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Tag: treasure mountain

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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West Maroon Pass & Geneva Lake

Saturday & Sunday, August 9-10, 2014

Since Diane and I have been spending a lot of time this summer hiking in the San Juan Mountains I figured it was time to get in a weekend of hiking in the Elk Mountains, before it was too late. We left home bright and early on Saturday morning and drove around the Grand Mesa to Marble where we followed the Crystal River past the Crystal Mill and Devil’s Punchbowl towards Schofield Pass. Diane was not a fan of this narrow and rough road, especially when we drove over the sections of large moving rocks. We stopped at the trailhead in Schofield Park so we could start our hike up to West Maroon Pass. Unfortunately, driving over Schofield Pass took a little longer than I remembered, so we arrived later in the morning than I would normally like to start hiking during monsoon season in the mountains. Since we weren’t attempting to climb any peaks on this hike we decided to give it a shot and see what the weather would do. Some darker clouds moved into the sky early on during our hike and we got rained on a few times, but there were no thunderstorms nearby. While there were still plenty of flowers along it trail, it was obvious that wildflower season is definitely coming to and end as many of the flowers were wilted and dying. I bet this hike would have been an amazing sight a few weeks ago!

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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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