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Tag: stony pass

Beating the Heat in the San Juan Mountains

Saturday & Sunday, June 23-24, 2012

After spending a few hours in the morning at the Shavano Valley Petroglyph Park near Montrose, we continued driving into the San Juan Mountains to get out of the heat for the weekend. Shortly after crossing over Red Mountain Pass we turned down the road along the South Fork of Mineral Creek and found a campsite for the weekend. After setting up our camp we drove through Silverton and made our way up Cunningham Gulch to the trailhead for the Highland Mary Lakes. As soon as we passed through Silverton the valley started filling up with smoke, and by the time we reached the Cunningham Trailhead the smoke had become pretty thick and there was even a little ash falling from the sky. We would later learn this smoke was from a wildfire that had started near Mancos.

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June San Juan’s Day Trip

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.

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