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, .' - , . " 02',0 - 7 - r \. .' The trees are old, and, gnarled, with huge trunks, but they still bear ~l1e~r .~E!arly 'l?ad of fruit. They were old, and gnarled, when the ,Clarks ~~_!oung folks, moved there forty-one years ago. Nobody knows how they came to be growing in that spot. Perhaps Johnny Appleseed walked that way. One of the other routes leading to Skaguay is by way of Phantom Canyon, a highway teetering on a narrow road bed of the abandoned Florence and Cripple Creek Railway, Another route goes by way of Guffey, and the longest route, about eighty miles, is through Colorado Springs. All of these roads take you to Victor, then over a rough mountain road that reaches an elevation of 9500 feet, before it travels the ten miles from Victor to th~ rim of the canyon., From there a stairway with 76 stair (steps leads down to a landing where you board the tram car, Ahead lies , 3300 feet of narrow track pitching sharply into a blue canyon, and on it a tiny car hung at the end of a slender wire rope. When you look at the location of the Skaguay Hydro plant, perched c on one quarter of an acre torn from solid rock, you realize that con- struction costs must have been high, You must also realize that the Woods boys were not pinching five dollar gold pieces when they built , the Plan~,J They had plenty of dust, and knew right where they could get more - from the Gold Coin Mine! I~ constructing the reservoir, which is fed by the waters of Beaver Creek, heading at the foot of Pikes Peak, they were not content to put in a simple concrete dam, ~lhich they could hav~ done and probably saved a nugget or two in cost, The dam' they built is faced with steel. From end to end a solid sheet of steel, backed by concrete, holds back a mile-and a half long lake, spreading . , over 115 acres, and holding 134,087,000 cUDic feet of wrter, Here, within this reservoir, is the source of power, that makes the wheels , .'