August 28-September 7, 2015
We took a trip to Colorado in our new truck for the sole purpose of "roughing it" with jeep trails and camping in the mountains. Boy was it AWESOME. I literally have over a thousand pictures on my camera phone alone, Goose had a couple hundred, and some amazing ones on the big camera. It was such an amazing (sometimes a little scary, but not really) ten days. I wrote a trip journal, as customary wherever we go. Thought I would combine it with photos into blog form to share! It's REALLY long, I'm not sorry. I realized as I was typing this, that I didn't record every temp and highway like I was supposed to, oops. Most the time the only reason I knew what road it was is because Goose told me what it was. Eh. Every morning we were up with the sunrise.
Day 1:
8/28
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| So, clearly I'm the only one excited here. |
With the truck already packed, I arrived home from work at 2:10 PM. to change clothes and get outta town. Gooses showed up around 2:20 and we were driving off by 2:35, with Shyann Belle in tow, of course! The navigation had us arriving to our destination at 1:25 AM and we were a bit upset until we realized it was still in CT, not MT. I was forced to listen to NPR until it got out of range before I was allowed to play our "Colorado Tunes" playlist on the ipod. When we passed through Booneville, I waved at Ashley! Goose was pretty anxious through the cities, ready to get back to country life for a bit so he had some choice words for those KC drivers. ;) It was my first time in KC (weird, I know!) and I missed my photo op of the Royals stadium, so I planned to take it when we drove back through. Kansas along I70 is pretty, there were lots of green rolling hills and prairies. There were huge thunderclouds (Wichita) in the sky framing the gorgeous red sunset at 8:05 PM.
Goose: LOOK AT THOSE BUFFALO!
Breezy: You..uh? You mean those cows?
Goose was hoping to see some post rock in western Kansas but it was too dark. I of course had no clue what he meant so he tried to explain it to me.
"I don't see any of those rock sticks you were talking about" I said.
Nah, not rock sticks. POST ROCK" he corrected me so that I could google it.
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| Sunsetty artsy windmills. Photo not for sale. |
We encountered some windmill farms! The first one was in Kansas while the sun was setting. It was pretty cool, but I didn't realize how large they really were! We crossed over into the Colorado Border at 10:43 PM MT time and the temp was 68. We came across another massive windmill farm heading towards our stop for the night and it was super eerie. All the red lights lit up at the same time and you could see how massive the farm actually was. We made it to Limon, Co and tried two motels with no one at the front desk before finding someone at the Limon Motel. It was nothing fancy, just a place to sleep. I showered and passed smooth out.
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| 10:43 PM, how nice of that crazy-eyed trucker to take our photo! Mom, I'm kidding, calm down! |
Day 2:
8/29
55 degrees at wake up
We woke at 6AM to make our way to the Garden of the Gods/Pike's Peak. We stopped for gas and I needed lotion. I got dry skin, okay? Don't be so judgy! I had to use udder cream because for some reason that's all they had. We had hoped to plan our night stop so that we drove in and the mountains would greet us in the sunrise. It was a hazy day so it didn't happen as soon as we hoped. We got off I70 and dropped down to HWY24 towards Co. Springs. While we kept an eye out for the mountains, we looked for antelope. Instead we found another windmill farm, but it wasn't running. When we got to the town of Calhoun, my ears popped for the first time. Elev. 6057 ft.
Breezy: I'm so excited I'm about to pee my pants and I don't even have to pee!
--34 mi from Co. Springs
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| Wait. Is that it? |
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| OMG I'm going to pee! |
Every high ridge we came to, we hoped the mountains would pop out at us. There were lots of little farms and spread out houses, probably really small towns. Villages, some might say. In Falcon, CO I finally saw the mountains through the haze just barely! We were 17 miles from Co. Springs. JEEZ. We drove HWY24 through Co. Springs right on over to Manitou Springs, a place I've wanted to see since our last trip to CO. We went to see the Garden of the Gods, which you could see from 24. We stopped in the GoG Trading Post so I could pick up some post cards for the scrapbook, and I found a cool little ring for ten bucks. We took off driving through GoG trails and parked so we could hike up some of it for good photos. We got a couple with Pike's Peak in the background, and I would soon learn that if I took too long on my cell to take a photo it would auto record.
-{Somehow I changed the settings to this and didn't have time to mess with changing it back so there would be several videos of me screaming "I DON'T WANT TO TAKE VIDEO! !#$%" when we got back and I went through them}- After some driving and plucking some flowers and sage brush (shh, don't tell!), we finished the drive off by stopping at the balancing rock. After that we headed back into Manitou Springs downtown to see all the cool little shops. I could totally live there. It's small but not too small, and definitely artsy enough. There's obviously a lot of tourists rolling through so it was bustling with people for being small. I had to look for some jewelry, again and I chose a couple belly rings just because. It was time to head up to Pike's Peak!
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| Manitou Springs, CO |
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| Manitou Springs, CO driving towards Pike's Peak |
Garden of the Gods:
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| Investigating the integrity of the balance |
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| How do we "selfie"? |
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| Balance Rock |
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| GoG |
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| So MANY sniffs! |
PIKES PEAK-trail 1
86 degrees at base
We got to the Pike's Peak toll road and $24 later we were on our way up. We strapped on the GoPro camera to the dash for the rest of the trip and started our 19mi ascension. We paused at Crystal Lake (I didn't feel like messing with Jason, even in daylight) and got a couple shots. It was 68 degrees there and 1150AM. As we elevated more, the air got much thinner. We passed several cyclists on their way up looking pretty breathless. With 40% less oxygen at the top than at the base, we got a bit dizzy when we reached the summit of 14,114ft. We stood there a few minutes to get our bearings before walking around. The temp was 52 degrees and windy! There was a summit shop where they made fresh donuts. We walked around taking in the view and seeing those cyclists who made it finally, utterly worn out. We separated to take in our own views and I had to pee! I did not get a donut, and I do regret it, thanks for reminding me. Coming down was really fun! It felt like we were flying in a plane if you got the road out of the view in the window. We stayed in the lowest gear as required and waited on our approval at the mandatory brake check. Safely off the mountain with our brakes in tact, this trail was fairly easy.
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| Crystal Lake |
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| This was Shy's spot. every.day. |
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| Don't go looking for Jason! |
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| How? |
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| Mountains are serious. |
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| A cloud forming right behind me! |
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| Pike's Peak |
We got on Ute Pass on 24W towards 67S. We drove through Woodland Park set in the valley behind Pike's Peak and was absolutely gorgeous. I could totally live there. Do you see a trend happening? ;) When we got on 67S we got onto 81 and came across an old gold mining town, abandoned, called Goldfield. Then we came upon another gold mining town and a portion was still abandoned but they had built another town next to it called Victor. On the other side of it was this MASSIVE mine that we had actually seen from Pike's Peak. We saw the backside of the peak leaving Victor and then veered off towards our first not-paved jeep trail. We were just south of Cripple Creek. We were going towards Sand Gulch Campground somewhere in the middle of this Shelf Road trail. As soon as we got onto the road, we saw a really fun lookout spot that had an amazing view! We decided, why go to a campground? Why not stay here? It was really remote and just barely off the trail. We got camp set up and decided to make dinner: smoked pulled pork and beans. The temperature started dropping so we got into our cold gear and waited for the stars. We watched the mountains glow in the full moon's shadow. Once I got used to the strong winds, Shy had crawled up inside my hoodie and I didn't move hardly at all during the night. I slept a lot harder than I expected to, given I need noise to sleep.
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| looks like a great place to camp! |
75 degrees
10,709 elev.
It started out paved and then a level dirt road. All the sudden we turned up a very tight switchback with a sign saying 4x4 ONLY. It was narrow and very steep and rocky going up. We were bouncing all over the place and Shyann LOVED it. She had managed to stand on top of the cooler in the back seat and stick her wee little nose out to smell and see what was going on. We had gotten partially up the pass and our jeep trail book said to look for the scenic look into the valley at Coaldale, so we did and got some photos. We reached the summit semi-easily. Aside from it just being extremely narrow and rocky it wasn't too bad. We didn't run into any vehicles going up, which made me happy. Going down was definitely the hardest part. I had to get out twice to help Goose navigate the truck, which in itself is comical if you know me. By the end of the trip I would be a pro at it. Mostly this time, I was just flailing my hands and going "oooh! GO THIS WAY! NO! THAT WAY! LOOKOUT FOR THE ROCK!" to which he then instructed me on airplane runway signals. I then chose to practice my flight attendant skills as well. We had run into a RZR at some point and the menfolk decided to help Goose during a particular spot, while I guided him over some of the rocks he had re-positioned. Shyann also helped navigating. One of the guys took a shot of Goose coming down so he text him the photo and another guy came up in a jeep telling us there's a giant boulder in the middle of the road and our truck may not make it because of its wheelbase. Great. After we parted ways, we spotted the tiny boulder in the road. It was not near as tight as they jeep guy tried to tell us and the rest of the way down was easy.
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| Gonna go over that. *nods* |
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| Sangre de Cristo Mountains |
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| Coaldale in the valley |
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| Goose checking out the best possible option |
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| I got this, guys! |
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It's hard to see this view from the highway, so pretty.
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| Valley to HWY50 |
With our crossing over the Sangre De Cristo Mountains, which must makes me crave a deep fried sandwich, we drove through a bit of valley until we were back on 50 so that we could find Taylor Mountain.
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| View from highest pass of Taylor Mtn |
TAYLOR MOUNTAIN-trail 4.
13,651 ft elev.
This one was SO AWESOME. It started out fairly easy, passing several little mine shafts and shacks left over from the old mining days. The road was pretty wide for the most part and there were a few little detours, one of which dead ends at an old mine quarry. There was a lesser road going up another portion of the mountain but it was so skinny we knew it wasn't part of the trail. For hiking, maybe. I don't see how anyone could get up that one! We went back down off the old mine and followed the trail up a pretty narrow road. It was slightly rocky but nothing compared to Hayden Pass we had just cleared. There were several breathtaking switchback views worth just stopping the truck and staring. We didn't actually reach the summit of Taylor Mountain, that road was treacherous and not for our truck. We did easily get to the pass and stopped. I had to hold onto the truck for fear I was going to be blown off the side from the wind! Okay not really, but it was quite windy. There were more mine shaft remnants at the pass and looking down towards the descent we saw an active mine that we would eventually pass over. A mule deer greeted Shyann and she wanted us to catch him so she could have a leg to chew on, but we said no. Coming down we actually drove into the active Lily mine to get through the trail and saw a salvaged set of buildings left over from the old days.
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| Checking out one of the MANY old mine camps |
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| One of the better preserved mine buildings |
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| View from old mine quarry parking lot |
We chose to go ahead and drive to Old Monarch Pass just for the fun because we had been there 10 years ago and since it was on the way, well why not?
OLD MONARCH PASS-trail 5.
72 degrees
11,312 ft elev.
This was a real quick drive up a fairly level wide road up to the pass. Once to the top, we parked the truck and got out to stretch our legs and hike to the summit. It still had the same stunning views and was still as windy as I remembered it. In fact in the photo I'm pretty sure my hair was blowing the same way as 10 years ago. Shyann was EVERYWHERE on the summit and enjoying every second. We went back down the way we came, on a mission to get to Lake City.
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| Old Monarch Pass |
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| Recreating an old photo minus some grillz |
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| Way up there is Goose, and somewhere running is Shyann Belle |
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| I've seen this sign before! |
We did stop at New Monarch Pass/Continental Divide for postcards. Shy was worn out and slept all the way to Lake City, CO. We took CR149 towards Lake City traveling through the valleys of the mountains next to a river. When we arrived the elevation was 8,671 ft and it was this tiny little valley town where several creeks and rivers met. We passed through and saw a Country Store that we'd come back to for ice in the morning, and a huge jeep trail/atv rental shop. There were lots of little stores and eateries, but it was super quiet and peaceful. The sun was getting away from us, and we were expecting rain so we were kind of rushing through this section to get to our next camping spot on Henson Creek. We took CR20 along Henson Creek and saw steep rock cutouts for the road, waterfalls and several points of interest that we could see in the morning when we went back to Lake City. We found our spot literally at the base of the Engineer Pass jeep trail road we lovingly called base camp! It was absolutely secluded and quiet. I can't even begin to describe the wonder of this campsite we found. There was absolutely no one around and not a single bit of city noise. Just calm and quiet and a lightly roaring little creek. We met a little mule deer family watching us from across the path and they didn't feel we were a threat so they stuck around for a few minutes. No sooner had we gotten camp set up did the rain come so the fire we had just started had gone out. We instead boiled hotdogs under the EZup and sat in the dark just listening to the creek. We hid our food stuffs from bears, it was too dark to wash. We would have to clean in the morning. We climbed into the tent and fell asleep listening to the creek's lullabies.
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| Most amazing campsite |
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| 'Sup bro? |
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| Just taking it in |
Day 4
8/31
approx 10,500 ft elev.
39 degrees at wake up
It was 39 degrees when I woke up. Goose had been up a little before me and watched an Elk across the river on the mountainside before starting breakfast. It was chilly changing, but surprisingly I didn't feel cold. We cooked eggs, sausage and bacon and decided we should leave the tent up since we planned to come back to the same place to sleep. We just had to hope nothing would bother our camp while we were gone. We washed our stuff, being sure to clang our pots walking down towards the icy creek, just in case! We headed back to Lake City and stopped at all the POI's along the way.
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| Not very helpful until it was time to eat... |
CR20-trail 6.
We saw an old Rose Lime Kiln built in 1881 by George Lee. It was very successful but didn't stand the depression that came in 1882. He built a "mansion" over in Capitol City, a now ghost town right near the Kiln that we went to see next. The town only had two buildings remaining. A fenced off section must have been where the mansion once stood before being torn down in the 60's. Next we came to the Ute & Ulay Mine Camp which was probably the coolest POI on this road. It still has lots of buildings, some undergoing restoration. There was a dam that had been compromised but somehow still standing and various mine shafts. We stood on the edge of a lookout point and walked around the area. Lots of people were forced to live on site during this mine's high point, which was very dangerous to their health. We passed another mine that had succumbed to an avalanche but they left the remains there.
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| Ute and Ulay Mine Camp |
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| Going on a side trip to see Ute and Ulay Mine |
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| Looking back towards "base camp" |
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| Ute and Ulay Dam |
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Henson Creek
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| Ute and Ulay Dam |
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When we got to Lake City, we pulled into the Country Store. It had all the basics for small town living, including a freezer full of elk meat. We didn't pick any up, but should have. We were too busy trying to get on the way to do the Alpine Loop trail. Before actually going up the trail we drove along the Gunnison River and passed by Lake San Cristobal on CR30. The scenery was just beautiful. For about 5 miles we stayed on paved roads before turning onto a gravel road.
CINNAMON PASS/AMERICAN BASIN -trail 7
12,640 ft elev.
There were just so many points of interest on this trail that the first half of it didn't even feel like a jeep trail. The terrain wasn't too rugged but we got to stop at the overlook into the old townsite of Sherman. We saw many homes and old mine sites. On our way up towards Cinnamon Pass was a detour for American Basin, which happened to be a bit tougher trail but we figured we could handle it. There was a pretty steep rocky section. This detour DID NOT disappoint. There were wildflowers everywhere and this babbling little stream of perfectly clear water. Shyann and I walked the stream up a ways and Goose filled his water jug. We pilfered around in awe for a bit and then left to get back on the Cinnamon Pass trail. As we ascended the steeper section of Cinnamon Pass, a small rain shower began. Here it started to get a bit challenging with some switchbacks. The rain stopped pretty quickly and we took our time. We got to the pass at 1:50 PM and hiked higher for photos. The thin air made me feel like a big weenie for being out of breath! We let Shyann loose to explore and she didn't ever get too far. By the end of the trip she will be and expert on all the smells of Colorado! We spotted some snow just a little too far of a hike out of reach. I was kinda sad about it. After the hike up and a good pause to take it all in, Cinnamon Pass was literally breathtaking. The mountain was red, so it was aptly named. Heading down the pass with ease, we reached the halfway point of the Alpine Loop in the ghost town of Animas Forks, another place we visited 10 years ago. This time I went into all the buildings with my wee ghost guard dog. She deemed it safe. When I got done with all the buildings, Goose said he'd like to do an impromptu trail that wasn't on our planned trip but it was right here so why not.
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| Lake San Cristobel |
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| Just running into nature |
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| Sherman Townsite |
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| Sherman Townsite |
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| "How do I do this daddy? Do I go over that big rock?" |
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*gasp* she did it. JUST KIDDING! It was him the whole time!
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| American Basin |
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| Making our way up Cinnamon Pass |
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| Cheese from Cinnamon Pass! |
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| Juuuust too far... |
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| SNOW! |
Animas Forks ghost town:
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| Going up Picayune |
PICAYUNE & PLACER GULCHES/EUREKA MTN RD-trail 8
high point P&P G: 12,750ft/ EMR: approx 13,300 ft elev.
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| Up close and personal with Treasure Mountain Gold Mine |
This ended up being the most confusing trail of all the trails. It had multiple dead ends at the intersection and of course we took all the wrong ones first by accident. The beginning of Picayune was super steep and narrow. We did not want to run into any vehicles coming down. Luckily, so far we hadn't. The road had just had dirt brought in by bulldozer so on top of the steepness the loose dirt provided a challenge .
After trying to keep up with the jeep trail books marker points, we gave up after getting turned around at the Treasure Mtn. Gold Mine trying to recount our mileage unsuccessfully. We ran into one of the little dead ends with a cool view and came back around to the intersection. The jeep trail said "bear right, all other roads at this point are dead ends" however there was more than one right turn. So we took the next right, and it wasn't even on our jeep trail book! It did show up on our navigation as Eureka Mtn Road. By this time I was just utterly confused as to where we were but Goose had it under control, even though he was also confused. The only way was up, so up we went. I noticed how high we were getting and going over very narrow passes with drop offs on both sides and I will say I got pretty freaked out due to this road not being on the jeep map. I tried to figure out where we were and if we were on a different trail but the only other one associated with Eureka was an easy trail, and this one was not in places. It wasn't challenging like Hayden Pass, but it was intense. While I was looking at the book and making notes, I wasn't paying attention to where we were and Goose said "hey". I looked up in time to see him pulling up to the end of the road. From my point of view, because I wasn't watching, it looked like we had pulled to the edge of the mountain and were inches within driving off the end and I didn't see anything to the sides of us. In the video you hear an audible gasp from me and I tried to hide my nervousness. I didn't want to get out this time. I managed to look around a bit and a wave of anxious came over me. I didn't know how we were going to get back down! He was out taking video of the area and eventually when we got service we determined this was a high point of Eureka Mountain, whose summit was 13,5700 ft and we were just a couple hundred feet below it. I chose to close my eyes while Goose backed down the side of a mountain until he got to a point he could turn around and I was honestly thankful to get off the side of that mountain safely. In hindsight, we were in stickier situations but the combination of not knowing where we were and not looking when we stopped had my nerves going. :D Upon looking at the video, we had way more room than I realized but the angle in which the truck was sitting made me feel like we were going to topple off the edge.
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| End of Eureka Mtn. Rd. |
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| Wanna keep going? WE CAN'T! |
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| Placer Gulch |
FINALLY we took the correct "right turn" and made it towards Placer Gulch. After the Eureka excursion, this was NOTHING. We saw a really cool Gold Prince Mine. Another tricky dead end we managed to avoid, and we were safely back in Animas Forks to finish the Alpine Loop via Engineer Pass which would drop us directly back at our base camp.
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| Summit on evening drive |
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| Switchbacks on Engineer Pass |
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| Look at this house... |
ENGINEER PASS-trail 9 & 10 (in reverse)
12,800 ft elev.
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| Goats are really exciting for me! |
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| This house.is.for.sale! |
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Oh! Point.
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We did the Engineer Pass trail 10 years ago, but only halfway. We actually stopped at Oh! Point then, and went back down. It sure isn't as scary in the truck as it was in the Excursion. We hit a few crazy switchbacks that I had to help navigate and hone my airplane traffic skills to get around the curves without having to back the truck up. We ran into oncoming traffic and Goose had to make room to let them by since we were on the mountain side of the road. He pulled as far over as possible, tilting the truck (and me) at a pretty steep angle. He and the guys got to talking and I had to clear my throat because I was uncomfortable trying to hold this weird crooked position. They told us to look for mountain goats just past the summit and I got really excited! We found them just chilling on the side of a mountain, but they ended up being just regular goats. They didn't even faint! I bleated at them to get them to look my way but they were unimpressed. We descended the very easy portion of the trail but there at the top we started seeing marmots, and this became Shyann's favorite game. Marmot hunting. She would get so excited from her perch at the back window and when she saw one she would yip and yammer on about it as if we didn't see them too. She figured out how to roll down the window so we had to child lock her sneaky paws. As we came down, we saw our tent still in tact from the mountain.
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| Ah, Base Camp. |
When we made it back, we were starving so we made salmon patties and rice. When we went down to the creek to wash dishes we decided to just have a little conversation with any lingering bears. It went a little like this:
"HEEEEEY BEARRRS! We are coming down! We are gonna wash these dishes, you don't need to help us! We got it under control but thanks for your concern! Just gonna finish up this rinse and I'll be out of your HAIR! HAHAH I SAID HAIR, YOU SILLY BEAR!"
We sat in our chairs and rehashed the trails and talked about the next day until the sun went down and we climbed into the tent at a chilly 46 degrees.
Day 5
9/1
35 degrees at wake up
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| Engineer Pass:early morning |
At 35 degrees, it's a little chilly to go pee out in the forest but hey...do what you gotta do, huh? I really wasn't that cold until I had to pee. Probably because I had my little space heater Shyann still snuggled inside my hoodie at night. There was frost on the tent. We broke down camp, had leftover breakfast and went back up Engineer Pass in reverse to head to Ouray where we had reserved a campsite for the night. On our way up we found some snow we could reach so we walked across the sheet of thick ice. A mini glacier some might say, and that one someone is Goose. At that point on the mountain before the summit the temp was 40. We hit the summit and headed down which proved to be a bit more difficult coming down, but we expected that from 10 years ago. Immediately connected to Engineer Pass was Mineral Creek trail which would continue us on into Ouray. I realized quickly why the last trip we took here why Engineer Pass seemed so much longer. I didn't know then that we also took Mineral Creek out. I guess I thought it was all the same.
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| Mom, this THING is in MY SPOT. |
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| Summit of Engineer Pass (looking towards Ouray/Mt. Sneffels) |
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| Good morning goats! |
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| Just beautiful |
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| Mill City ghost town |
MINERAL CREEK-trail 11
high point 12,080 ft
This was by far the most technical trail we had done because of all the boulders and large rocks to get around without banging the truck up. I have no idea how that Excursion made it on this road back then. It seems that going up would be the easier route. Alas, we are going down. There was quite the narrow ledge and passing wasn't the best. I got out a few times on this road to help get him around some tricky spots, including making room for the oncoming jeeps to pass. The truck did get a minor boo-boo on it's underside but nothing major. We had a lot of really tight switchbacks on big boulders. We took our time with this one, so it took a lot longer getting down. This is a pretty popular trail so we saw a lot more traffic here than the other trails. We saw some really cool waterfalls.
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| figuring out a tight situation |
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| snow tunnel |
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| watching that guy get over the tough spot we just finished |
I walked up to the bathroom and when I came out, I noticed this really big statue of a big buck mule deer I thought looked pretty cool. Then the statue ran across the road! I jumped of course! He stopped when he got across the street and looked back at me. I had a talk with him about mountains and stuff and I inched within 3 feet of him and offered him an apple. He politely declined and snorted something about some tasty wheatgrass he just had down the road. I took off RUNNING back down to the campsite to tell Goose what just happened, then I went back up to see if he was still there. He and his wife were there and cutting through the weeds hopping off to visit with another camper, I bet. So cool.
Not much longer and the thunderstorm had rolled in for the night. So much for drying out the tent but I didn't care. If you've not laid in a tent above the valley of some mountains to listen to the rain and thunder echo all around you, then my friend, you have not lived. Put it on your bucket list. You can bet your bippy I slept so good to the sound of constant rain.
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evening rain and sunrise in Ouray
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Day 6
9/2
We started out fine, nothing was too difficult yet. There was some really fun stopping points. A place called the drinking cup got us curious to find the natural spring. We found it, but the spring was taking way too long to fill our 5 gallon jug so we gave up and kept going. There was a really cool rock overhang over the road that was fun to go under.
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| The drinking cup: you see how much I helped! ;) |
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| Twin Falls |
We crossed over the creek several times during our drive up. There was another little townsite and then we stopped to check out the twin waterfalls, where we took our jug to fill. It was a bit of a struggle to to watch Goose carry the full jug back up the hill but such is life of a nomad. It got rockier the higher we went and as we got to the basin we climbed some slippery switchbacks thanks to some loose rock. We saw lots of tailings from the mines. When we made it to the parking lot at the high point there were lots of jeeps parked for hikers to go to the summit on foot. We carefully made it back down the crazy trail to head to Imogene Pass so that we could go on over to Telluride.
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| views on the way up Yankee Boy |
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at the top
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| Imogene Pass overlook |
IMOGENE PASS-trail 13
13,114 ft elev.
This was by far the funnest trail we took. It is the second highest driveable jeep trail pass in Colorado. It was steep in spots and rocky but no worse than what we had already done before. By now, we got this jeep trail business down. We hit a few washboards just to test us, I think. During the switchbacks close to the top we passed a hiker that was nearly to the top, just strolling on up. -{I don't even understand this logic. How do they do it? If I could totally live there, I'd totally try but only make it up a little ways and then lay down with some beef jerky and skittles and wonder why I'd torture myself so.}- We climbed the summit, to see a cool overlook spot we wanted to go to first. There was a lake and a cabin out there! Who stays there?!? Shyann played the marmot game on the way up and when we got out at the overlook she decided to let the world know she was there by doing her dirty business on the top of the mountain.
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| Look at this GLORIOUS VIEW! ..... oh..ew. Shy NASTY-BOMBED me!! |
From the overlook we had a 360 degree view. We could see Ouray on one side, Telluride on the other and everything in between. Coming down was just as fun, switchbacking narrow spots and having to wait on a subaru to figure it out too. We talked with them a little bit and Shyann had some kinda heated conversation with their border collie, but it ended up being fine. They were just talking about the marmots. The subaru piggybacked with us down the trail towards the Savage Basin where Tomboy Townsite was. This was the biggest ghost town/ruins we had seen the entire trip. It once was the largest mining town in all of CO. We had to stay on path because a lot of the ruins were on private lands. We went through the "Social Tunnel" which was a big tunnel carved right into the mountain side. The end of the trip had some really narrow roads and hairy switchbacks and a creepy wooden bridge that still can withstand traffic somehow. Across the valley towards the end you could see Black Bear Pass, which is super difficult and it's a one way only trail. Even the smallest wheel bases have to usually readjust getting around corners. Goose really wanted to try that one. Maybe next time.
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| Who lives here? How do they buy toilet paper in the winter? |
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| I mean...this. No words. |
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Tomboy townsite
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| Social Tunnel |
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| Black Bear Pass across the valley |
We came off the trail literally into an alley way behind people's homes in Telluride. We drove down the main drag. I could totally live there, it's so cute. Sadly we didn't stop anywhere this time because we had decided to go ahead and drive out to the Moab trails. I won't lie, we both got pretty emotional leaving the mountains, even though we knew we'd be back. We passed through some tiny towns such as Placerville, Sawpit, and Norwood on CO145. We were driving along the San Miguel River. I watched a rainstorm in the mountains from the valley. After we drove past Paradox (two Shyanns!) and some winding passes through red boulders and canyons, we entered Utah. On the way to Moab on route 46 we passed by the La Sal Mountains. We got onto Route 191, we passed by "Hole in the Rock" store. I know we went in there 10 years ago, I bought a ring from there! So I guess then we drove through Moab to get to Arches Park, but didn't stop to explore. Eventually the highway turned a little bit and we were able to see Moab on the horizon. Since we didn't know what to do or where to stay we grabbed Subway so we wouldn't have to make dinner and parked outside the Visitor Center to get the Moab Jeep Trail book and found the Riverside Oasis campground for the next two nights, that is if we didn't choose to abandon ship and go back to Telluride/Ouray. We set up the tent and EZup to dry and set out to see an easy trail (rated by the book) called Long Canyon.
LONG CANYON-trail 14
We drove on 3 miles of just dirt road before it dipped down into this beautiful canyon. The sun was setting so the shades of red were glittering. We had to take some sandy switchbacks and came to Pucker Pass. It was narrow and rocky but nothing after Imogene and Hayden passes. We came towards a fallen rock that we were supposed to drive under and it until you were right up next to it, it looked impossible. The canyon road opened up to some really pretty switchback views of the canyon and we finished out our drive along the dried riverbed. We got back to our campsite just after sunset and planned our trails for the next day.
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| Long Canyon at sunset |
Day 7
9/3
WARM.
We slept without any blankets and woke before sunrise so that we could see the sun come up over Dead Horse Point Canyon. It was overcast so we had to wait just a bit. It was windy and chilly but the wait was worth it. Once the sun beamed down on the canyon and river, the views were stunning. We walked all around the area to see every view we could see. We went to the visitor center looking for coffee but the coffee shop wasn't open yet. So we bought post cards and made our way out to the Gemini Bridges trail.
Dead Horse Point:
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| Pre-sunrise |
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| lemme see lemme see! |
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| Ugh. Where's the marmots? |
Sunrise
GEMINI BRIDGES/METAL MASHER/BULL CANYON/REVERSE LONG CANYON-trails 15-18
This was green (easy) and was more like gravel roading to us, but it would take us to a blue (moderate) trail. We stopped at the Metal Masher trail which is one of the most extreme trails in the area. We went about 1/2 mile in just to say we were on it. We stopped at the parking area to hike down to see the natural Gemini Bridges. There was a breadcrumb path to follow into it, and we just had fun hiking to the bridges.
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| Gemini Bridges |
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| scary ledge |
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| both Gemini Bridges |
We found them and walked out to see down and look, then went to the other bridge to check it out. When I got around to the other side I looked back at Goose who was standing where I was a minute before. He was on a very thin ledge jutting out from the canyon. We moved away from there and crossed over the bridges and found a place to just sit and take in the canyons. There was a memorial plaque for someone who had died in that area. We hiked around a bit more before making our way back across the bridges and towards the parking area to the truck to get back on our way to Bull Canyon.
We finally hit some obstacles and drove over some rocky technical parts of the trail. It was slow going in and we veered over to an overlook suggested by the book called "surprise overlook" that looked over Day Canyon. It was so peaceful and quiet. We had to come around a corner on a wash of sand and climb up the sand to a natural waterfall ledge, if there was enough rain, that would spill down into a multi waterfall into Day Canyon. There was a stream at the base leading out towards the rest of the canyon. We ended up going back onto our route and descended down the rocky dry riverbed into Bull Canyon. There were a couple of spots that were tricky, but mostly just rocks.
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Surprise Overlook
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| Surprise overlook waterfall |
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| Base of Bull Canyon |
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| Brunch |
We got to the bottom of the canyon and drove as far into it as we could. We tried to park in the shade but the bugs wouldn't leave us alone so we pulled right out into the center and got out the camp stove and cooked brunch right there in the canyon. Any Indian snipers could have easily shot us with their bow and arrow from the cover of the top of the canyon! We were totally exposed in that sense but not a soul was down there with us. We ate, cleaned up, and went on back up the Bull Canyon to finish the trail on Gemini Bridges. Most of the drive was flat road until we climbed up the side of a mesa and switchbacked all the way to the top while 191 was to our right. It was a narrow shelf road with absolutely gorgeous views. We descended down and had chosen to do Long Canyon again but in reverse. It proved to be really fun in the reverse direction.
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| looking towards Arches National Park |
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| rock climbing practice |
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| Goose in the moment with petroglyphs |
On our way towards the canyon we dilly-dallied and stopped to watch a few sets of rock climbers on the side of the road. Then we came across two sites of ancient Indian Petroglyphs next to the road. We stopped to explore them. One of the places, modern people had absolutely ruined it by carving their own on top of the old ones :( but the others we saw were pristine. We stayed there for quite some time looking at them all and trying to figure out what they might be depicting.
Further down the road we saw a site to stop and see fossilized dinosaur tracks, so we went hiking up the mesa to get a closer look. Sure enough, there was a big slab of rock that had slid down and stayed in place with up to ten sets of tracks, the biggest ones you could see from where we parked. Upon hiking more, there was another rock preserving more tracks. Goose went farther up and found more petroglyphs in the walls.
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| Directly above center of the sign you see the large slab , we got right up to it and saw tracks. |
We made it back to Long Canyon back towards Moab, and stopped along the CO river so that Goose could look for hammerstones while Shy and I hiked a bit into the Morning Glory Bridge trail nearby.
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| Jug Handle Arch |
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| under the rock on long canyon |
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| boys... |
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| Rock hunting and hiking |
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| Shy spies...a rock hunter! |
When we got back to camp, we assessed our food rations. We only had one dinner meal left and several breakfasts so we chose to go back to Moab to have dinner. We sat outside on a patio at the PeaceTree Juice Cafe. They brought out Shyann a water bowl. We got sandwiches/burgers and decided to come back in the morning for coffee and juice. We went back to camp and showered so we could sleep early since we were going to get up extra early to head back to Colorado.
Moab thoughts: I think this place would have been more awesome if we weren't so committed to jeep trails this time. This wasn't the place for us because after being where we had been, these were too easy and the red trails were going to be too hard. There wasn't much in between. I suppose we both just prefer the mountain trails especially in the truck. If we had a jeep to tear up, maybe we would like Moab better. With that said, we could have made a whole vacation out of the Indian History, ancient petroglyphs, dinosaur tracks, and the hiking trails (and Goose rock hunting).
Day 8
Woke up to my fitbit alarm at 4:45 AM to realize it was only 3:45 AM here. Time zones...We went back to sleep until 5:30 AM before getting up and breaking down camp. I really liked this campsite, even if it was in the middle of town. At least I didn't have to worry about creepy crawlies. I looked for them all during the trails and Goose is lucky I didn't see any because I'd have hightailed it back to CO without him. I'll take on a bear before I'll deal with snakes, scorpions, or tarantulas. It was nice to be in a well maintained campsite. However it was too citified for the trip so I didn't bother taking photos. We were packed and gone by 6:30 AM so we had time to tinker around and get gas, and I could actually put on makeup and try to do something with my hair. We went back to PeaceTree for those fancy juices and coffee and it was worth it. As we left Moab, a Mule Deer tried committing suicide by running in front of us. We stopped in time to avoid the second one chasing it, but it was almost hit by the oncoming jeep.
We followed the CO river out of town so Goose could look for more rocks. When we finally took off again, we stopped in Grand Junction for washer fluid and chocolate. Priorities. Goose wanted to hunt rocks again. I can only hope he's being sneaky enough to not scare them up. We got onto I70 and crossed over into CO, driving through Glenwood Springs and canyon.
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| Colorado Wine Country! |
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| Glenwood Springs |
I could totally live there. It was really really pretty! We drove past Arrowhead Ski Resort at mm 165. The clouds were forming at the mountain tops there. It started to rain by the time we crossed Beaver Creek Ski Resort in Avon. Then we saw Vail, and I didn't realize how huge it really was! So many resorts, chalets, and beautiful homes. We kept seeing "mandatory chain up" signs for truckers (during snow season) and then we came upon Vail Pass. It was very steep, and the signs made sense. At mm 187 the elevation was 10,603 elev. and 50 degrees. We turned off I70 to CO91 to go see the headwaters of the Arkansas River.
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| Mount Arkansas |
MT ARKANSAS-trail 19
high point 11,700 ft elev.
45 degrees
Most of the trail was normal roads until we got closer to the peak. It turned into a super narrow, one way, gravel trail up. The hardest part was finding a turnaround spot and dealing with the cold rain. We got as close to the top as we could to find the snow melt waterfall coming down from Mt. Arkansas, which eventually forms the Arkansas River you're used to thinking of. The water was pristine and clear and COLD. It was a pretty steady waterfall and we were able to get our bottles and fill them from as close to the source as we could get. The peak of the mountain was 13,795 ft elev. A little further south from where we were standing was a mine that possibly dumped into the Arkansas stream. I probably wouldn't fill my bottles after that point.
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| He cray. |
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| Check out my jugs. |
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| you lookin' at my fun bags? |
We drove into Leadville looking for a motel because the rain had not let up at all and it would have been miserable setting up and putting away the gear. Leadville's nickname is "Cloud City" or "Two Mile High City" and it's right. The clouds were forming right there. The elevation there was 10,200 ft. I had noticed when we got to Mt. Arkansas that my unopened bag of buffalo pretzel pieces had swollen due to altitude and it hadn't gone down when we got to Leadville.
After checking into the Silver King Motel, we found a fun little pizza joint called High Mountain Pies. There was a pizza they would make cheese free for me, so I was pretty excited. The restaurant had only three tables and a bar with about 5 barstools for seating and that was it. We sat in the "back" and were able to watch them make the pizzas. This place was super busy! While we were there they had several pickup orders made and people coming in to wait on a spot to eat. My "square pie" (it was still round) was delicious without cheese, and right up my alley with kale, onions, garlic, mushrooms and bacon. Goose got the Margherita pizza. They were so good.
We then went to Safeway because my pen had run out and I was hating writing with pencil. It was actually hurting my hand. I hadn't seen a Safeway in so long! The town wasn't huge, but I could totally live there. We went back to the Motel and had hot showers to warm up, and watched TV for the first time on the trip only to watch the weather channel.
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| Shy's keeping weather tabs |
Day 9
9/5
45 degrees at wake up
After listening to what sounded like people let their kids sprint and do gymnastics through the room for three hours, we resorted to ear plugs and woke at 6:30 AM and I swear they heard us get up because they did too, and decided to continue their apparent MMA fight. We quickly got dressed and ran off to the breakfast room to get away from the noise. Aside from the baseball team doing their practice drills above us, this was probably the nicest MOTEL we stayed in. Of course we ended up getting the handicap accessible room so the shower was huge, so that helped a lot. As we left to head to our next trail, we spotted fresh snow on two mountain peaks! I bet it was the first of the year! We drove down a back street that led to Mosquito Pass.
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| From Mosquito Pass, looking down at the maze of roads |
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| artsy rock shaking! Photo not for sale. |
MOSQUITO PASS-trail 20
13,185 ft elev.
As we started off, the trail book told us that after a steep uphill rocky road, the roads would all split and reconnect to each other. I suppose they didn't account for lots of rain hiding some of the roads. After a wee bit of confusion because we started descending before even going up, we turned around and tried taking different roads. One was so flooded we couldn't pass that way so we backed up and started from the beginning. We quickly got on track and made our way up the rocky trail. We were excited to drive this one because it's the highest driveable jeep trail road. A couple of the sections of road were pretty narrow, but there was no traffic to share the road with. We had some spectacular views of the fresh snow across the way on the other mountains. We took it very slow because of how rocky it was, much like Hayden Pass. I'm not sure I would want to go down it, especially after the rain. When we reached the pass we were above 13,000 feet and we saw a plaque for Father Dyer. He was called "the Snowshoe Itinerant" because he used to preach along the mining camps scattered between Leadville and Alma and carried gold and mail for the miners across the pass sometimes twice a day. Again the view was amazing, you could see from both sides a 360 degree view of all the towns at the bottom. Shyann played her marmot hunt game, and found a few to yap at. Choosing to save time after that little maze at the base, we decided to go on down instead of drive to the summit. Coming down was easier, we passed a few jeeps and trucks making their way up.
We saw London Mine and Mill. There was a little lake we paused to see, and then a couple easy switchbacks down. We saw some people camping off in the distance at the base. When we got to the bottom, there was a whole fleet of SUV's getting ready to come up from the easier side. Shyann barked a warning that the other side was RUFFRUFFRUFF!
We passed a tiny town called Park City to get to Alma. There wasn't much there, and he went into a store to get us coffee. The store was called Al-Mart :( . Passing the Continental Divide a second time at Hoosier Pass, we were at 11,539 feet.
We drove past the Blue River and found ourselves in the stunning Breckenridge with an elevation of 9,600 ft. We snuck a drive through some condos and resorts and then drove down the main drag. There was a big festival going on so there were sales EVERYWHERE! You could so tell the locals from the visitors, because the locals were in shorts but us visitors had on hats and coats! Whoops. Goose politely opted out of shopping, and stayed in the truck to see what trails were nearby that we could do. I found some awesome stuff for the grillz and some of those stickers with the trails we did, in case Goose felt like putting them on his truck. It took a while to get back to the truck because Shyann was busy networking with people. Goose had picked a couple of trails and we decided to do Peak 10 of the Breckenridge ski slopes. I had read that we would be driving under ski lifts and that sounded fun.
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| Peak 10 |
PEAK 10-trail 21
13,300 ft elevation
13,633 ft summit by hike
It started out simply as climbing the back road up the slope until they stopped maintaining it. We zig-zagged under the ski lifts as promised. Then we passed the resort buildings and restaurant. Here the road got really rocky. We saw a LOT of hikers on this trail, I'm not sure where they started or where their "peak" was but there was so many! We kept climbing higher and higher and then started to level out in this flat basin. By now we had driven much higher than the ski lifts. In the basin were several people flying kites. When we passed them, we saw the crazy switchbacks we were about to take on. They were really tight, but we handled them pretty well, just slowly. Going down though, might be different.
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| Whats up with Tom's Baby? Was it bad? |
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| my kite flying spot, nbd |
When we got to the top, the wind was absolutely insane, but the views were even more insane. We got out and I swear the wind was going to pick me up by my pigtails and take me away. While Goose hiked to the summit, I stayed to hold the truck down because it would be a long walk home. I also hung out with the weather station. After Goose was finished adding a rock to the living monument at the top (there was a big pile of rocks and a flag flying) he came back down and we just stood there for a few minutes. On our way down, we passed a truck with a longer wheel base than ours trying to go up. We took some time to watch and make sure they made it okay and, slow as they were, they did. By the time they made it, we were off the switchbacks and near the flat basin. There was a huge puddle we decided to floor it through, because reasons. A couple more trucks were headed up towards the summit.
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| at the tippy top, truck is that tiny spot behind! |
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| HIIIIII GOOOOOSE! |
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| adding a rock to the memorial pile |
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| Breckenridge in the background |
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| weather station and tiny cabin structure |
You could see Dillon Lake from the top and we passed it on the way to Saxon Mountain which was to be our final off road jeep trail. We made plans to camp at the top. We drove by Frisco on Dillon Lake and saw tons of sailboats out. We took the Eisenhower/Johnson Tunnel at 11,158 ft elev. and crossed the Continental Divide for a third time this trip. That tunnel was long, and really cool! We saw the exit for Loveland Pass, but chose not to take it for time. Passing through Silver Plume, we made it to Georgetown, home of Saxon Mountain. We saw a steam rail car.
SAXON PEAK-trail 22
We started up the trail fairly well enough. It was quite rocky and there seemed to be a bit of fresh rock on the trails. We took a tiny shortcut up, which was more technical and for fun than anything. It was actually pretty difficult but Goose chose to go that route and with my well crafted airplane traffic skills and his well placed rocks to make paths, we got up the fun little shortcut. After that though, we quickly realized that the book hadn't been updated on this trail in a long while. There were some super narrow spots and boulders in the way of the already narrow road! It looked like a boulder field. We met a fellow on an ATV coming down and told us how there had been a rock slide and some boulders in the way going on up and he wasn't sure we could make it. We had heard that before but took caution.
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"How much room do I have?"
"thismuch" |
When we got to the rock slide the only way past it was to go up and over. That meant there was no room for error without just scraping up the entire side of the truck. Carefully we made it over, I was not in the truck for this. I was in front filming with the GoPro and trying to navigate him away from the wall. Once he got down we thought that might be the worst of it. It wasn't. We came to a large boulder in the smack center of the road, and the only way around that was to drive on the edge of the road. Navigating Goose on this one was absolutely terrifying, at one point his tire was on the brink of halfway off the mountain, but if he got any closer the other tire would rub against the boulder in the way and rupture it. Somehow, we got the truck through it barely and hoped the rest of the way would be better. This trail was only to last an hour and we were in our third hour and barely anywhere. We met some people in a RZR coming down and told us don't even try going further. At this point both our nerves were shot and as bad as Goose wanted to finish this, he knew it wasn't safe. We had to cry uncle and let Saxon Mountain defeat us. With the help of these guys we turned around and navigated back through those two extremely difficult sections, and got off of there.
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| Hey mountain! Call your jeep trail book man and change your trail to EXTRA RED. |
Defeated, we just chose to drive to Idaho Springs to look for a motel since it was after 7 PM and finding camping and setting up this late was out of the question. After several "no vacancy" signs, we finally landed the last room at the Argo Inn. I am pretty sure that this room was the managers old digs because it was all alone on the third floor with a porch and a balcony. Walking in with Shyann snuck inside my shoe bag, it was totally 70's. I said "It's so weird, I like it!" There were wood beams on the wall, a brick fireplace spanning the entire wall and old Mercury glass mirror and shaggy carpet. I didn't care, I was glad to have a place to sleep. We grabbed BBQ next door and were exhausted. The next day was our last, and we would be going to Mt. Evans and then a long drive home, so we slept early.
Day 10
9/6
54 degrees at wake up
We got up at 7ish and left for Mt. Evans after sneaking Shyann out, and running to the gas station to let her pee. Plus we needed to repack the truck. It was a mess making the sneak bag for Shy. Luckily she knows the drill and hid well. My shoes and hats were everywhere. After we got situated, we left Idaho Springs and took the short drive to Mt. Evans tollway.
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| last day |
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MOOOMMM!!! GAH. Always
taking pictures! |
MT. EVANS-trail 23
14,260 ft elev.
It was a good thing we got there early because there was already a line. We got a map and paid and we started our 14 mile climb up. The road wasn't as maintained as Pike's Peak but it didn't cost as much either. The drive was up was pretty amazing. There's something about seeing the Rockies just pop up and say hello! At the summit, Goose parked the truck and we were FREEZING so we had to put on the warmest coats. Goose had to put on his thermal and hoodies. Luckily I've been wearing layers this whole time, so if I got warm I could remove one, or add one. We walked around to all the plaques showing all the mountains' names, some we recognized as we had been on or near them. We saw Pike's Peak, too! It was SO COLD. The temp was 34 degrees at the top but with the wind blowing 20-30 mph, the wind chill was about 16-20 degrees. There was ice everywhere. After peeing at 14k feet, we put a very cold Shy into the still warm truck and hiked to the summit. We were at 14,260. This was the highest we'd climbed the entire trip. Interestingly we didn't feel winded at all like we did at Pike's Peak, because we had become acclimatized. Maybe that's how those bikers did it!
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| Camp Rock!?! Will we see Nick Jonas? |
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| the peak! |
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| I'll race you! TEEHEE! |
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| so busy! |
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| flappy ears! |
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Uhhhm lookit that guy!
"Guy! WHY YU SO STOOPIT?!?" |
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| "sup, Denver!" |
It was so nice to end the trip on the tallest paved mountain peak! Leaving, we took Squaw Pass toward Denver. Goose said it was the longest descent ever. The truck was getting 42+ mpg because of the coasting. We drove through Denver on I70 and looked for a Chipolte and GPS took us to Stapleton. By this time, the temperature was nearly 90.
Goose stayed outside with Shyann while I went in to order food. As I walked out the door with our order, I tripped off a step down and almost flung the food everywhere. I guarantee I'd not feel bad if I had to pick it up off the street and eat it. We went to fill the tires back up and get gas. I went in to pay and get bottles of water. As I was walking away from the cashier, my bag ripped open and my bottles flew out and rolled every direction they could all over the gas station floor in front of about 35 people. A very very nice person picked up a couple bottles while I was standing there holding a bottle and muttering to myself "You gotta be freakin' kiddin' me." The cashier offered to double bag the waters this time, and I carried the bag out lovingly like it was a two day old infant to the truck. I told Goose I was 0-2 today and I think Denver doesn't want me here. We ended up passing by Aurora and it made me think of the Batman shooting :/ *sigh*
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| CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP |
We were on our way home now. With the mountains in our rear view, we could see Pike's peak this time barely from Limon, where we had stayed the first night. We saw the windmill farms in Limon in the daylight. I was so fascinated with them! By the time we got to Hays, KS we finally saw those "rocksticks" Goose was talking about. While he reminded me when I wrote this, that they were post rock he said I could call them whatever I wanted. Now that I know what they look like, they are everywhere! They were used for fence posts since there were no trees. They form in columns in the bedrock and can be cut into posts. We never saw an outcropping because the sun was setting. We again passed the windmill farm in the sunset with the blinking red lights. Somewhere around 10-11 PM I took over driving so Goose could sleep and let his eyes rest.
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| writing pains post rock/rock sticks! worn out |
Day 11
9/7
Somewhere around midnight I crossed into Missouri and drove until we got home at 3:10 AM. We only unpacked the cooler from the truck but left it in the kitchen floor. There was no way we would deal with that yet. We grabbed our pillows and went straight to bed and slept. When we eventually woke up, we reminisced about what an awesome trip that was and how we would leave Moab out of it next time, and try different trails in different places so we could compare our favorites and then find a town close to the favorites, and totally live there. Maybe we will just build one of those tiny houses on wheels and just move it every 14 days! :D
PIKES PEAK-trail 1
HAYDEN PASS-trail 3. 
OLD MONARCH PASS-trail 5.
When we got to Lake City, we pulled into the Country Store. It had all the basics for small town living, including a freezer full of elk meat. We didn't pick any up, but should have. We were too busy trying to get on the way to do the Alpine Loop trail. Before actually going up the trail we drove along the Gunnison River and passed by Lake San Cristobal on CR30. The scenery was just beautiful. For about 5 miles we stayed on paved roads before turning onto a gravel road.
We came off the trail literally into an alley way behind people's homes in Telluride. We drove down the main drag. I could totally live there, it's so cute. Sadly we didn't stop anywhere this time because we had decided to go ahead and drive out to the Moab trails. I won't lie, we both got pretty emotional leaving the mountains, even though we knew we'd be back. We passed through some tiny towns such as Placerville, Sawpit, and Norwood on CO145. We were driving along the San Miguel River. I watched a rainstorm in the mountains from the valley. After we drove past Paradox (two Shyanns!) and some winding passes through red boulders and canyons, we entered Utah. On the way to Moab on route 46 we passed by the La Sal Mountains. We got onto Route 191, we passed by "Hole in the Rock" store. I know we went in there 10 years ago, I bought a ring from there! So I guess then we drove through Moab to get to Arches Park, but didn't stop to explore. Eventually the highway turned a little bit and we were able to see Moab on the horizon. Since we didn't know what to do or where to stay we grabbed Subway so we wouldn't have to make dinner and parked outside the Visitor Center to get the Moab Jeep Trail book and found the Riverside Oasis campground for the next two nights, that is if we didn't choose to abandon ship and go back to Telluride/Ouray. We set up the tent and EZup to dry and set out to see an easy trail (rated by the book) called Long Canyon. 
LONG CANYON-trail 14
We followed the CO river out of town so Goose could look for more rocks. When we finally took off again, we stopped in Grand Junction for washer fluid and chocolate. Priorities. Goose wanted to hunt rocks again. I can only hope he's being sneaky enough to not scare them up. We got onto I70 and crossed over into CO, driving through Glenwood Springs and canyon.
We then went to Safeway because my pen had run out and I was hating writing with pencil. It was actually hurting my hand. I hadn't seen a Safeway in so long! The town wasn't huge, but I could totally live there. We went back to the Motel and had hot showers to warm up, and watched TV for the first time on the trip only to watch the weather channel.
We drove past the Blue River and found ourselves in the stunning Breckenridge with an elevation of 9,600 ft. We snuck a drive through some condos and resorts and then drove down the main drag. There was a big festival going on so there were sales EVERYWHERE! You could so tell the locals from the visitors, because the locals were in shorts but us visitors had on hats and coats! Whoops. Goose politely opted out of shopping, and stayed in the truck to see what trails were nearby that we could do. I found some awesome stuff for the grillz and some of those stickers with the trails we did, in case Goose felt like putting them on his truck. It took a while to get back to the truck because Shyann was busy networking with people. Goose had picked a couple of trails and we decided to do Peak 10 of the Breckenridge ski slopes. I had read that we would be driving under ski lifts and that sounded fun.
When we got to the top, the wind was absolutely insane, but the views were even more insane. We got out and I swear the wind was going to pick me up by my pigtails and take me away. While Goose hiked to the summit, I stayed to hold the truck down because it would be a long walk home. I also hung out with the weather station. After Goose was finished adding a rock to the living monument at the top (there was a big pile of rocks and a flag flying) he came back down and we just stood there for a few minutes. On our way down, we passed a truck with a longer wheel base than ours trying to go up. We took some time to watch and make sure they made it okay and, slow as they were, they did. By the time they made it, we were off the switchbacks and near the flat basin. There was a huge puddle we decided to floor it through, because reasons. A couple more trucks were headed up towards the summit. 
You could see Dillon Lake from the top and we passed it on the way to Saxon Mountain which was to be our final off road jeep trail. We made plans to camp at the top. We drove by Frisco on Dillon Lake and saw tons of sailboats out. We took the Eisenhower/Johnson Tunnel at 11,158 ft elev. and crossed the Continental Divide for a third time this trip. That tunnel was long, and really cool! We saw the exit for Loveland Pass, but chose not to take it for time. Passing through Silver Plume, we made it to Georgetown, home of Saxon Mountain. We saw a steam rail car.
SAXON PEAK-trail 22
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