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Comet Watching from Bolam Pass

The Headwaters of the Dolores River & Colorado Trail Segment 26
Saturday & Sunday, July 18-19, 2020

This weekend Diane and I headed into the San Juan Mountains to escape the heat of the Grand Valley and spend a relaxing weekend along the Colorado Trail near Bolam Pass. It has been over ten years since the last time I drove over Bolam Pass and I was looking forward to getting back into the area for a little camping and hiking. Plus, with the New Moon this weekend I was hoping for dark skies so I could finally see Comet NEOWISE which has been visible in the sky for the past couple weeks now, but I had been unable to see so far.

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Blaine Basin

Saturday & Sunday, July 9-10, 2016

Since Diane and I won’t be able to get back into the outdoors for the rest of the month I wanted to do a quick and easy overnight backpacking trip in the mountains this weekend. I was looking for something close to home that wouldn’t be crowded and thought that Blaine Basin in the Sneffels Range of the San Juan Mountains would be a good option. We left home later than usual on Saturday morning and arrived at the Blue Lakes Trailhead around 11am. I was blown away by how many vehicles were at the trailhead! It was crazy! There were cars lined up and down the road pulled over any place they could find to park. At this point I was second guessing the trip because I wasn’t convinced that all of these people were headed to the Blue Lakes?

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Blue Lakes in the Mount Sneffels Wilderness

Saturday & Sunday, August 2-3, 2014

This weekend Diane and I spent a nice relaxing overnight backpacking trip at the Blue Lakes in the Mount Sneffels Wilderness. I have wanted to hike up to the Blue Lakes for many years and am glad I was finally able to get up that way. The scenery was beautiful and the weather was nice all weekend, too. While it looked like we might receive some of the typical afternoon storms on Saturday, they managed to miss us and we never saw a drop of rain all weekend. There seemed to be quite a few bugs out this time of the year, especially near the large patches of wildflowers we came across, but we managed to keep the mosquitoes away with some DEET bug spray that seemed to work well. While there were a bunch of people camped on the northwest side of the lower lake when we arrived, we crossed the outlet creek and found a nice campsite on the northeast side where no one was camped. Only one other person ended up setting up camp on this side of the lake, so it was nice and quiet.

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Bear Creek & Bridge of Heaven

Saturday & Sunday, July 26-27, 2014

After staying up late on Friday night to catch a concert in Grand Junction, we slept in a little later on Saturday morning before driving down to Ouray to get some hiking in for the weekend. The plan was to hike two trails that have been on my list for a number of years. I have planned to hike both of these trails on previous occasions, but something has always come up and prevented me from doing so. We started out by hiking the Bear Creek Trail just outside of Ouray along the Million Dollar Highway. I did manage to hike a short section of this trail a few years back, but was short on time and didn’t get very far. This time we were planning on hiking to the Grizzly Bear Mine and back since we started later in the morning and knew the afternoon storms would be moving in soon.

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Silverton Wildflowers

Friday – Sunday, July 18-20, 2014

Diane and I decided to spend a relaxing weekend in the San Juan Mountains around Silverton camping, hiking, peak-bagging, driving high mountain passes and looking for wildflowers. We left after work on Friday and headed over Red Mountain Pass to the South Fork of Mineral Creek to look for a campsite. This used to be my go-to camping area near Silverton, but I couldn’t believe how many people were camped along here this weekend. It was ridiculous! As we were driving back out to find somewhere else to camp, Diane spotted a nice secluded campsite along the creek that no one was at, so we setup camp there since it was getting late. We didn’t have time to get anywhere else for sunset, so I just took a few photos over the South Fork of Mineral Creek behind out camp as the sun went down for the day.

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Tag: cow parsnip

Comet Watching from Bolam Pass

Blaine Basin

Blue Lakes in the Mount Sneffels Wilderness

Bear Creek & Bridge of Heaven

Silverton Wildflowers