Son by the Arkansas River

The next stop on our Colorado Road Trip was Salida.  It’s a small town (pop. 5,400) in the middle of the state that borders the northern edge of the Sangre De Cristo Mountains. There’s a lot for a person to do in an around Salida, but the big draw seems to be rafting and kayaking down the Arkansas River.

The river flows down through the center of Salida.  Large parts of the river north and south of Salida are protected by the Arkansas River Headwaters Recreation Area, a Colorado state park type area. The Recreation Area has river access ramps, parking areas, campgrounds, and hiking trails along the river.  It makes access to the river very easy for rafters, kayakers, and fisherman.

We didn’t do any rafting or kayaking but it was fun watching them from the Riverside Park that is in Salida bordering the river. He’s a short video of some of the rafting and kayakers we saw.

Salida got it’s start in the 1870’s as a mining town. The big minerals taken out of the Sawatch Range were gold, silver,and molybdenum. Because of the mining, it was also somewhat of a railroad hub for a narrow gauge spur section of the Denver & Rio Grande Rail Road that hauled minerals down from Leadville and Salida to the mills in Pueblo.

The town has a nice 12 block Historic District that encompasses the main street businesses and several blocks of residences. Many of the homes in the historic district are small one-story cottage type homes. They’re not the large two story houses you see in New England or in historic cities like Charleston or Savannah. They’re just these little homes probably having around 1,000 sq ft of living space. They all seem unique in style and are well maintained. I asked a docent at the Salida Museum about this and he said they were mostly built by miners and rail road people who lived and worked in town.

In addition to rafting and kayaking, the town is a center for mountain biking. It’s a super bike friendly town with bike racks lining F Street (main street) and it has several bike shops. There’s a bike trail right through the center of town (Monarch Spur Trail), one along the river, and one that goes up to a local hill (Tenderfoot Mountain) across from the town.

With all the bikers, rafters, and kayakers, there’s quite a few upscale bars and eateries to cater to the young folks who seem to dominate the town.

We camped just a mile outside of town at a BLM campground that was called the Salida East Recreation Area. We camped right near the river. This spot is a poplar take out area for rafters so it seemed busy with traffic. Being BLM land, the camping fee was right (free). We spent two nights there enjoying the river and white capped mountain views. Just up the road was a brand new US Forest Service RV Dump Station that also had drinking water. It was a little pricey at $10 for a dump and $6 to fill the water tank but that more than covered us for the two night stay. We got showers at the Salida Hot Springs Aquatic Center, which charges $5 for a shower.  The Salida LIbrary has free wifi.  I got a 4G cell signal from our campsite using my Wilson Sleek 4G booster.

Salida East BLM Campsite

Salida is a great spot for outdoor activities. I can see why lots of people come Pueblo and Colorado Springs to play here and enjoy the river. It’s located in the Colorado “banana belt” which is one of the more mild climate areas of the state.  In the winter, when it snows, it usually is gone in 2-3 days.

I found the town to be a smaller more compact and more residential version of Durango. It reminded me a little of Estes Park with the river running through town. It have quite a few artists that reside in the area and have galleries in town. It also has 3 retail marijuana stores. More on that subject in a later post.

It’s got plenty of services for RVer’s (gas, diesel, Walmart) and few commercial campgrounds as well as BLM areas.

We enjoyed our stay. I’m glad we took a couple days to linger to enjoy the town and the river.  It would be a nice place to live.  The weather was sunny and warm during the day and cool at night. The air was dry and thin due to the elevation (7,100 ft).