Friday, July 22, 2011

Off road

What a great day!  We were off promptly at 6:30 am, Karen and Rachel in their, as it turns out quite capable, Ford Edge rental, and Jan and I in the Jeep.  North to Silverton, then up the trail to Animas Forks, about 8 miles north east of Silverton.  It is a somewhat preserved mining town where up to 450 people lived and toiled mining.  It was 44 degrees there at about 8am on July 21st, imagine what winter would be like.  Then further north by the remains of the Frisco mine.  We worked our way through the California Gulch going higher and higher up to California Pass.  A bit unnerving here and there but the views and weather were fantastic!
Then down to beautiful Como lake, still with ice!

Then back up and over Hurricane pass, through 8 foot snow banks to start our way back down to Silverton.  We found a great place to have a picnic lunch.  A superb view and since we had descended back down to only 12,250 ft, we all could breathe again :)

We continued our way back to Silverton, then Durango, back around 3pm.  We kinda chilled after that, returned the rental car to get ready for our move up to Montrose today.  No rush as it is only about 175 miles.  Off to more adventures.

No comments: