Phantom Canyon Road — Cañon City to Victor via Eight Mile Creek Gorge

Phantom Canyon Road follows the original Florence and Cripple Creek Railroad grade — a narrow-gauge line built in 1894 to haul gold out of Cripple Creek at the height of the Colorado gold rush. The railroad bed is barely wider than a single vehicle in places, carved into the walls of Eight Mile Creek’s gorge with the creek running directly below. Two original railroad tunnels survive intact and you drive through both of them — low clearance is a real concern for anything taller than a standard pickup cab. The gorge itself is stunning: sheer conglomerate walls, cottonwoods along the creek, old trestles converted to road bridges, and the ruins of the railroad town of Glenbrook about midway through. It’s 25 miles of living Colorado history from Cañon City to Victor.

High-clearance two-wheel drive handles this road in dry conditions, but the road is narrow enough that passing another vehicle in the gorge section requires one of you to back up to the nearest wide spot — and those aren’t frequent. The tunnels have less than 11 feet of clearance, so lifted rigs and anything on a tall roof rack needs to measure carefully. The road closes in winter and can wash out in heavy rain. Check road conditions with Fremont County before heading up. No permit required. Victor at the top end is a genuine gold-rush ghost town with several surviving Victorian-era buildings and a working mine operation still visible from town. Fill tanks in Cañon City — there is no fuel on route.