Trip Reports from the areas surrounding Ouray, Silverton, Telluride and Lake City in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado.
Darley Mountain & Dolly Varden Mountain
Friday – Saturday, September 8-9, 2017
This weekend I wanted to climb a peak or two in the mountains since it would probably be my last opportunity this summer before I would begin spending most of my free time back in the desert of the Colorado Plateau. However, since I’ve been doing a lot of driving lately I didn’t want to travel too far from home either. After a little thought I decided to head back down to the San Juan Mountains near Engineer Pass so I could climb Darley Mountain and Dolly Varden ...
Friday & Saturday, August 11-12, 2017
This weekend I headed down to the San Juan Mountains by myself to hike to the summit of a few mountains above the ghost town of Animas Forks near Mineral Point. I left after work on Friday afternoon and after a quick dinner in Montrose I drove over Red Mountain Pass to Silverton. From there I followed the Animas River to the base of Denver Hill (12,300) so I could go on a late evening hike to its summit. It was a short hike to the top, but it offered me some nice views ...
Saturday & Sunday, July 22-23, 2017
Next weekend Diane and I are scheduled to climb our first 14er of the year, so this weekend we decided to head down to the Continental Divide near Lake City so we could hike a couple of 13ers to help us prepare. The weather on Saturday was predicted to be wet and stormy early but Sunday morning was looking good, so we planned to hike the 13ers early Sunday and tried to find something a little lower and in the trees for Saturday.
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Saturday & Sunday, July 8-9, 2017
Diane and I spent the past weekend in the San Juan Mountains near Silverton getting in a little high elevation hiking. We left home early on Saturday morning and drove all the way to the end of the Bandora Mine Road in the South Fork of Mineral Creek and found a campsite shortly before arriving at the trailhead. We quickly setup camp and then started hiking up the Rico – Silverton Trail to it’s intersection with The Colorado Trail. There were a lot of wildflowers along the trail, especially in South Park along with ...
Sunday, October 2, 2016
I had set my alarm for 5:00am this morning, but when it went off I looked outside and didn’t see any clouds, so I went back to sleep since I was still pretty tired from the previous day. I ended up waking up again just after 6:00am and realized that I might have enough time to make it over to the Dallas Divide to catch the sunrise. I quickly got ready and was soon driving through Ridgway on my way to the divide. I reached the parking area just in time and found that it was ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
Saturday & Sunday, September 19-20, 2015
On my quest to hike and explore more of the Uncompahgre Wilderness I decided to climb a pair of thirteeners in The Cimarrons along the high ridge that towers between the West Fork and the Middle Fork of the Cimarron River. The peaks along this ridge are prominent landmarks on the horizon every time I drive south into the San Juan Mountains and it was time to finally get a closer look.
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Friday & Saturday, July 17-18, 2015
This weekend Diane had to stay home so I set out on my own into the San Juan Mountains to finally climb my first 14ers of the year. I planned to hike to the top of Redcloud Peak and Sunshine Peak bright and early on Saturday morning. I left work early on Friday and after stopping for a late lunch at Handlebars in Silverton, I continued up the Animas River to the top of Cinnamon Pass. I parked at the pass and took a short warm-up hike to the top of Cinnamon Mountain, an ...
