GC1AVTP Traditional Cache Pine History Series #4--SP Hotel
Type: Traditional | Size: Regular Regular | Difficulty: 2.5 out of 5 | Terrain: 3 out of 5
By: Etoyoc1 & Bobcat66 @ | Hide Date: 04/02/2008 | Status: Available
Country: United States | State: Colorado
Coordinates: N39° 24.535 W105° 10.288 | Last updated: 08/30/2019 | Fav points: 1

10 inch cookie tin. 100 foot scramble up a hill. Great View of the Namesake and up the South Fork of the South Platte River and Valley. Bring a drink and snack and enjoy the view.
Welcome to "South Platte" Colorado, and the South Platte Hotel. It operated at this small settlement with a post office and a rail stop, untill 1938, when the South Park & Pacific Railroad narrow gauge line disbanded and pulled up the tracks. People would visit the area to fish and pic nic and enjoy the river & mountains, from Denver.one of the stops along the way to Buffalo Creek, Pine and eventually as far west as Leadville.
The vacated building still stands today. HOWEVER! The original South Platte Hotel building stood until August 2, 1912, when stage driver George Bellew shot and wounded Mr. and Mrs. Charles Walbrecht (the hotel owners), visitor James McWhorter, and shot at other patrons and employees, drove all from the hotel, and burned it to the ground with kerosene while holding a crowd at bay by gunpoint. The present building was constructed to replace the original, likely by Charles Walbrecht.

The building is now owned by the Denver Water Board. Who knows if it will ever be refurbished.
If you have time, you should leave your car in the lot and walk the one mile down river (north side) and enjoy some outstanding scenery. It's a flat easy hike on the old narrow gauge railroad bed. Remnants of the old railroad can be found. If you are here in the early morning, chances of seeing a Bald Eagle are good.
If you did your homework coming here.....there are two more caches along the walk, and one on the trail on the other side of the river.....ENJOY!

[NOTE: FR 538 as shown on this and other maps no longer exsists. The ravaging the forest took from the Buffalo Creek Fire of 1997 wiped out the last few miles of that route to the river. In fact, since 1997 Three major forest fires; Buffalo Creek, High Meadow,and Hayman fires, wiped out FIFTY PERCENT of the North Fork Fire District!! ALL HUMAN CAUSED. That is 50% of 125 sq. miles!! And close to 50 homes as well. BE CAREFULE WITH FIRE AND CIGARETTES DOWN HERE !!! If you throw a cigarette on the ground and get caught, it's a mandatory court appearence and usually $1000 fine by the judge in Jefferson County Court.]
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 Hints

Root end of a deadfall, rock covered.

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 Logs

13 Logs: Found it 13  

Found it 11/05/2018 By toshbar
Ripped up to Conifer from Deckers on the V-Strom and caught a few this evening.

Found it 10/07/2018 By GeocachingasWill
More muggels than usual today

Found it 10/05/2018 By Teriyaki Donuts
I love this area! What a treat! Quite a scramble up the hill. TFTC!

Found it 02/17/2018 By EJBHGV
After shopping in Castle Rock we detoured back to Morrison.
Found 14 caches along the road.
All CO's thanks for hiding.
Fun climb and well maintained cache.

Found it 02/01/2018 By jmythng
TFTC

Found it 01/27/2018 By Dean & Chris
We took the long and easier way up. The hint was right on. Tftc.

Found it 09/28/2017 By Bhob
Went for a drive south-west of the Denver metro area with "animjason" - this was the tenth of fifteen geocaches that I found along the way. TN-LN-SL, Thanks !

Found it 09/28/2017 By animjason
Looked for this one last week, and it was missing. Messaged the owner, but didn't hear back. We went ahead and replaced it today with similar tin container. Ready to be found. Great building nearby.

Thanks Etoyoc1 & Bobcat66! Logged Pine History Series #4--SP Hotel from a seventh galaxy using c:geo!

~ Cache find #9113 ~

Found it 10/31/2016 By dtvman
Final climb up today. This is such a cool spot. I bet most people don't even realize this is here. TFTC. On to the next.

Found it 10/02/2016 By theaudone
Wow - steep climb but great views. Aud spotted quickly. TFTC, The-Aud-One

Found it 07/27/2016 By Keep On Trekking
Tough scramble and a bit hazardous. Be careful! Great view at GZ. Container is rusted. We had to take a rock and hammer it against the rim several times to loosen it. No travel bug in the cache. We suggest the CO needs to replace container and mark TB as missing. SL T4TSmile

Found it 07/07/2016 By likestocanoe
What a great history on the cache page! Loved it and will give it a "Favorite Point" for that for sure. The guys made the dive here for the smiley and they said, "A three terrain, my butt! For us flatlanders this be a 4.5 terrain, at least!!". Us girl sat this one out and enjoyed the view and took some pictures. Thanks for placing and for keeping this one alive!

likestocanoe gang
Sandy, Jim, and Maggie, The Traveling Cavalier
Crystal Springs, AR

Found it 07/02/2016 By Zeke & George
What a climb!!! We went straight up and straight back down. We felt the terrain was a four both in being strenuous and hazardous. - Zeke & George of Hot Springs, Arkansas