Salida Colorado

[bigred1cav]

What to do? Where to wade fish and be productive at fishing? Will be there all summer where would you go on time off?

[padredw]

This is one of our favorite areas in the United States. We have never stayed in Salida because we prefer to be up at Buena Vista where there are many good choices for RV parks. In more recent years we have been staying out at the Arrowhead Point Resort about 5 miles north of the town of Buena Vista, but we have also enjoyed staying at the KOA south of town.

We are not fisherfolk, but one reason we like the KOA is that you can literally walk out of the campground and be rock scrambling all the way in to town if you want--over Midland Hill to be more precise. I've spent some great hours climbing over those rocks (no trail until you get the top of Midland Hill--then it'd downhill all the way along a trail into Buena Visa).

[kennethwooster]

Salida is a beautiful area. I noticed a post somewhere that they have some beautiful hot springs areas. Course if you like river riding it would be excellent. I use to ski at Monarch, and just loved the area. Since I started RVing I've been going to Southfork for the summer, but have thought about Salida. A friend talked me into Southfork. All of Colorado is very interesting.

[bigred1cav]

OK< Passes. We have a 2000 Pace Arrow Vision 35ft. Ford V 10.

What may we expect in performance in the passes and mountains? What roads should we avoid which should we use?

Staying in Salida as a base where may we travel in a day in our bus?

[Thom02099]

rexlion wrote:
Thom02099, you mention all those passes... sounds like you have a PASSing interest in the area. 😄 Sorry, I couldn't PASS that one up! 😉

4runnerguy will probably be along soon... he knows that area really well.

LOL, yeah was hoping someone would catch my drift! With the exception of Independence, those passes are really not that bad/hard. Independence isn't bad with a passenger vehicle, not fond of towing over it.

[IDman]

Everyone seems to forget that the Arkansas River runs right thru Salida. North and East of Salida it offers great fishing for browns!

[4runnerguy]

Thom02099 has a good list of place you can go. If you'll be there all summer, Salida is nicely situated to go to a lot of great places.

Been years since I've done much fishing, but some ideas to explore:

The reservoirs in South Park are known for big fish. Was with a buddy when he caught a 27" rainbow out of Elevenmile. Big fish also in Spinney and Antero. All of these are out away from the trees, so not much protection from the wind. I've heard there's good stream fishing on the Platte in the canyon below Elevenmile.

If you're looking for some quick evening after work getaways, try Cottonwood Lake and O'Haver Lake. Mostly stockers in O'Haver Lake. Cottonwood Lake is deeper and holds some decent sized fish. Also, you can wade upstream into the willows and find some nice ponds along the stream.

Mirror Lake on the other side of Tincup Pass is a beautiful place to fish. Just stockers, but the scenery will blow you away. The streams above Tincup have some beaver ponds that should be interesting but you might have to bushwhack a little to get to the good stuff. Further downstream you get to Taylor Park. The reservoir there has some interest places where the streams feed in. Take the road up the Taylor River and try your luck along there.

I've often found the most fun fishing is in some of the high mountain lakes that you have to hike into. It can be real hit or miss. Some lakes seem absolutely dead one evening, then the next morning there's a feeding frenzy. I try to steer clear of lakes with mines right above them as often the heavy metals have killed the vegetation and fish in the lake.

You'll have plenty of time to explore places to fish. Get on Google and pull up the satellite images of the area. Then locate beaver ponds a little off the road where people can't just drive up and drop a line in. For instance when we've driven up the Hagerman Pass road above Turquoise Lake I've looked down at Busk Creek and all the little ponds and slack water areas and think that might be some place to explore. But as I said, I rarely fish anymore.

For other things to do, check out this link. There's river rafting for all abilities and ages. Worth doing and easy section once just to see what it's all about. A 4x4 does help explore a lot of this area. But many ghost towns can be reached with a normal car. St. Elmo is a good example. We find downtown Salida a great little town. In the summer, they have all sorts of concerts and events in the park down by the river. Spend too much time there and you may never leave. It was one of our final picks of places to move to before we ended up in Glenwood. The ArtWalk in late June is a great little festival of local artists in a great little town.

BTW, if you mountain bike or want to learn, this is a great place to do it. Even if you don't mountain bike, Salida is very bike friendly -- locals go to the park, go shopping, and go to the restaurants on their bicycles.

[rexlion]

Thom02099, you mention all those passes... sounds like you have a PASSing interest in the area. 😄 Sorry, I couldn't PASS that one up! 😉

4runnerguy will probably be along soon... he knows that area really well.

[Thom02099]

bigred1cav wrote:
What to do? Where to wade fish and be productive at fishing? Will be there all summer where would you go on time off?

I'm sure you'll get replies from some of the folks over in that area. It's a favourite of a lot of folks here, the area from Salida to Leadville.

The Arkansas River is famous for it's trophy fishing areas; while I'm not a fisherman, there are many sections of the river that I've seen many fishermen in the past. The locals should be able to advise where a good location would be for a specific time you'll be there.

"Time off" - does that indicate you're working in some capacity there? How much time do you have off?

Since that's a real good central location for Colorado there's TONS of stuff to see/do, just starting in the Arkansas River Valley. Besides historic Salida there's also Leadville up the road, with a lot of history as well as beautiful vistas everywhere. You're in the heart of 14'er country (peaks over 14000 feet) so if you're into hiking there's plenty of trails, with varying degrees of difficulty. If you're into 4-wheeling, there's plenty of places to rent a jeep and explore. Same for horseback riding. There's also various hot springs in the area -- Mt Princeton and Cottonwood come to mind. And that's just within about 30 miles of Salida!

There's also the Taylor Park area over Cottonwood Pass

There's the San Luis Valley over Poncha Pass

There's Aspen over Independence Pass

There's Gunnison over Monarch Pass

There's Fairplay and the South Park area.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Some folks from Buena Vista and Glenwood Springs could probably offer you more details. Suffice it to say, it's one of my favourite areas and I don't/can't get over there enough, since there's so much to see and do.