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Tag: red mountain #2

A Drive Around the San Juan’s

Labor Day Weekend | Sunday & Monday, August 31 – September 1, 2014

After our overnight backpacking trip into Wetterhorn Basin we decided to stick around the San Juan Mountains for one more day and drive a few of the high mountain passes and trails around Silverton. After lunch in Ouray, we drove over Red Mountain Pass and found a campsite up in Mineral Basin. While I was pretty sure we’d be able to find one of our usual campsites in this area open, I was surprised to find that there was no one else around considering it was Labor Day weekend. We had the area to ourselves for the night. We spent a few hours resting in camp before driving up to a few passes in the late afternoon to catch the sunset. The fast-moving clouds that had been around all day made for another spectacular sunset!

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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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Silverton & Ouray

Saturday, June 14, 2014

The desert has been heating up recently and I’ve been looking to start getting up into the mountains soon. The first reports of roads opening up in the San Juan Mountains have been coming in, so I decided to head up towards Silverton and Ouray to see just how fast the snow was melting this year so I could start planning some mountain hiking trips. Much of Colorado’s high country got a lot of snow this year, so trails and roads are opening up later than they typically would. There is still a lot of snow up in the mountains, but it appears to be melting fast.

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Red Mountain Fall Colors

Fall Colors 2013
Saturday, September 28, 2013

Getting out on the last weekend of September to check out the fall colors in Colorado is kind of a tradition of mine, and this year would be no different, even if the colors are a little behind this year. On Saturday, Kelly and I headed up to the San Juan Mountains between Ouray and Silverton for a day trip just to see how the colors were. We found the best color between Ouray and Red Mountain Pass with the best display around Ironton Park and Crystal Lake. Lucky for us, a recent storm had capped the surrounding mountains with fresh snow, too! We spent the morning hiking around Crystal Lake and taking plenty of photos.

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