Steam & Excursion > A couple of hard to reach locations on the Cumbres & Toltec

Mud Tunnel & Phantom Curve

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You did great and sure enjoy that sound of working steam.  Great post.  I have many photos that Ernie Robart took from that very spot and I wonder if he was one of the early fans that blazed the way to get there. W.  H. Jackson and Fred Jukes collections do not show that they used the spot.. 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/15/20 11:22 by PlyWoody.

William Henry Jackson usually carried his darkroom on a chartered train and used heavy glass plate negative cameras.  Most of his railroad photos were taken in relative proximity to the tracks.  In many of his photos, his chartered train is visible in the photo.  When he did travel away from the railroad tracks, it literally took a little pack train of horses or mules to haul his "portable" darkroom around.  Fred Jukes likely used similar equipment, though by his era in the early 1900's, it was likely more compact.  D&RGW official photographer George Beam used glass plate negatives early in his career, but switched to smaller cameras using silver nitrate film later.  A couple of D&RGW employees literally saved a lot of both types of negatives by "dumpster diving" when the D&RGW discarded them when the railroad was moving from its headquarters on Stout Street to  the One Park Central building.  A lot of the glass plate photos wound up in some of the Sundance Publications books; most of the silver nitrate negatives were printed before the unstable silver nitrate film disintegrated.  That collection was willed to the Denver Public Library Western Collection.

The location from where the video was shot is not far from Forest Road 103 (the road into Osier), but one has to know where to take off on foot from the road, and it is a pretty strenuous hike.

That is a very nice video.  On this forum, it almost looks like a "N" gauge model railroad layout with all the great scenery.   Thanks for posting.

Rattie: What a great video. Excellent! Did you hike up to your vantage point or was in a drone video? If it was a hike, do you need some Absorbine liniment for the sore muscle?

William Jeffers, P.E.
San Dimas, CA

It was a hike first down from the road to get the Mud Tunnel shot and then up with a break about a third of the way out to get Phatom Curve. We got lost a little going in and only found the marked way in, which Steve my partner in crime on this shoot had put in place the year before on the way out. 

Nice view....