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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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Ouray Perimeter Trail

Saturday, June 18, 2016

After spending last Sunday hiking just outside of Ouray, Diane and I decided to head back again today for another hike near town. I’ve wanted to hike the Ouray Perimeter Trail for a while and though that this would be a good weekend to do it. While I’ve hiked bits and pieces of the loop before, since it connects up with other shorter trails in the area, I wanted to complete the entire loop in one shot. When doing a little research on the hike, I found out that they may have recently extended the trail to include part of the Twin Peaks trail that I had hiked last year. I couldn’t find any information about this new section online, so I was looking forward to checking it out.

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Sutton Mine Trail

Sunday, June 12, 2016

June is that time of year when the desert starts getting too hot for me and I start looking towards the mountains. After hiking Professor Creek on Saturday, I thought it would be nice to drive down to Ouray on Sunday for my first mountain hike of the season. Diane had school work to get done on Sunday so I would be on my own this time. I decided to start with an easier hike and chose the Sutton Mine Trail which is just outside of town and only about 4.5 miles round trip with about 1,500 feet of elevation gain. While this trail is called the Sutton Mine Trail, the main trail does not actually climb up to the Sutton Mine and instead ends at the Neosho Mine. If you’ve ever driven over Red Mountain Pass between Ouray and Silverton, you might have noticed a building with an ‘Antiques’ sign on it near the Bear Creek bridge. That is the final destination of this trail and is part of the Neosho Mine.

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Ouray Ice Festival 2016

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Even though we didn’t make it to the Ouray Ice Festival last year or yesterday, we did finally get back there this morning. We left home shortly before sunrise and arrived at the Ice Park just in time to catch the start of the Speed Competition. It was snowing pretty good when the competition first started, but the snow eventually stopped and the sun even made a few appearances throughout the morning.

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Red Mountain Colors

Fall Colors 2015 | Saturday, September 26, 2015

As usual, I spent the last weekend in September on my annual fall colors trip to photograph the changing of the seasons in the high country of Colorado. Instead of going away for the whole weekend, this time I just headed out on a day trip to the San Juan Mountains. From reports I had seen online, plus my trip last weekend, it appeared that the Red Mountain Pass area was changing colors nicely at this time, so that’s where I decided to go. Unfortunately, Diane wasn’t feeling well this weekend, so she ended up staying home today.

Tag: ouray

Blaine Basin

Ouray Perimeter Trail

Sutton Mine Trail

Ouray Ice Festival 2016

Red Mountain Colors