Back to Our Regular Programming--Our "Secret" Boondocking Spot

We left Montrose fairly early for our 120 mile trek to our spot.  There is major road construction on Hwy 50 east of Montrose that was advertising 1-2 hour delays.  With such a short day, we told ourselves we didn't care and would just roll with the punches no matter what happened.  We had actually talked about routing around it but it would add well over 100 miles to the day.  There was another detour we could have taken but it would require driving along the north edge of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, in my opinion one of the absolute scariest canyons anywhere to include the Grand Canyon, it is shear and oh so deep and scares the crap out of me especially when you are driving that road, Rte 92 with no guard rails, narrow and right on the side of the canyon.  Anyway we decided to take whatever came.  We have been across Hwy 50 from Montrose to Gunnison many times, there is one section that goes through a small canyon and winds around a bit and that is where most of the construction was taking place, in addition there was some near the bridge that goes over Blue Mesa Reservoir.  So 30 miles later we entered the construction and man were we living right, just as we came up to the end of the line of traffic we started through!

It was slow, but we never completely stopped in the 5 miles of construction, it was narrow and rough in places, but we never stopped, it was dusty and muddy in places, but we never stopped, get the idea?  Then it was over and we came out eventually near Blue Mesa Reservoir which had quite a bit of water in it compared to years past.

Our drive would take us south on Rte 149 through Lake City, CO and up and over Slumgullion Pass at 11,530', and the distinction of being the steepest paved grade in the state of Colorado at 9.5%.  It is just a little scary but very doable and that's from scaredy-cat me:-)  We have done this route perhaps 20 times in all the years we've been traveling.  That snow that came in a few days before combined with the intensity of the aspens made this particular drive the most spectacular Jan and I can ever remember, it was truly amazing and although we tried hard to capture the beauty with photos, it can only give you an idea of how magnificent it truly was.

As we climbed the pass, what is this stuff?

And then over the top and the other side!

And then into our spot for the next 3 days, mostly chilling, enjoying the surroundings, long walks, no fishing unfortunately, and of course celebrating our anniversary, right where we wanted to be.

It was 22 degrees the first morning, 26 the next and 25 our last morning.  But it went up to 65 or so in the afternoon, and clear as a bell each day!

The falls were a nice 1 1/4 mile walk away
and if you look real hard you can see our coach

All by ourselves:-)

We did take a little ride around the area.

The headwaters of the Rio Grande

We celebrated our anniversary!

God gave us quite a backdrop

Then to cap it off just as it was getting dark, we had a quick visitor.

So we called it a day and a complete success and moved down the road to Durango to a new campground.