Saturday, June 20, 2009
With word of the trails in the San Juan Mountains starting to open up already thanks to plenty of dust storms this spring, Amanda and I decided to head down for a day trip. Our destination was a few trails around Silverton. Amanda wanted to drive a trail this trip and since she’s never been up Stony Pass she ended up driving that one. Unfortunately, on our way up to the pass, the weather got bad. It started out as some heavier rain, but as we got higher it turned into snow. The tops of all the mountains were out of view behind the clouds. Once we reached Stony Pass, we decided to turn around and head out of the clouds and into a lower trail.
Next we headed up Cunningham Gulch all the way up to the Highland Mary Mine, but the rain was still coming down pretty good the whole time. Because of the bad weather we decided to head back to Silverton for some lunch.
Still dry out when we started Stony Pass
Clouds rolling in
Came across this SUV with Montana plates
Amanda at Stony Pass in the snow
Headed back down from the pass…there’s mountains out there somewhere….
Cunningham Gulch
Up at the Highland Mary Mine
On our way back to Silverton we took the Lower Animas Road
On our way back home after some lunch, I decided to follow a trail I have driven by a number of times and always wondered where it went…..so I followed the Mill Creek trail.
We also diverted off of the highway near Montrose so that I could run the Dry Creek trail as part of my research on the Tabeguache 4×4 Trail….but I didn’t take any photos on that trail.
Even though the weather pretty much sucked, we still had fun 🙂