88 pages with 90+ photographs (1.3 MB PDF)

Set in four landlocked States, this itinerary starts in the 'Mile High City' of Denver, but quickly escapes to the mountains.  As the area of the itinerary was crossed by various pioneer trails, many facets of the past are found along the route.

The Oregon Trail has left many reminders in the form of wagon ruts, forts and signatures on rocks.  This itinerary gives a fascinating insight to the lives of those pioneers, and of the wild and beautiful countryside they passed through.  Some of the settlers earned a meager living from gold mines and homesteads.

Visit up to 4 National Parks:

Rocky Mountain	stunning mountain views from the Trail Ridge Road, and from hiking trails to waterfalls and lakes.  This National Park has great variety
Badlands	really interesting and unusual scenery, with sedimentary clay layers in vividly multi-coloured horizontal bands
Wind Cave	famous for its underground calcite formations of boxwork, frostwork and popcorn.  It also has stalactites and stalagmites
Black Canyon of the Gunnison	the canyon is very narrow, and up to 2,772 feet deep.  Direct sunlight generally only reaches the canyon floor at noon

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Visit up to 9 National areas:

Devils Tower	rising 867 feet from the surrounding ground, this was made famous in the 1977 Steven Spielberg film 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'
Dinosaur	not only are dinosaur bones found here, but views over vast canyons are claimed to equal the most excellent in the USA west
Fort Laramie	originally started by fur traders in 1834, this is on the Oregon Trail
Mount Rushmore	the world-famous mountain sculpture of four American presidents
Florissant Fossil Beds	an internationally famous site for plant and insect fossils, with some giant sequoia fossilised tree trunks of massive proportions
Minuteman Missile	the Launch Facility Delta-09 and Launch Control Facility Delta-01 are available for guided tours
Brown's Park Wildlife Refuge	an area abounding in wildlife, including elk, deer, moose, beaver, otter, beaver, rabbit, waterfowl, osprey and snake
Colorado Monument	a 23-mile road provides dramatic views into canyons about 1,000 feet deep, and across the valley of the Colorado River
Historic Trails Interpretive Center	devoted to explaining the westward expansion across the USA between the 1840s and 1870s.  Interactive exhibits and clever technology make the visitor feel part of the emigrant trail

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Visit Denver, and other towns, including:

Denver	many interesting places are close to the State Capitol of this 'Mile High City', and within walking distance, including the United States Mint and the Denver Art Museum, with wonderful new 'Frederic C. Hamilton Building'
Cripple Creek	now a gambling town, it was a major gold-mining town around 1900, with about 500 mines, a population of 60,000, and even its own stock exchange
Deadwood	now a National Historic Landmark, this is where Wild Bill Kickok and Calamity Jane lived.  They are buried next to each other in Mount Moriah Cemetery
Central City	when gold was discovered in 1859, it became 'The richest square mile on Earth'.  Now a gambling town, the Opera House still has performances
Sundance	Harry Alonzo Longabaugh spent 18 months in jail here, and then became known as 'The Sundance Kid' after he was pardoned in 1889
Colorado Springs	a large city and home to the Garden of the Gods, with its stunning red rock formations rising from the valley floor
Rapid City	known as the 'City of Presidents', for its life-size bronze statues of the USA's presidents
Lead	home of the Homestake Gold Mine.  The 'Open Cut' gold mine is 0·25 mile deep and 0·5 mile wide.

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Visit other fascinating places, including:

Oregon Trail Ruts	possibly the best examples of wagon ruts from thousands of wagons.  Nearby is Register Cliff with its many pioneer inscriptions
Crazy Horse Memorial	the largest mountain sculpture in the world
Hornbek Homestead	the story of Adeline Hornbek is one of pioneering determination and courage
Gordon Stockade	a replica of the 1874 illegally-built stockade within Custer State Park.  The timber cabin of Charles Badger Clark is nearby
Pikes Peak	at 14,110 feet, it is the most eastern of the high peaks in the Rocky Mountains
South Dakota Air and Space Museum	large aircraft on display include a Boeing B-52D Stratofortress and Rockwell B-1B Lancer
Independence Rock	a famous landmark on the Oregon Trail, where hundreds of emigrants inscribed their names into the granite
US Air Force Academy	see the famous Parade Ground and the dramatic Cadet Chapel
John Jarvie Ranch Historic Site	the isolated, but thriving ranching community where Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch holed up
Fort Caspar	built in 1862 to protect emigrants on the Oregon, Mormon and California Trails, and also to protect the Overland Mail Service and telegraph lines

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Suggested walking/hiking: In addition to visiting the many interesting places on this itinerary, separate walks are also described, where appropriate back to top