Former Short Line Railroad tunnels above Colorado Springs where Tunnel #3 collapsed in 1988, spawning enduring folklore about children's laughter and handprints on car hoods
4415 Gold Camp Rd, Colorado Springs, CO 80906
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free public access; parking at trailhead
Access
Limited Access
Rocky mountain trail following former railroad grade; uneven surface, some steep sections near tunnels. Upper Gold Camp lot provides easiest access to Tunnel #3.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1898 · Former Short Line Railroad to Cripple Creek gold fields · Converted from rail to road 1922 · Tunnel #3 collapsed 1988 · Pike National Forest / Bear Creek Canyon Park
Gold Camp Road follows the former trackbed of the Colorado Springs and Cripple Creek District Railway, which locals called the Short Line. The railroad was built in the late 1890s to carry gold ore from the Cripple Creek mines — among the richest gold strikes in American history — down to Colorado Springs. The route climbed through the mountains of what is now Bear Creek Canyon Park, requiring nine tunnels blasted through the granite ridgelines.
The Short Line ceased passenger and freight operations in 1918. By 1922 the tracks had been pulled and the roadbed converted to a toll road for automobiles — a scenic mountain drive that drew tourists and locals alike. It eventually became a free public road and passed into the management of Pike National Forest and Colorado Springs parks.
Tunnel #3, one of the longer passages on the route, collapsed in 1988. The cause was a combination of the tunnel's age, the geology of the surrounding rock, and the absence of ongoing maintenance that active railroad operation would have provided. Rather than excavating and repairing the tunnel, authorities sealed the entrance and rerouted the trail around the collapse. The mouth of the sealed tunnel remains visible to hikers.
The surviving tunnels — including Tunnels #1 and #2 — remain open to foot traffic and are accessible by the current trail. Workers died during the railroad's construction period, though specific records of incidents are sparse; the dangerous conditions of 19th-century tunnel blasting in hard Colorado granite made fatalities a near-certainty across the project.
Sources
The most dramatic legend attached to Gold Camp Road claims that a school bus carrying children became trapped inside Tunnel #3 during its 1988 collapse, killing everyone aboard. The story has circulated in Colorado Springs for decades, told as established fact in enough retellings that it became difficult to separate from history. No record of such an incident exists — no news coverage, no emergency response documentation, no fatality reports from that date involving a school bus and Tunnel #3. Atlas Obscura and local researchers who have looked into the claim found nothing to support it.
The absence of documentation for the bus legend does not exhaust the site's paranormal reputation. Hikers exploring the tunnels at dusk or after dark have reported hearing children's laughter without any visible source — too distant and too inconsistent with the acoustics to be explained by other visitors. Small handprints have appeared in the frost on car windows in the upper parking lot, reported by multiple unrelated visitors across different years. Some hikers have described the sensation of being touched or scratched inside the tunnels, in areas where nothing should be making contact.
These reports predate the bus legend and continue alongside it. Whether they reflect construction-era deaths — and tunnel blasting in 1890s Colorado routinely killed workers — or attach to some other history of the corridor, the accounts are consistent in their specific details: the laughter, the handprints, the scratch. The bus story may be folklore layered over something older.
A 4.7-mile trail follows the former Short Line Railroad grade through Bear Creek Park and the mountains above Colorado Springs. The route passes through intact Tunnels #1 and #2 and reaches the collapsed mouth of Tunnel #3, sealed since the 1988 cave-in. Flashlights are essential inside the surviving tunnels. The hike is popular year-round with hikers and mountain bikers.
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