The way to Paradise Cove
- Details
- Created on Wednesday, 18 August 2010 17:22
- Written by Aaron Linn
By DAVE PHILIPPS, THE GAZETTE
The Age of Google has the potential to ruin a spot like Paradise Cove, a hidden glen where a creek warms as it ambles through a little-visited grassy valley of Teller County, then suddenly jags into a cleft of boulders.
The granite walls narrow until a canyon forms and the water begins to rush. Finally, the rock squeezes so close there is nothing but a smoothed slot where, over time, the water has pried a small passage.
There, it splatters 15 feet into a hidden hanging bowl, then plunges again 10 feet into a cool, deep, jade pool.
It goes by other names:Guffey Falls, Cripple Creek Falls. But Paradise Cove is the most fitting: This hidden spot is an almost perfect swimming hole. The edges are lined with granite cliffs from which people launch themselves into the water. The landing is deep. The current is calm. Trout dart past in the shadows. The water shares a welcome chill in August. A gravely beach with warm rocks for sunning waits at one end.
For generations, this spot was a secret — unmarked and unlisted. Swimmers found it only if they knew somebody who knew somebody who had been shown the way.
Google changed all that.
Now anyone typing “Paradise Cove” or “Colorado swimming hole” or “Cripple Creek cliff jumping” into a search engine finds photos, videos, detailed descriptions, directions, maps and precise coordinates.
You would think the information overload would leave the place overrun — so crowded that the magic of a perfect, hidden swimming hole would be gone. But it is not so. The best of Paradise Cove has survived the Internet. And visitors who arrive early enough can have it to themselves awhile.
The cove shows signs of abuse — mostly sun-bleached beer cans and glass-choked fire pits left by revelers. But it also retains its essential appeal.
At 10 o’clock on a recent Friday morning, Ethan Browning, Cale Brown and Jarred Bowman, three high school students from Cripple Creek, were the only ones there to listen to the clatter of the falls against the rocks. They had learned about the cove the old-fashioned way, by word-of-mouth.
And that morning they were standing 20 feet above the green water, doing what cove swimmers have done for decades: daring each other to jump.
“It’s easy, just jump out a little, the water is deep, you won’t even touch,” said Browning, who had been to the cove before.
The other teens’ knees seemed to shake as they contemplated dropping two stories.
“Here, watch,” Browning said, and he stepped off into the air, landing in a splash.
“See?” he said when his head broke the pool’s surface. “It’s easy. It’s totally fun. Come on.”
The two teens huddled on the ledge. And so began a swimming-hole ritual unchanged in generations, let alone since the advent of high-speed Internet: the cajoling of the timid.
“You go,” said Brown.
“No, you go,” said Bowman.
“Look, it’s easy,” Browning said, treading water below. “I’ll count down to five and both of you go.”
“OK,” they said.
When five came, their knees bent, their fists clenched, they looked about to go, and then … nothing.
“Don’t think about it, just do it,” Browning said.
Brown retreated from the lip. Browning got out and scaled the rock again. “Look, I’ll do it again with you. We’ll jump at the same time,” he said.
They got ready. Browning jumped. Alone.
The ritual continued for almost an hour. There was goading, teasing, promises, even bets.
“If you don’t jump when I count this time,” Browning said, “I’m taking all the money in your wallet.”
“OK, OK, I’m really going this time,” Brown said.
But he didn’t.
Of course, jumping from the rocks can be risky. Some of the most daring ledges stand 40 feet above the water. The approaches are slippery and steep. Several people have gone to the hospital after bad jumps. Even those jumping from the lower, 20-foot launches can fumble in the air and hit the water with a vicious slap. The Bureau of Land Management, which oversees the area, has posted signs warning people not to jump.
But there is something about a deep, cool swimming hole on an August afternoon that temps us to toss aside better judgment.
Finally Bowman, after chickening out a dozen times, wordlessly stepped past Brown and took the plunge. Brown watched breathlessly for him to bob to the surface. One second. Two seconds. Three.
“That was AWESOME!” Bowman yelled as his head emerged dripping from the pool. “A total rush!”
Brown knew now he had no choice. Even though millions of years of survival instinct were telling him to keep his feet planted firmly on the ground, that other human instinct — the one that pushes us to grasp for the unknown — was nudging him off the ledge. And besides, the other guys would call him a wimp, or probably worse, if he did not.
So he took a breath, pinched his nose and went for it.
The free fall was just 1.4 seconds but it felt much longer — long enough for his stomach to climb into his throat and his brain to order an extra-large serving of adrenaline for the rest of his body. And then suddenly, splash! He was swallowed by the freezing gulp of the cove.
A minute later he waddled out with a grin almost as wide as his face and the three teenagers clambered back up the rocks to take several more jumps.
Others showed up — two groups of five from Colorado Springs who were visiting the place for the first time after finding it through Google. But they, too, did what visitors to the cove have always done. The brave simply climbed and jumped. The not-so-brave jumped after much discussion and several false starts.
The magic of this hidden place had not been spoiled by its wider online audience. The timeless pleasures of a cool mountain swimming hole in August were just as alive as ever. The teens splashed and joked and lounged on the rocks as teens always have. And, times being what they are, they texted updates to Facebook.
The way to paradise cove
Paradise Cove is a great day trip, and you don’t have to jump off the rocks to enjoy swimming or picnicking in this lovely spot.
To get there: From Colorado Springs, drive west on U.S. Highway 24 for 26miles. About a mile past Divide, turn left onto Twin Rocks Road. Drive 5.8 miles until the road dead ends at Teller County Road 1. Turn left. Drive 5.9 miles to a fork in the road. Veer right on Teller County Road 11. Drive 4 miles until the road dead ends. Turn right onto Teller County Road 112. Drive 2.7 miles to a dirt parking lot on the left at the top of a small rise. The trail to the cove starts across the road. Follow a clear but at times steep path half a mile to the pool. To help keep the cove beautiful, take a bag and pack out a few beer cans.
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