Independence Day | Thursday – Friday, July 3-4, 2025
This holiday weekend Jackson and I were planning to spend three days backpacking a segment of the Colorado Trail through the Weminuche Wilderness, but unfortunately I started to have some issues with the elevation on Thursday night while we were camped up in Cunningham Gulch and I had to drive down lower in the middle of the night to start feeling better and to try to get some sleep. With that in mind, I figured it probably wasn’t a good idea to head off into the high Wilderness of the Weminuche where a retreat to lower terrain would not be as quick and easy, so we cancelled those plans on Friday morning and decided to just go on a shorter hike along the Continental Divide and then spend the rest of the day testing both of our new vehicles by driving over Stony Pass. Between the recent vehicle troubles and not feeling well at elevation, my mountain season has not gotten off to a great start this year, but I am hoping that things will start getting better soon. Even though we didn’t get to go on our backpacking trip this weekend, we did experience some excellent foggy and cloudy conditions on Friday morning that were fun to photograph, so that was a positive! These are some photos from our truncated Independence Day weekend.
After a wet and rainy drive to Silverton after work on Thursday, we found a place to camp up in Cunningham Gulch and watched the clouds begin to clear.
A little light even got through the clouds shortly before sunset.
Galena Mountain
After a terrible night of not feeling well and not being able to sleep much, we were greeted by some amazing fog and clouds at sunrise.
Even though I was pretty exhausted, I drove around Cunningham Gulch through the changing conditions taking photos along the way. It was worth the lack of sleep.
Cunningham Gulch Road
Dome Mountain
San Juan Sunrise
Clouds in Cunningham Gulch
I’ve had this 4Runner for less than a week and have already managed to get a great photo of it in the mountains!
The everchanging conditions were just spectacular this morning!
King Solomon Mountain Reflection
After Jackson ate breakfast we started our drive up to Stony Pass and I continued to stop and take photos along the way…
Jackson recently purchased this Trailhunter so he could drive rougher roads into the backcountry, so this would be a good introduction for him.
I liked this view of the clouds surrounding Hematite Basin with Tower Mountain and Macomber Peak above.
Driving up to Stony Pass was also a good introduction to my new vehicle since I am used to driving Jeeps…
Stony Pass Road
From the pass we had a good view over to White Dome.
We started hiking from the other side of the pass along the Colorado Trail and Continental Divide Trail.
We stopped to check out the tracks and collapsed cabin at the Silver Link Mine.
The clouds were looking nice this morning as we hiked along the Continental Divide.
Stony Pass Peak Reflection
I just love hiking above treeline across the alpine tundra.
The clouds were starting to get darker as we got a good view of Whitehead Peak. We decided to turn around and head back shortly after this point since the clouds were looking a bit threatening.
Colorado Trail
After returning to the trailhead we decided to continue down the east side of Stony Pass to the Rio Grande Reservoir and make a big loop back to Lake City before heading back home.
We couldn’t pass up an opportunity to ford the Rio Grande while we were passing by.
After descending the steep and rocky Timber Hill portion of the trail, the road got better again as we neared the Rio Grande Reservoir.
I have spent weeks on end backpacking and camping in that region. Silverton, the San Juan Mountains, my favorite place in the whole world.
Same here. It’s part of the reason I initially moved to Grand Junction!
Big change for a former Jeep guy! I really like the moody images with clouds, and it’s always nice to see the Colorado high country.
Well, I’m not completely a ‘former’ Jeep guy yet. I still have a Cherokee XJ in my garage.
So what was the reason for getting rid of the relatively new Jeep (which, as I recall, you had built to order)? Saw the post about the new T4R, but no reason why; maybe I missed it?
Obviously, still exploring around in a 2000 Tacoma, I’m a Toyota guy, but I thought that you’d surely stay on the “dark side” like my dad has, forever.
I’ve had some issues with it recently and couldn’t trust it any longer in the backcountry, and after it had ruined my plans for a couple weekends in a row I got frustrated and made the change.
As one considering a Rubi as my next vehicle, I’d love to hear what issues you ran into, if you wanted to share. Email would be fine by me as well, if you don’t want to air Jeep’s dirty laundry. Or nothing, if you’d rather be out hiking!
Have fun out there, I know how important reliability is with vehicles!
Hey Randy,
Looks great up there, love the new forerunner. It’s a little known secret that Vigara can help a lot at high altitude, its commonly used by cyclists in the Tour de France for the Alps climbs since it’s not a PED. It has also been used at US embassies in South America given the altitude of some consulates for dignitaries who need to acclimatize. Just a thought, keep on doing what you do, great photography!!
“Not performance enhancing…” — the makers would beg to differ .