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South San Juan Mountains from Elwood Pass

Friday – Monday, July 28 – 31, 2023

After spending the last two days around the Animas River Valley between Coal Bank Pass and Durango, I decided to spend the next couple of days further south and east in a distant part of the San Juan Mountains that I don’t get around to visiting very often. I’ve definitely been long overdue for another visit to the South San Juan Mountains between Wolf Creek Pass and the New Mexico state line and figured that this would be a good opportunity to get back since it wasn’t too much further away. After the GIS Colorado Summer Meetup concluded late in the morning on Friday I packed up my Jeep and made my way over to Pagosa Springs to continue on with the next leg of the trip.

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Along the Continental Divide: Stony Pass Peaks

Saturday & Sunday, August 22-23, 2020

After spending the morning hiking to a couple peaks along the Colorado Trail near Kennebec Pass in the La Plata Mountains, I thought it was time to visit a couple of 13ers that I had missed on a previous visit to Stony Pass a few years ago since I got sidetracked that day helping a mountain biker get to the airport in Durango. After grabbing a quick lunch in Durango I headed back to the heart of the San Juan Mountains near Silverton and drove up to the Continental Divide at Stony Pass in the late afternoon. I found a spot to camp for the night and rested for a little bit. As sunset approached I hiked up the Hardrock 100 route to the summit of Hardrocker (13,214) so I could watch the light show. I made it up to the summit a bit earlier than I had planned, but since the summit was large and grassy I just laid down for a while and enjoyed the comfortable temperature and beautiful scenery from the top.

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Weminuche Wanderings: West Ute Lake Loop

Continental Divide Trail: Hunchback Pass to West Ute Lake
Labor Day Weekend | Friday – Sunday, August 30 – September 1, 2019

Since we just spent last weekend along the Continental Divide in Wyoming, I figured it would be nice to spend some time along the Continental Divide Trail in Colorado this weekend. Since Labor Day is a popular holiday in the mountains of Colorado I planned a backpacking loop into an area of the Weminuche Wilderness that I hoped would not be very busy so we could try to avoid the crowds. The plan worked out great as we only saw a couple of other people all weekend and had plenty of solitude! As for the trails we hiked, they required more bushwhacking and route-finding than I expected, so that might be another reason why we didn’t run into too many people.

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Wheeler Geologic Area in the La Garita Wilderness

Saturday – Sunday, July 29-30, 2017

After our hike to the summit of Culebra Peak in the morning, Diane and I started our drive back home from the San Luis Valley. However, we did not plan to arrive back home until Sunday afternoon since I hoped to finally try and visit the Wheeler Geologic Area in the La Garita Wilderness between South Fork and Creede. This location has been on my to-do list for a very long time, but since I never seem to get down this way often, especially with extra free time, I’ve never been able to make it happen before. This time I was determined to get there and spend the night nearby.

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Petroglyph National Monument

Tour of the Deserts | Honeymoon Adventure
Saturday, March 18, 2017

The last day of our Honeymoon Adventure was finally here. Thankfully, we weren’t out late on Friday night at the concert since we woke up early on Saturday morning so we could visit Petroglyph National Monument before starting our eight-hour drive back home. Even though we still had another day before we had to return to work, we wanted to spend Sunday at home resting and getting things back in order.

Tag: rio grande

South San Juan Mountains from Elwood Pass

Along the Continental Divide: Stony Pass Peaks

Weminuche Wanderings: West Ute Lake Loop

Wheeler Geologic Area in the La Garita Wilderness

Petroglyph National Monument