People Met = 3
Our tent on the morning of a one foot wet snowstorm
The neighbor's tent the same morning
It took us awhile to make our way through the main thoroughfare of Cripple Creek the first time. The town proudly displays its gold mining heritage along with its recent foray into casinos. The casinos are good for hikers, since you can usually find a meal on the cheap, like the 49 cent breakfasts at Bronco Billy’s. I imagine the hungry manage to scout out these deals as well. So are casinos a good thing for a community, providing relief for at least one of the Housing, Health and Hunger issues we face?
Not for Chris Jacobs, a musician who lives in a trailer at the same campground where we set up our tent. He performed for us a bit in the laundry room of the campground. He lamented that the old cultural flair of the mining town, with musicians like him performing at this and that coffee house, frequented by local miners, has been replaced by karaoke entertainment at the casinos.
Beyond Chris’s lament, there is a tendency for towns driven by tourism, and I would assume casinos as well, to increase the wealth disparity of a local economy. Wealth disparity leads to the well documented phenomenon of spending cascades, with million dollar homes going for two million and on down the line, making even the most modest homes unaffordable for lower middle class incomes. In other words, a casino driven economy probably contributes to hunger, even as it provides some things on the cheap.
On the other hand, Cripple Creek’s economy is still aided by mining, which perhaps evens everything out. In any case it’s a fascinating place, and I’ll be putting up a facebook photo album for the town.
This turned out to be a rest day because the snowstorm which began the evening before did not stop until 2:00 in the afternoon. That meant we did not have enough time left in the day to hike down low enough out of the snow. Why both break camp and set it up again in the snow? If we wait a day we will be out of the snow at the end.
Meanwhile, our tent did much better than the one next to us, which collapsed by morning. Being a light sleeper I constantly banged the snow off of our tent, along with occasionally shoveling the blockade of snow that was forming around us. We’re getting a little stir crazy just hanging around Cripple Creek for a day … but at least there’s another 49 cent breakfast waiting for us before we begin out trek tomorrow!
Cripple Creek Casinos
Cripple Creek Mining Heritage
Chris Jacobs, Musician
Matti gave us some advice on The Shelf Road
Cripple Creek's present meets its past. Mules roam freely through the town.
