🌿 RelaxedWeekend · from Colorado Springs, CO
South Park Country — Eleven Mile, a Ghost Town & the High Grasslands
West of Colorado Springs the road climbs over the mountains and drops into South Park — a vast, treeless basin of high grassland ringed by snowcapped ranges, one of the great open spaces of the Rockies and the namesake of the town that anchors it. This unhurried weekend trades peaks for horizons: the huge reservoir and granite shoreline of Eleven Mile State Park, the near-empty ghost-mining hamlet of Guffey with its famously offbeat character, and the wide sky over Hartsel and the Tarryall country. Day one drops to the reservoir and the ghost town; day two crosses the grassland to Fairplay, where the South Park City museum reassembles an entire frontier town, before easing home through the Tarryall valley. It is a spare, atmospheric weekend in the highest, quietest basin in Colorado.
Day 1 — Eleven Mile State Park, the reservoir & the ghost town of GuffeyDay 2 — Hartsel, the South Park City museum in Fairplay & the Tarryall
Day 1 — Eleven Mile & Guffey, CO
Day 1 — Eleven Mile & Guffey, CO
🚗 2 hr 25 min driving📍 5 stops
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Morning
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Drive
Colorado Springs, CO → Eleven Mile State Park, CO
1 hr 40 min8:00 AM → 9:40 AM
Eleven Mile State Park & Reservoir
★ 4.2Set at nearly 8,600 feet where the South Platte pools behind an old dam, Eleven Mile Reservoir is a huge, wind-swept sheet of water fringed with weathered granite domes and open shortgrass prairie. The state park wrapping its shore is a quiet expanse of coves, rocky points, and big-sky views, prized by anglers and paddlers but blissfully uncrowded on a weekday. Easy shoreline paths and the granite outcrops make for a lovely morning of walking, watching the light on the water, and taking in the ring of distant peaks. The dark, open setting also makes it one of Colorado's certified International Dark Sky parks. A small daily vehicle pass is required at the entrance.
9:40 AM📍 See location
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Lunch
🍽️ Lunch10:40 AM
Freshwater Saloon & Deli, Lake George
In the little crossroads of Lake George near the park entrance, this friendly local saloon and deli is the most reliable spot for a hearty midday meal in a corner of the state where restaurants are few and far between. Expect generous sandwiches, burgers, and daily specials in an unfussy, welcoming room that draws anglers, ranchers, and travelers alike. It is exactly the kind of honest small-town stop that suits the spare character of South Park country. Fill up here, since options thin out considerably deeper into the basin. Hours can run short in the off-season, so plan lunch on the earlier side.
2 options · tap to switch
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Eleven Mile Canyon Drive
Below the dam, the South Platte squeezes into Eleven Mile Canyon, a narrow, granite-walled gorge that an easy dirt road follows for miles beside the river. Sheer pink walls rise straight from the water, and the old railroad-grade road passes fishing pull-offs, a couple of short tunnels, and turnouts where the canyon frames the tumbling stream. It is a gentle, scenic drive with plenty of excuses to stop and stroll along the river — a beautiful, low-effort contrast to the open reservoir above. The canyon is a designated recreation area with a modest access fee. Anglers work the river the whole way through.
11:40 AM📍 See location
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Afternoon
The Ghost Town of Guffey
★ 4.5South of Eleven Mile, a lonely back road climbs to Guffey, a near-abandoned gold-mining hamlet that has aged into one of Colorado's most cheerfully eccentric ghost towns. A handful of stubborn residents keep it just barely alive — a rusting-relic-strewn main street, a scattering of leaning cabins and old vehicles slowly returning to the earth, and a beloved local tradition of electing a cat or a dog as honorary mayor. It is quiet, strange, and wonderful for a slow afternoon poke around, camera in hand, with the high grassland stretching away in every direction. Respect that people still live here and stick to the public areas. The drive in through the pines and meadows is half the pleasure.
12:40 PM📍 See location
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Evening
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Drive
Guffey, CO → Hartsel, CO
45 min5:00 PM → 5:45 PM
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Hartsel & South Park Lodging
Hartsel bills itself as the geographic heart of Colorado, a tiny ranching crossroads set squarely in the middle of the South Park basin beneath an enormous sky. Lodging out here is simple and sparse — a rustic inn or cabins in or near Hartsel, or guest cabins scattered around the grassland — but the reward is a night under some of the darkest skies in the state, with the Milky Way blazing over the open plain. For a wider choice of rooms, the historic town of Fairplay lies a short drive north and makes an equally good base. Book ahead, since beds in this remote basin are limited and fill on summer weekends.
Day 2 — Fairplay & the Tarryall, CO
Day 2 — Fairplay & the Tarryall, CO
🚗 2 hr 20 min driving📍 3 stops
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Morning
🚗
Drive
Hartsel, CO → Fairplay, CO
35 min8:00 AM → 8:35 AM
South Park City Museum, Fairplay
★ 4.8The standout of the whole basin, South Park City is an open-air museum that reassembles an entire 1880s frontier mining town from more than forty original buildings gathered from across the region and filled with tens of thousands of period artifacts. You walk a genuine dirt main street past a saloon, a general store, a schoolhouse, a drugstore, a blacksmith, and miners' cabins, each stocked as though the occupants stepped out moments ago — one of the most complete and convincing living-history collections in the West. It is an unhurried, immersive morning that brings the vanished gold-rush world of South Park vividly to life. Allow a couple of hours to do it justice. It is open seasonally, generally mid-May through mid-October.
8:35 AM📍 See location
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Lunch
🍽️ Lunch9:35 AM
Front Street Grill & The Brown Burro, Fairplay
Fairplay's compact historic main street holds the best cluster of eateries in South Park, and a relaxed sit-down lunch here is the natural midday anchor before turning for home. Local favorites like the long-running Brown Burro Cafe serve generous, homestyle American and Mexican plates in cozy, well-worn rooms full of mountain-town character. It is hearty, friendly, and unpretentious — a fitting meal in the town that inspired a certain famous cartoon namesake. Browse the historic storefronts along Front Street while you're here. Weekend midday can get busy with travelers coming off the passes, so arrive a touch early.
2 options · tap to switch
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Afternoon
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Tarryall Reservoir & the Tarryall Road
Rather than retrace the highway, the quiet Tarryall Road loops southeast off the basin along Tarryall Creek, past a small state-managed reservoir and beneath the granite crags of the Tarryall Mountains and the Lost Creek Wilderness. It is one of the loveliest and least-traveled routes in the region — meadows of grazing cattle and pronghorn, willow-lined creek bottoms, weathered ranch buildings, and dramatic rock formations rising from the grassland. Pull off at the reservoir or any of the creekside turnouts for a final unhurried stretch of the legs before the road drops back toward Colorado Springs. The scenery on this backroad is the perfect quiet coda to the weekend. Much of it is well-graded gravel, easily driven in dry weather.
12:00 PM📍 See location
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Evening
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Drive
Tarryall, CO → Colorado Springs, CO
1 hr 45 min5:00 PM → 6:45 PM
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