Gold Camp Road, as children we are told to stay away. As teenagers we become curious and try to investigate. As adults, we know to be wary. I have lived in Colorado Springs my whole life and I have always known of the secret behind Gold Camp Road.
Legend has it that the third tunnel collapsed as a school bus crashed into it. Apparently the bus driver either committed suicide or suffered from a heart attack. All the children died. The third tunnel is now fenced off, however one can still walk up to the dark cave. These are not the only deaths that took place in these tunnels. Not to mention, many people died building these tunnels in the 1800s. Annually, bodies wash up around the area which would cause many angered spirits. Also, let’s not forget that this area is surrounded by satan worshipers. In the 1970s and 1980s and probably still today, men are seen chanting in black robes carrying torches as they walk up past the haunted tunnels. My father has personally witnessed this as a teenager twice, while him and a friend of his snuck up there to have a few beers on the weekends. The rituals that do take place in the area would awaken spirits and demons.
In the third tunnel, the laughs and voices of children are heard, along with feeling a tugging on clothing. Tiny hand prints are also found on cars parked outside the tunnel. The second tunnel is more violently active however. People report scratches, being hit, groped, voices, and possession. The figure of a man is commonly seen as well at the end of the tunnel. Many say that when they inspect the car afterward, there are handprints and finger marks all over. Even on clean cars a hand print will occasionally appear.
This may seem like a scary story, however it is truth. I have personally experienced sightings in the second tunnel, which is the most active, considering many are too afraid to travel outside of a car to venture into the third tunnel.
On an average night of driving around with friends, we made the decision to check out the stories of Gold Camp for ourselves. We heard that if we were to drive into the second tunnel and turn off our lights the car would either move, the lights would come on, or something weird would happen. There were four of us that night, Savannah, Doug, Andy, and myself. We drove into the second tunnel, turned off the car, and put up the e-brake. We began to joke around a little, saying how it was just a scary story to keep children away, then we saw a figure pacing at the end of the tunnel, behind the car. We watched as the figure moved closer and closer, faster and faster. Eventually it reached the back of our car, so close that we could almost make out the face of a man. His head tilted as he looked at us and set his hands on the back of the car. Suddenly he was gone. We spoke of what we just saw as the figure reappeared at the end of the tunnel pacing again. We kept all eight of our eyes on this figure. Out of nowhere, the figure bolted towards our car. Doug quickly turned the car on and shoved it into drive. We raced as fast as possible out of the tunnel, so fast I thought we would fly off the side of the mountain. Once we reached a safe distance away from this thing we just saw, we caught our breath. And made sure that we all really just saw that, and of course we all did. Unfortunately, we had to drive back through the creepy dark tunnel to get back to the main road. I kept my eyes shut, not wanting to see this figure of a man again.
After reaching safety, we drove to a close by, brightly lit gas station to inspect any damage to the car. There on the dusty trunk lay the imprints of a mans hands. I will never forget this night, I am just glad nothing worse happened. However, I do wish I had caught this all on camera to show everyone what I personally experienced.
Submitted by Rockelle M.
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Geographic Information
- Address:
- Gold Camp Road
Colorado Springs, CO
United States
Get Directions » - GPS:
- 38.7902017, -104.90375649999999
- County:
- El Paso County, Colorado
- Nearest Towns:
- Manitou Springs, CO (4.9 mi.)
Colorado Springs, CO (5.4 mi.)
Stratmoor, CO (6.8 mi.)
Rock Creek Park, CO (7.0 mi.)
Fort Carson, CO (7.2 mi.)
Security-Widefield, CO (10.6 mi.)
Green Mountain Falls, CO (11.7 mi.)
Cascade-Chipita Park, CO (11.8 mi.)
Cimarron Hills, CO (12.0 mi.)
Goldfield, CO (13.0 mi.)
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Disclaimer: The stories posted here are user-submitted and are, in the nature of "ghost stories," largely unverifiable. HauntedPlaces.org makes no claims that any of the statements posted here are factually accurate. The vast majority of information provided on this web site is anecdotal, and as such, should be viewed in the same light as local folklore and urban legends.
The 3rd tunnel never had a school bus crash in it ,I have lived here for 45 years and we used to drive through that tunnel all the time as teenagers, the story back then was a train conductor lost his head to the tunnel walls by sticking his head out at a bad time.NO SCHOOL BUS EVER CRASHED IN THAT TUNNEL in fact I know of no school who would take a bus up that road because its too rough and narrow, That being said it is still spooky in the tunnels at night up there
There is actually still parts of a school bus in the dirt. I have been in there and actually have seen the yellow paint scrapes and bus parts in the dirt.
Actually? Wow. That convinced me. I’ve lived here since ’80, remember the collapse in 88′. Go up there all the time. It just spontaneously collapsed, as it’s an old tunnel and the rock around there is crumbly as it gets. No buses EVER went up there, as the road was too nasty & rutted, not to mention skinny.
I’ve never been there at night, but been there several times during the day. I have not experienced anything unusual there.
In the first tunnel if you try to contact ghosts you will occasionally hear the voice of a young girl saying “hey”. we didn’t hear it ourselves though, but on a recording on my phone. I do have this on audio recording, unfortunately can’t post it. You will also hear laughter inside of the second tunnel if you play back the recording. I also have this recording.
I live in the gold camp area and its all bogus! I’ve never expirenced anything abnormal. Definatly no devil worshippers haha
I grew up in Springs (AAHS 1974) and had a very unexplainable experievce. My future wife and I headed up Gold Camp road to get buzzed before going to a hockey game at the Broadmoor. I don’t remember what tunnel it was but we seemed to have passed another car going the opposite direction in one of the tunnels. I always drove pretty fast and there was no way I could have stopped and out no where there was those headlights. We passed inside the tunnel! We got out of the tunnel, stopped we were pretty freaked out. To this day that has always been the weirdest thing we have ever experienced.
But you admit you were high lol
One night in the late 1980s early 1990s my first husband and I were driving in the same road I believe we had just come to the 2 nd tunnel when out of nowhere headlights behind us and coming fast I thought they were going to hit us and there’s nowhere to go it’sa single lane road. I remember screaming at Rich and boom the headlights were gone. We got out to look over the edge the only place the other car could of gone ……Nothing. we knew we had just seen a ghost.
The school bus story is a myth, but some friends said they saw a ghostly figure holding an umbrella near either the first or second tunnel (can’t remember which)–wondered if anyone else had seen this?
I and my bestfriend stupidly did the same thing parked in the second tunnel (at night obviously) turned the car off and sat for however long we had heard we were supposed to but I don’t even recall more than a minute passing before we started feeling the car rock and on my side (passenger this ONE TIME I usually always was the one driving) I just had a feeling that I wanted to get out of there and my bestfriend at the same time felt the same and went to start the car and it wouldn’t start like if the battery had been drained from the touch or presence of them I say them.because there was more than one! So shear panick right? I’m sure the blood left our bodies and we were as white as ghosts (pun intended or not) thinking we really did it this time! And how this wouldn’t need to be a lie to our parents but they sure would’ve grounded each one of us for such a lie tho this time we would really be telling the truth! Trust me in the moment those were not the thoughts going thru our heads first and foremost we thought we were stuck and going to die! So this time I reached over to start the car (cause let’s face it my best friend was such a klutz the girl that obvious things went right over her head! Ditzy to a fault!) This time the car started and felt as if we got one big push as if we had gotten stuck in a muddy ditch and we wasted no time high tailing it out of there we did not stop passed go did NOT collect $100 petal to the medal until we got to civilization honestly I dont remember any of the way down but when we got down and calmed down a bit a lot a bit! I went to put my window down to smoke a cigarette (I needed one!) And there was a child’s handprint smack on my window right there in my face! So these things do happen up there weve never really talked about it to others I mean it’s not the best conversation starter nor does it come up casually during a conversation..so this is my first time voicing it really..back then we did not have our phones glued to our face to record video or take pictures..plus theres sceptics just waiting to tear you a new one if there ever is video or pictures to prove such things are VERY real and write it off as a doctored photograph..and since one such sceptic can not look me in my face and tell me I did not experience what I did or didn’t see what I saw…that’s the best proof there is to me anyway and that’s all I need! That’s crazy that there’s a man in there too! We never once glanced back or looked in the rearview mirror to notice so we didn’t encounter that and I’m sure glad we didn’t and that all we got was the kids poking fun at us
Is that the long tunnel u drive threw I found that one actually to be more haunted I would drive threw sitting on the roof of my car sunroof and just leave it in drive and barely coast threw its awesome if u like the feeling or aren’t scared fully recommend trying it
I am originally from Omaha, Nebraska. I came to Colorado to be with my boyfriend. Its the middle of October now and I’m a Halloween junky. I have never been so scared in my life, I actually cried. We came up to the second tunnel and we stopped in the middle of the tunnel. I saw the man that you described but I did not read your story until we came down the mountain. Also, we heard a train horn. My boyfriend heard this horn right next to our truck. I will never go up there again.
I’ve read that the bus crash in the third tunnel is a myth, and I’ve never experienced anything in that tunnel, or the second tunnel.
I HAVE experienced a few things in the first tunnel, which is the long, straight tunnel on the cimarron/bear creek side of the road.
Two friends and I parked our car on the East side of the tunnel and walked as far into the tunnel as we could, until we couldn’t see each other, or the hands in front of our faces, yet we could see both ends of the tunnel.
I remember it got pretty dark that night, when we made our attempts to contact the spirits. We did everything from trying to carry on a conversation, to straight up taunting. It was during our taunting when the air got very cold, and we heard a very loud crash at the end of the tunnel we had just walked in. I don’t know about the others, but I was looking at the East end of the tunnel and saw nothing, but heard what sounded like a huge sheet of metal slamming into the wall of the tunnel. The noise was loud enough to make me jump, both my friends and Inwent dead quiet. We didn’t experience anything else that night, other than noticing a name written in the wall at the West end. The name said Josh, and was written with what looked like water. The weird thing is, the name persisted for a week or two, not drying up at all.
I had two other experiences at that same tunnel in one night, sometime later. With two other friends, one who was with me during our first experience, we drove into the tunnel from the East side and shut our car off. We sat for awhile, just listening to the engine pop idly, when from behind us came a pair of headlights, looking as if they wanted to drive through. So we started our car and drove through, with the headlights following about halfway into the tunnel. When we pulled off to let the car by, and looked back, both the headlights AND car had completely vanished.
Feeling a litte weirded out, we walked back into the tunnel from the West end. We walked until it was completely dark, and stood in the middle of the tunnel. Our mood was much lighter this time as we stood around talking and joking. Another pair of headlights approached us from the East. The tunnel is wide enough to stand in while cars pass by, so we stood and watched the headlights. As we watched, it looked like the car started turning left. The only thing to the left on Gold Camp if you’re coming from the East is a cliff. We watched in horror as it looked like one, then both headlights turned and disappeared over the cliff edge. We ran to the end of the tunnel and found absolutely no tire marks, other than our own. Now that goes for both cars we saw that night, no tire marks were ever seen, and we never heard a thing, no metal grinding, no engines, nothing. Anyway, we found no tire marks heading off the mountain, and saw no car below.
The rest of the night wasn’t eventful, so we eventually went home.
So yeah, those are the only experiences I’ve had on Gold Camp, and I’ve been in the third tunnel since it was permanently closed. There’s a gap between the grating and the rock wall that you can slide through, and the tunnel can be walked all the way through, over a sheet of metal on the ground (which I think inspired the bus story), all the way to the other grating.
I’ve been to Goldcamp a lot of times, both daytime and nighttime in all 3 tunnels. For the most part I have never experienced anything out of the ordinary except for 1 time.
My friends and I would always go but nothing ever really happened. Everyone says to turn off your car in the middle of the tunnel and you’ll feel someone pushing it but nothing ever happened. We just had fun trying to scare each other into thinking something was really happening.
One day I went with my family to hike the 3rd tunnel. It was broad daylight when we went, lots of other hikers. We drove through the side where the other 2 tunnels are so we went through those and got to the parking lot where the 3rd tunnel is. We got out and started unloading the car when we saw different sized handprints on the rear windshield. Mind you we didn’t stop in any of the tunnels to see if anything would happen we literally just drove right through without paying any mind to the stories about that place. Not only were there prints on the car but they were muddy prints. Normally if there’s hand prints on a car the car is dusty and the print itself is actually a non dusty print. These prints looked as if someone had mud on their hands and put them on the car. The handprints were dry but there was a cluster of them in the middle of the windshield and on the edges of it. You can tell by the photo the handprints are different sizes.
To this day that’s the only weird thing I’ve experienced at Goldcamp. Maybe it’s because we weren’t paying attention to what was going on I don’t know. But I do believe there could be something going on up there.
In 2018 before I moved to Washington from colorado we would always go up and drift the corners of gold camp road. On 3 occasions growing up we found cultists killing rabbits and cats next to the falls, and next to the 3rd tunnel and occasionally we would find remains of animals and candles in the parking lots. Other times we did the whole “park in the tunnel and wait” 3 times we has handprints on out vehicle except 1 really stuck out, 2 handprints much larger than our own it was me and my gf, these prints looked like they’d come from a large miner type gentleman. They were dust handprints not prints in dust but dirt prints, in the position of pushing a car. It was bizarre but never saw apparitions…. If you want my opinion gold camp road was originally built to more easily traverse to get to cripple creek during the times of the goldrush I personally think there are plenty of spirits of old miners as young as 12 years old given child labor laws didnt exist…
I went there a few days ago with some friends and wasn’t expecting much to happen. So we all parked at one end of each tunnel and walked through both. When we got back to the car after walking through the second tunnel, my foot started to burn and I looked to see that my foot was bleeding. Then the next day I looked at my foot and noticed that it looks like it says “hell”. I don’t know if it’s just a weird coincidence or what. But all I know is that I don’t know how it happened exactly. I just know it happened in the tunnel
I am originally from Indianapolis, Indiana. I married a woman from Colorado Springs the first time we went to visit here family when we’re still dating she told me of this place. Being from Indiana we have alot of creepy and haunted places and even some roumer that the bloody mary story originates there. So naturally I wanted to investigate. We went with four of her friends so six of us in total. Split among two cars. I was driving the second car. When we stopped in the first tunnel and turned the lights off(not turning the car off) I heard what sounded like a little girl talking in the background. I looked at my wife and asked if she heard it. She and the other friend in the car both heard it was well. We then saw a car coming up from behind us so we moved out of the tunnel and kept going on to the second. The entire way from the first to second tunnel my oil temp, gas gage, and speedometer were all fluctuating very oddly. Obviously when you give it gas your speed increases but anyone who has been there knows you shouldn’t go more than 30 or so up the hill and my speedometer would shoot up to the 60s and 70s. Once we reached the second tunnel there were a lot of cars behind us so we didn’t stop until after we got out of the tunnel we saw what look like a man walking a dog on the right side. When we stopped and went back to walk through the tunnel the man was gone. He had been walking in the same direction we were going and there was no physical way he could have made it out of either end of the tunnel without us seeing him.
Huckey cave was even crazier.i have heard city concrete it up,after a great wild green fog party I was at.
My dad and I went to the tunnels on Gold Camp Road. In one of the tunnels, we saw the handprints on our car, and as we were exiting one of the tunnels on foot, I came very close to getting hit by a rock that was thrown at us. We were the only ones on the road at the time, except for a couple passing motorists, but they weren’t going fast enough to have kicked up that rock that I nearly got hit by. My dad climbed up to the hole in the collapsed tunnel to peek inside, he said he saw the figure of a man in there that was running to him as if chasing him away.
Have lived in CSprings since 79′ and have been up to Goldcamp thousand of times (usually to drink as a teen or hike). I’ve done all the requisites for the Goldcamp tunnels over the years with no results, not because of something I’ve read, just because it seemed like the thing to do. Only once have I experienced something weird. Me and a buddy parked, at night, before the first tunnel and started to hike up the mountain to the west (pretty sure we were trying to find a spot to drink). It was quiet with hardly any traffic, all of a sudden we all heard what sounded like a very large object coming down the mountain side, rattling what sounded like chains. Not small chains but large (could tell by the tone of the clanking). Whatever it was it was moving fast and heading our way. We scrambled for the car, got in and peeled out of there. I kid you not, after 22 years I can still replay that sound in my head.