Wednesday, July 11, 2018
Today is our 37th wedding anniversary. We decided there was no better way to enjoy it than to enjoy more of God's glorious wonders. Today's adventure will take us from Gunnison to Almont to Taylor Reservoir to Tin Cup to Pitkin to Ohio City then over Cumberland Pass to Parlin and back to Gunnison.
We left about 7:30am so we could have breakfast at the Nugget Café at Taylor Reservoir. It came highly recommended.
After we turned off US 135 at Almont we followed the Taylor River. The following 4 pictures are some of the unique rock formations along the river and of the Taylor River also.
The drive to Taylor Reservoir was absolutely gorgeous!
Here we are at Taylor Reservoir. It is only about 9am. It does appear to be slightly smoky here even though it does not smell smoky.
Above if the Nugget Café. Most structures up here are log. Below is the beautiful stained glass window in the entrance door.
After breakfast of omelet and waffle, we headed to Tin Cup.
Above and below are both Frenchy's Café. It also came highly recommended but breakfast was only about 20 mins ago. Frenchy's is at 10,167' elevation.
How about this for a store? I think you better come prepared for your stay here. We saw several families taking off to explore the area in the 4x4 ATVs. There were cabins to rent also.
As we left Tin Cup...
we had to dodge the cattle on the road. They were inquisitive about us.
We are now headed to Cumberland Pass.
OMG are those the roads we will be taking?? Yes we took the top road seen on the side of this mountain.
We made it to another Colorado pass! The next 3 pictures below are the views from Cumberland Pass.
We are feeling blessed to be able to see so much splendor!
Of course the Pitkin Assay office was an important historic spot.
Next we drive through Ohio City.
Ohio City is considered a semi-ghost town. The City Hall seen above was built in 1906 and started its life as the mercantile for the town. For a short while it was served as a restaurant before it was became City Hall in 1914. City Hall and the stores seen below is almost all of town.
On our way out of Ohio City we saw this rock formation all by itself.
There was a sign calling it Indian Head Rock.
When we got back into Gunnison, Tic took me to the best rated Mexican food restaurant in Gunnison, El Parasian. We were not impressed, thus no pictures.
Later in the evening the clouds started rolling in and the weather looked ominous.
Tic got some dramatic black and white pictures of the clouds.
However as it turned out, we never got any rain. It was beautiful watching the clouds change.
What a wonderful way to end a splendid anniversary day!
Sunday, July 8, 2018
Today we are going to explore the Alpine Loop which connects Lake City, Silverton and Ouray. The roads to Silverton and Ouray branch off the loop. We do not plan to go to Silverton or Ouray. The loop itself is said to be 65 miles and it took us all day. Due to the abundance of splendor the post has more pictures than most.
We drove the fast way to Lake City and plan to end the loop back in Lake City .
As we headed out of Lake City we drove along side the San Christobal Lake.
There was only a slight breeze so Tic got this reflection picture of the lake.
Then we saw this suspension walking bridge and thought that was neat. We wanted to walk across it, but there was a gate that prevented that. Oh well.
The road turned to gravel. We thought if the road stayed this way it would be an easy day.
These are some of the views as we headed up to Cinnamon Pass.
More splendor as we are still heading to Cinnamon Pass.
Above is the road we drove up to Cinnamon Pass.
Above is another view from Cinnamon Pass. Below is the view of the direction we will be heading down Cinnamon Pass. It's hard to tell that the top of the mountain pictured below was cinnamon colored and thus the name for the pass.
As we headed down the other side of Cinnamon Pass the views were just as splendid!
At this point we are looking down on Animas Forks, an abandoned mining town. It was developed in 1873 at 11,200' elevation. By 1876 there was a sizable hotel, a general store, saloon, post office and 30 cabins. By 1904 the Gold Prince Mill was built and the Silverton Northern Railroad came into Animas Forks. Below is looking towards Silverton CO from the same point.
The next 5 pictures are of the ghost town Animas Forks.
This is a pretty fancy house for that era.
Now we are headed out of Animas Forks towards Engineer Pass. By the way, the road is extremely rocky and slow going and has been for a good ways.
As we rounded a curve the land opened up again and we saw a huge herd of sheep. This is only a small portion of the sheep.
More glorious views on the way to Engineer Pass. Below shows the road we had taken to reach this high point.
Most of the drive from Animas Forks was around 12,000' elevation.
The road doesn't look as rough as it actually was. We are still headed up to Engineer Pass.
According to our phone app we are right at 13,000' elevation. WOW!!! The picture below shows what we thought was going to be our route up that mountain side. SCARY!
Here we are at the spot marked the summit of Engineer Pass. The above picture looks towards the North.
We actually came downhill slightly to reach the pass sign. Below is the road we will take down from here. I was glad we did not go up the side of the mountain pictured above!
As we headed downhill there were many more spectacular views.
We came upon this house. The parking was at the road then you had to walk across a suspension bridge to reach the house. We actually saw a man with his young child out on the porch. Wild and crazy but stupendous views!
Dusty's wildflower picture.
I believe we are following along the Henson River. Above is a closeup of the waterfall in the picture below.
This is another waterfall named Whitmore Falls. It was not a long walk, but there were lots of stairs and I don't do well with stairs since I'm in my boot. Tic walked down and got some pictures. This is the best one of Whitmore Falls.
As we got closer back towards Lake City, we saw this large corral. Another beautiful setting!
It has been another wonderfully blessed day!!!
