Springs in the Rocky foothills, which hosts a proper Grand Old American tourist attraction: Pikes Peak Railroad.
A century back, Pikes Peak Rail, now owned by the Colorado Springs Hotel, was erected to draw high-spending east coasters and adventurous Europeans to the scenic western lands.
It offered a chance to take the world’s highest-reaching cog railway up one of the most iconic peaks in the Rockies.
First you crush yourself aboard the pretty, toy town-ish railroad (with your ticket, you will need to book), then you slowly claw your way up the slopes – look out for bald eagles and beaver, maybe elk or bear: the wilderness begins quickly around here.
Sharp eyed botanists will also spot the world’s oldest tree, the bristlecone pine, and the world’s biggest organism – the quaking aspen.
All seen from a railway that wouldn’t look out of place in a Swiss version of Thomas the Tank Engine.
The rain tops out as does the mountain.
Quirky ex-mining town Manitou Springs in the Rocky foothills hosts a proper Grand Old American tourist attraction: Pikes Peak Railroad
You can expect to feel cold and dizzy as you climb out and marvel at the summit scapes all around; you’ve got a 360-degree view here at a 4,300m elevation.
Have a special Pikes Peak donut: they are said to taste better than anywhere here, because the sizzling fat in which they are fried, at a special high altitude temperature, makes them crispier – although not less calorific, I fear.
Now it’s very much back to ground earth for the winding southern Colorado roads, to Zapata Ranch.
Civilisation thins out as you go, until the few signs of human life in the bleak-yet-beautiful San Luis valley (the biggest Alpine valley in the world), are the trailer park hamlets and fishing rivers.
Eventually, even this emptiness yields to simple natural beauty: the richly hued serrations of the Sangre do Christos mountains sit to the east, with the Rockies louring jealousy on the other side of the sweeping valley.
And then – just as it seems the entire American road system will give up and dump you in a rattlesnake-filled canyon – you arrive at Zapata.
It is ringed by trembling golden aspens which parade like slender and willowy dancers.
The mountainous Blood of Christ cliffs are the backdrop. Sit here at sunset and the rocks blush into fiery shades of claret, apricot and Byzantine purple as the western sky burns to the ground.
The mountainous Blood of Christ cliffs provide a spectacular backdrop for any visitors here. Sean recommends sitting here at sunset, as the rocks ‘blush into fiery shades of claret, apricot and Byzantine purple’
This is one of America’s least-visited national parks. And at a time when the USA’s great park system is under severe touristic pressure, that is no small thing.
Only here can you hire horses to trek into the dwarfing Great Sand Dunes, as well as the gulches, arroyos, silvery reedponds and abandoned mining villages – some with compelling stories of murder and Gold Rush love affairs.
Back at the ranch, dinner is served on a huge shared table that you might share with guests from Brazil, Israel, New Zealand, Hawaii – along with neighbourhood coyotes, owls and wild deer.
As for food, think local smoked trout, juicy bison burgers, herby mushrooms and crunchulent potatoes – all grown in the semi-desert gardens. Zapata is proud of its tucker.
Back on the road – this time an Interstate for speed – a few hours north brings you to Denver.
A city built for no reason other than that the pioneers had to pause somewhere (its first proper building was a saloon), Denver is one of the most likeable of western American big cities, with a sleek new downtown, and a well preserved Victorian-era old town.
It has a wealth of fruity stories: from the 19th-century street that used to be all bordellos (many now legal marijuana dispensarie), to the tin-roofed Prohibition era bars favoured by Kerouac, Dylan and the Beat Generation, many of which are still bars. These tend to get more raucous the nearer you get to a sports stadium.
Because Denver loves it sports – even as much as it loves craft beers.
Denver is one of the most likeable of western American big cities, according to Sean
While there are probably too many microbreweries to count, the oldest is Wynkoops.
This brewery-eaterie is beloved by Barack Obama, so you can eat your scrumptious fish tacos next to a life size photo of the former president choosing his own fish tacos.
Now for the last and greatest leg of all: the Rocky Mountaineer, USA.
A new offshoot of the famous luxe train route that traverses the Canadian Rockies, this expensive, but probably peerless, new service snakes between Denver and Moab (Utah), and over a continental divide all through the summer season.
It also winds the lucky passenger, in your roofed viewing carriage, up an historic, vertiginous mining railroad – and into the loftiest of the Rockies.
Past cataracts and snowfields, pine forests and nuclear war centres, past deserted yet paradisical valleys with views to kill for.
And ‘kill’ is not an exaggeration. Buffalo Bill is buried here, amongst the ski-slopes.
The two-day passage of the Rocky Mountaineer spends most of its time in Colorado state.
For the last leg of his trip, Sean boards the Rocky Mountaineer, USA, which takes its passengers up a vertiginous mining railroad. A new offshoot of the famous luxe train route that traverses the Canadian Rockies, this expensive, but probably peerless, new service snakes between Denver and Moab (Utah)
As it trundles along, it doles out pleasant food (could do better) and phenomenal cocktails (couldn’t be better: try the Manhattans and the Old Fashioneds). You can have them served at your seat. It’s often more fun in the rollicking dining cars.
The first day’s journey ends with a stretch of track along a canyon-floor so jaw-dropping you may need an orthodontist – until you fetch up in the Olde West resort town of Glenwood Springs, high in the arid mountains.
This little town offers the world’s biggest hot springs – relax your bones in God’s jacuzzi under the stars – and wild west America’s most haunted hotel, the Hotel Colorado, once frequented by Al Capone and Teddy Roosevelt.
The second morning, you re-embark, and chuff through an entirely different, equally compelling landscape: the red rocks, desert swathes, and sandy buttes of God fearing Utah.
Not that the extra religiosity of Utah prevents locals pulling down their pants and mooning at the privileged train-goers, an acknowledged tradition all the way along the route. Perhaps take blinkers?
But if you did, you’d miss that epic Old West scenery – bald eagles, desert spars, burning plateaux, idyllic dales, whitewater kayakers, drowsing elk knee deep in trout-rivers, icy peaks spouting cart-wheeling sliver cataracts.
It is scenery so spectacular it can shock an entire glass train carriage fill of drunken happy people downing world class margaritas into total silent awe. And that, it must be said, is not easy.
