We finally got back to our mystery hike over Fathers Day weekend. Enough snow had melted that we were able to make our way all the way to Oil Creek Tunnel. Kristina came with us as she was home for a visit. She rode the Amtrak train out from Osceola to Denver and spent the weekend. It was great to have her home and back out on the trail with us again.
Oil Creek Tunnel was constructed in the late 1890’s by a Cincinnati company as a prospecting venture. No, not for gold, but for flourine quartz. The tunnel bores straight into Pikes Peak right at the treeline at an elevation of 11,285 feet. It was not a particulary successful operation and they gave up after boring through 1,593 feet of solid granite. The tunnel is about six feet high and eight feet wide for the most part but there are sections that are lower and it’s easy to bonk your head since most of your attention is on where you are putting your feet.
We had a nice hike into the area and were able to find the cabin ruins without much trouble. But beyond the cabin the snow was still drifted pretty heavily and was not passable in many places. We knew the tunnel was in the rock face so we split up and started looking for it. Ronda was the first to spot it and we all converged on the area. The tunnel itself was still covered by the huge snow drifts coming down off the mountain, although there was a small hole from where the warmer air had melted through. The main giveaway was the old steam boiler that is still intact and the stream coming out of the snow.
Quite an adventure. We did the same trip over Labor Day. We drove up to 12,000 ft. on the Pikes Peak Hwy, and parked at the Elk Park Overlook to get there. When we reached the back wall of the tunnel, water was shooting about 15 ft. from a small hole in the rock. We got a few cool pictures, and had a great time.