Bob & Cindy's 2009 Travel Web Site
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2009 Colorado Trip - August & September
Alpine Loop out of Lake City
So what is the Alpine Loop?? Actually, it's a series of "roads" (well, there are some roads, Cindy would describe some of this "road" as a pack trail for mules) connecting the cities of Silverton, Ouray, and Lake City. A good part of it is 4 wheeling, but not the kind you see in the Mohab, Utah area. Lucky for us there is a way to loop through two high mountain passes in the San Juan Mountain chain, starting and ending in Lake City. Although our truck has 4 wheel dirve, we felt better renting a smaller Jeep for this trip. It would handle the switchbacks better and we'd be moving around in a much lighter vehicle. Of course, the big issue here was Cindy's vertically challenged nature ... after deliberating about it a long time, she finally decided to give it a go. So on Tuesday, we packed a cooler and picnic lunch and headed out on a new adventure (for us anyway).
We left before 9 with clear skies and what looked to be a perfect day. The first part of the trip is up a beutiful valley headed for Cinnamon Pass. We passed some new properties for sale, a couple of million will get you started.
About 10 miles in to the trip and the road starts to climb, but we're still cruising in two wheel drive. Cindy's doing fine.
Still climbing and approaching the tree line. Switchbacks are more numerous and Cindy is always on the inside part of the road (that's good). We are starting to see rain clouds ahead.
Oops! The road is getting worse but the mountains are looming ahead. Still no drop offs. I'm already glad we rented the Jeep instead of taking the truck.
Cindy and I at the top of Cinnamon Pass with our little Jeep.
Despite the ominous clouds and rain, we are dodging raindrops, so far, it's a piece of cake as we climb on up to the first pass.
Coming down from Cinnamon Pass toward a ghost town called Animas Forks. This is looking down the valley toward Silverton and the rain clouds are coming.
Killing time at the top. It's taken a couple of hours to get to this point. Temperature is down in the mid 40's at the pass. We saw some light dusting of snow on a couple of peaks going up .. the first hint of winter.
Animas Forks was a mining town in the 1880's with the ore being converted mostly to silver with some gold. By the 1920's, it was all over. One can walk through some of the old buildings .. it was a tough life.
View of Animas Forks as we're coming down the mountain. The road that goes left heads toward Silverton, the road that goes up heads toward Ouray.
Then we started back up the mountain headed for Engineer Pass. The road got worse with steep dropoffs ... Cindy is NOT HAPPY!
Cindy while walking around Animas Forks. The rain did catch up to us here but it was a short shower, just enough to mess up the roads. We also had our picnic lunch while playing tourist.
Here we are at Engineer Pass, just over 12,800 feet. For some reason our GPS recorded our highest elevation at about 12,950. Temperature again is in mid 40's. We've been getting pelted with occasional sleet.
Views of San Juan Mounains were spectacular while getting close to the pass.
View coming down from Engineer Pass looking north toward Gunnison. Showers began to obscure some of the views and the drop down into the next valley was steep but we are getting close to the end
Aspens are beginning to turn. We've seen them go from nothing to patches. It looks like we'll see a lot of color this season as we head north over the next week.
Another old mining town that is now a ghost town. From here it was a beautiful ride down the river canyon and on into Lake City. Cindy is still in one piece!
A dam that didn't make it. This guy was over 100' high so we'll have to get the story on what happened. It looks like the concrete gave out?
Tomorrow we leave Lake City with plans to camp in the Taylor Reservoir area for about 5 days. We camped in the area in 2004 when we went to see son John at the Aspen Music Festival and want to further explore the area. Stay tuned!