As some of you have seen from Facebook, I went out west for 2 weeks to run some trails... Started in Colorado, took a visit to a few national parks and then up to Moab before visiting friends north of Salt Late City and coming home. Here's my story with a few photos (hosted on facebook)...
First, the pre-planning: I've been wanting to do this for years since I saw a thread over on NAXJA about a guy from the midwest doing a long trip through parts of the southwest. Then, he moved to Grand Junction, CO and started posting photos every weekend about the trails he had wheeled and hiked. Talk about envy... It seemed that something came up to block the trip for several years. either not enough vacation time or not enough money for gas. Late last year, I realized that I'd be able to make the trip happen this year and started getting trail books and maps from Amazon. And, working overtime shifts to help with the fuel costs.
Well, as it seems to do too often, time flew this year... before I knew it, it was time to start packing the Jeep. As per my usual, I procrastinated and didn't have time to install a budget boost I'd bought or mount an air compressor under the hood. Sigh... but, one Thursday evening I took a nap after work, finished packing the Jeep and started west.
The trip out was mostly uneventful... stopping an hour or so into Ohio for a quick nap, then again in Kansas for a few hours and finally into Colorado! As I started nearing civilization, I saw a stranded car on the side of the road and as I passed it I could see the hood up and two people along side a car and noticed that it was a General Lee! So, I pulled over and asked if I could help out, but they had serious engine issues. Instead, I towed them a mile up the highway to a small town and dropped them off in front of a NAPA. They had been on their way to a charity rally run, but... I don't think they made it. I continued up the highway and had my mind blown after I crested a hill and saw the Rocky Mountains behind Denver. Wow. Drove through the mountains (after stopping to reduce the air pressure in my fuel can) and made it to Grand Junction at sunset. Decided to push a little further and got a hotel room in Delta for the night.
So, I made it! But, weather was pushing in and I really didn't want to deal with setting up a tent in pouring rain the next night, so in the morning I extended my room for another night. Btw, the Delta "Sundance" Days Inn has a restaurant attached so you get a real meal in the morning instead of a "continental breakfast", also very cool staff! I decided to play it safe and went to visit the "Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park" for the day. The park is a few miles east Montrose. of As soon as I made it to the visitors center, it started pouring and dropping hail. Fun... it rained off and on the rest of the day. I stayed in the park until the afternoon and then decided to try running an easy trail back to the hotel. The trail was listed in one of my books as the "Uncompahgre Plateau Trail". 90 miles long but you only need 4x4 for maybe a mile of it unless it's wet, then maybe 10 miles. Mostly gravel forest roads, with some cool switchbacks at the north end. Started raining again, turning to snow about halfway through the trip but stopping before I got to paved roads again. Got back to the hotel and tried to plan the next day's adventure...
On Monday, I pack up and head south to Ouray. Very cute town, easy to see why they call it the "Switzerland of America". Continue through town and the road starts into the "Million Dollar Highway", a 25 mile stretch of 2-lane that is cut into the mountains to Silverton. Around half of that distance is made of switchbacks and hairpin turns. Fun, until you meet a full-size RV or fuel tanker taking up the road shoulder-shoulder in the hairpin.
Just a few miles south of Ouray is the trailhead for Mineral Creek, an easy (for me, it's rated a 4/10 trail) trail that gives access to the popular Poughkeepsie Gulch along with the "Alpine Loop" that I wanted to do. The Alpine Loop is made up of Engineers Pass and Cinnamon Pass. Both of which are easy (2-3/10), scenic and long (43 miles combined). Well, remember the snow I mentioned? It was only at "higher elevations"... and Mineral Creek ends at those higher elevations. There was a foot of snow at the start of Engineers Pass, but there were tracks so I tried it. Got denied less than 50 feet up the hill, so I decided to try the other direction. But, first I decided to try an offshoot trail on the GPS, and a short offshoot of that which appeared to goto an old mine. I started thinking that it wasn't smart to be driving into a small valley in the snow, so stopped to turn around. And stopped in what turned out to be a 2ft drift. *doh* And, well above the treeline here, so had to shovel myself free.