Saturday I drove about an hour northeast of Colorado Springs to the little town of Calhan. Here I found the Paint Mines Interpretive Park, a series of natural clay formations out in the desert.
This wasn’t originally on my list of things to do. Back in July, not long in to this trip, I met a guy named Erich while waiting for a venue near Bend, Oregon to open for the day. He later told me that he was inspired by my blog to start one of his own. He now posts pictures on Instagram and I commented online about some he had taken in Oregon at a place which wasn’t on my radar when I had been there. He responded that there was a site like it outside Colorado Springs so I added it to my list of places to be sure to get to on my return visit to Springs.
Paint Mines Park has about 4 miles of walking paths which meander through the massive clay formations and there are several parking areas out near the dirt road which leads in 1 1/2 miles from Highway 24.
To give you some concept of how big these formations are, the “wall” on the left in the photo below is maybe 9 feet tall:
The “spire” in the photo below is about 7 feet tall.
