Clear Creek Canyon

The canyon's history is the story of Colorado's founding. George Jackson's 1859 strike in Clear Creek, and John Gregory's strike soon after farther up at what became Black Hawk and Central City, set off the rush that filled these gorges with prospectors almost overnight. Over the century that followed, roughly two hundred million dollars in gold and silver ore shipped out of the mining district around Idaho Springs, making this one of the birthplaces of the state itself.

Getting through the canyon was always the hard part. The walls are so steep that early wagon and toll roads climbed around the gorge rather than through it, threading Golden Gate Canyon to the north and Mount Vernon Canyon to the south. Only in 1872, when the narrow-gauge Colorado Central Railroad was blasted in on a grade just above the water, did the canyon floor finally open as a direct route to the mines. Today's highway follows that same hard-won corridor.

The drama of the canyon is written in its geology. Clear Creek slices through granite and gneiss, ancient rock formed deep beneath older mountain ranges, and the creek has flowed near its present path for something like forty million years. In just the last ten million or so, the land uplifted, steepening the stream and letting the water saw down into the hard rock to carve the deep, sheer-walled gorge you drive through now.

Those same stubborn walls are what make the canyon such a magnet for climbers and rafters. The rock holds its shape, so it climbs well and drops fast, funneling the creek into a tight, steep gradient. It is a landscape shaped by resistance, rock that would not wear away easily and water that never stopped trying, and the result is one of the Front Range's most striking canyons.

Clear Creek is famous among rafters for being the steepest commercially guided river in Colorado, which means more rapids packed into every mile. Guided trips run through named drops with reputations of their own, and because it is snowmelt water the season follows the mountains, biggest and fastest in early summer, lower and more technical later on. It is cold, quick, and pushy, so a guide and proper gear are part of the deal.

Above the water, the hard granite walls draw climbers to routes reachable from the highway trailheads, and along the creek the Peaks to Plains Trail, also called the Clear Creek Trail, runs as a wide paved path perfect for a walk, a ride, or a spot of fishing. Between the three, the canyon rewards anyone who wants to get out of the car, whether for a full day of rapids or a quiet hour by the water.

The canyon is easiest to reach by taking US Highway 6 west from Golden or dropping in from Idaho Springs at the upper end. The lower stretch is public land managed as Clear Creek Canyon Park, with signed Jefferson County Open Space trailhead lots strung along the highway. Use those marked lots rather than the narrow, busy shoulder, and check for seasonal raptor closures, since nesting golden eagles sometimes put climbing areas off limits for part of the year.

Idaho Springs, at the top of the canyon, makes the natural base, an old mining town with the Argo Mill, hot springs, and food, and a launching point for the high country just beyond. Give the canyon a half day if you are rafting or climbing, or simply pull off at a trailhead, walk out along the paved creekside path, and let the rushing water and the towering granite do the rest.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.