Five destinations reveal ghost towns, strange stories, and curious corners
By Kristi Sellers
COLORADO HAS NO SHORTAGE of obvious weekend escapes. Aspen, Breckenridge, and Rocky Mountain National Park have earned their reputations, but some of the state’s most memorable places sit well outside the usual itinerary.
They are the places you hear about from a friend, spot on a road trip or discover while wondering what might be hiding beyond the next mountain pass. A former prison. A nearly abandoned mining town. A museum devoted to Bigfoot. A landscape that looks as though it belongs on another planet.
For travelers willing to embrace the unexpected, these five destinations offer a slightly different side of Colorado.
SASQUATCH OUTPOST – BAILEY
Bigfoot believers and skeptics alike can find something to enjoy in Bailey.
Inside Sasquatch Outpost, the Sasquatch Encounter Discovery Museum explores decades of sightings, stories, and supposed evidence surrounding the famously elusive creature. Footprint casts, reports, and displays make a case for keeping an open mind, while the setting in Platte Canyon gives the whole premise just enough plausibility to make visitors glance toward the trees afterward.
It is playful, unabashedly quirky, and an easy addition to an autumn drive through the foothills.
ST. ELMO GHOST TOWN – NEAR NATHROP
Colorado has dozens of ghost towns, but St. Elmo requires less imagination than most.
Founded during the mining boom of 1880, the town retains an unusually intact collection of wooden storefronts, cabins, and other structures tucked into Chalk Creek Canyon at roughly 10,000 feet.
Walking its quiet streets offers a remarkably tangible connection to the boom-and-bust communities that once dotted Colorado’s high country. Some buildings remain privately owned, so visitors should observe posted boundaries.
October also comes with an important caveat: St. Elmo’s general store closes the last Sunday in September, and early snow can affect high-country travel. Checking conditions before setting out is a must.
MUSEUM OF COLORADO PRISONS – CAÑON CITY
There is something slightly unsettling about stepping inside a real cellblock, which is exactly what gives the Museum of Colorado Prisons its impact. Located in a former women’s correctional facility built in 1935, the museum sits beside the still-operating Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility.
Cells now serve as exhibit spaces filled with photographs, inmate-made objects, contraband, and stories from Colorado’s correctional past. Exhibits explore everything from daily prison life to capital punishment and some of the state’s most infamous inmates.
The experience is intimate, occasionally grim, and difficult to forget.
In October, the museum is open Wednesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
PAINT MINES INTERPRETIVE PARK – CALHAN
An hour east of Colorado Springs, the landscape takes an unexpected turn.
Paint Mines Interpretive Park protects approximately 750 acres of sculpted gullies, hoodoos, and clay formations streaked with shades of cream, gold, rose, and purple.
Archaeological evidence of human activity in the area dates back 9,000 years, and Native Americans collected the colorful clay.
Four miles of trails wind through the park, making it a manageable half-day outing. The park is free and open from dawn to dusk year-round.
Visitors should bring water and sturdy shoes; pets, bikes, and drones are prohibited.
UFO WATCHTOWER – SAN LUIS VALLEY
Then there is the UFO Watchtower, an attraction that could probably exist only beneath the enormous skies of the San Luis Valley.
The roadside destination pairs an elevated viewing platform with decades of UFO lore and an eccentric “healing garden” filled with objects left behind by visitors. Primitive camping encourages serious skywatchers to stay after dark.
Whether the evening produces unexplained lights or nothing more mysterious than an exceptional blanket of stars is almost beside thepoint. Surrounded by the San Juan and Sangre de Cristo mountains, the watchtower offers something increasingly rare: a place where looking up is the main event.
Together, these destinations reveal a Colorado beyond the familiar postcards. It’s a state shaped not only by mountains and ski towns, but by abandoned ambitions, strange stories, darker history, and landscapes that still leave room for a little mystery
