1 PLAYING AMONG THE COLLEGIATE PEAKS: BUENA VISTA & SALIDA COLORADO The towns of Buena Vista and Salida are only a scenic, 30-minute drive apart, so plan to traipse back and forth between them during your stay. feet — “fourteeners,” in local parlance. Head to an aerial adven-ture park: With more than 120 challenges, including swinging bridges and tightrope walks, Captain Zipline (4) is the largest aerial adventure park in the western U.S. Mean-while, Browns Canyon Adventure Park suspends zipliners above the roaring river, and Arkansas Valley Adventures allows daring visitors to soar from cliff top to treetop on a 44-acre course. Buena Vista is a popular access point for rafting, MORNING Travel along the Collegiate Peaks Scenic Byway , a 57-mile route that runs along the Collegiate Peaks Wilder-ness (1) and the Sawatch Range from Salida north to Buena Vista and beyond. This stretch contains the nation’s greatest concentration of peaks higher than 14,000 QUICK TIP 134 / About 20 miles southwest of Buena Vista lies St. Elmo , one of the state’s best-preserved ghost towns. Though abandoned by its residents in 1922, wooden storefronts and cabins remain seemingly frozen in time. Pop into the General Store for a cold beverage and to get hiking and ATVing tips May through September. COLORADO.COM MOUNT HARVARD, LAURENCE PARENT. Venture to central Colorado for a high-country getaway with Arkansas River-side mountain towns, hot springs, dramatic peaks named after colleges (Princeton, Yale and Harvard, to name a few), and unbeatable outdoor recreation.
Colorado Official State Vacation Guide 2018: Page 134
