Waterton Canyon

(From 7/12/06 on my old blog)

Waterton Canyon was carved by the South Platte River southwest of Denver. The mouth of the canyon is at the far south end of Wadsworth Blvd. several miles south of C470 near the Lockheed Martin facilities. Some information about Waterton Canyon is readily available on the internet. You can read about it being the beginning of the Colorado Trail, how you can do some good mountain biking once you reach the Strontia Springs Dam, how the road is closed to automobiles, how the big dam at Strontia Springs is owned by the Denver Water Board, etc. These things are easy to see for anyone who visits the canyon.

Here are some lesser known facts about Waterton Canyon:

1. The start of the canyon is at a location known as Kassler. This was a water treatment facility built in 1889. The facility is not used for water treatment anymore but there are still some active buildings there.

2. The Highline Canal has its start about a mile and a half up the canyon. Once you get up there a ways, you can see a concrete wall on the other side of the river. This is actually the wall of the canal. The canal’s water is diverted through a tunnel upstream a bit further. You can see where the water exits the tunnel at the location where two large pipes cross the road. This canal is about 70 miles long and it ends up near the Denver airport. The canal was built between 1879 and 1883.

3. Those two large pipes are diversions of their own. One of them feeds into Marston Lake in Littleton. Where the other one goes, I don’t know.

4. A little ways before the pipes cross the road, you might notice what appear to be bridge abutments parallel to the road on the side opposite the river. These concrete abutments supported yet another large pipeline once upon a time. You can see pictures of them at the Denver Public libraries historic photo website.

5. The road up Waterton Canyon is on the old railroad grade of the Colorado and Southern. It was built originally as the Denver, South Park and Pacific Railway. The railroad eventually made it all the way to Gunnison via Buena Vista and the Alpine Tunnel. It was built through Waterton about 1878 and taken up from the canyon by about 1940.

6. There was a large hotel at Strontia Springs at one time. No evidence of it now. The big concrete dam is called the Strontia Springs Dam.

7. Strontia Springs was formerly called Deansbury.

8. Cell phones don't work in the canyon.