Switzerland of the Rockies

Switzerland of the Rockies

August 7th - 12th 2012

Its amazing what can happen in a few days worth of camping.  Talk about a comedy of events! Just one of these events could have been "the story of the summer" for my in-laws...unfortunately, they all happened in two days!!!  Read on to hear the adventure!

This week we headed for one of my favorite places in the country.  Its beauty ranks right up there with Glacier Nat'l Park even.  It is called the Switzerland of the Rockies and it lives up to its name.  It is the area of Ouray, Telluride, Lake City and Silverton Colorado.  Sky scraping mountains cloaked in pure green vegetation and cascading waterfalls, crystal clear lakes and jagged red rock escaping the greenery.  It is breath taking.  We got to share the adventure with Kevin's older sister Melanie and family and Kevin's parent and youngest sister Jessica.  Even though we arrived mid week, we got the last two campsites at our chosen campground and were close enough to romp between sites and invade Grandma and Papa's brand new 5th wheel to escape the rain.

 
Yup, rain.  It is the monsoon season for this area and that usually means thunderstorms by mid-afternoon everyday.  Never fear!  On our first night we all climbed into the RZR and Melanie's mini-van and hit the nearest trail up to Clear Lake, about a 5 mile rocky trail.  Mark, Melanie's husband claims that is mini-van can go anywhere that a truck can, and you know what? He was right!!!  (Story later)  We left the mini-van about 1 mile from the destination and shuttled everyone up in the RZR.  Beautiful little lake that we really would have enjoyed fishing and playing for awhile, but the rain decided to start up on us.  Amid thunder and rain, we headed back down for dinner.

The next morning started out beautifully with only a few clouds in the sky.  Today was the day to ride the trails.  We trailered to Silverton to the staging area where we started our caravan up the trail towards Animas Forks.  The RZR, bravely driven by Nathan, Melanie's oldest and yes, he was grinning from ear to ear, then Mark's mini-van and then Papa's new truck protectively bringing up the rear in case Mark had any difficulty.  We first stopped at Eureka, the first abandoned mine site and checked out the history and old remains there.  There is a spectacular waterfall that we wanted to get a closer look at and decided to hike to.  Well, in a family of hikers, just seeing the waterfall from a distance isn't good enough.  We had to clamber over the rocks, criss-crossing the river a few times so we could get to the base of it!!  It was beautiful, and nobody fell in!!
 
Up the trail farther, we reached Animas Forks, where trails split off in all directions and you can reach all the surrounding towns by trail in about 45 minutes.  If you took the freeway you would have to go around and it would take about 2+ hours to reach them!  We took turns checking out all the old structures while the others hopped in the RZR to reach a few of the high passes at 12,000+ feet high.  We also passed the time rock hunting in the tailings near the mine.  Now that's a way to entertain the grandchildren, and I'll admit: me too!  We smashed rocks looking for the sparkling gold, silver, and some kind of blue crystal!
Jadeyn was so adorable going through the ruins.  Since he had been there before, he assumed the role of tour guide and proceeded to tell all his cousins about each house and especially what the hole in the small rooms were for!
 
Well, the good weather didn't hold out on us and by mid-afternoon, we decided to head back due to rain.  Here is where the events began to happen!  On our way back on the trail all three vehicles made our way down.  The RZR sped ahead to splash through a few river crossing over and over.  We joined behind Papa's truck just before we had to pull to the side of the trail to allow a porta-potty truck to pass by.  We started on the trail again, when Papa's waived us over.  He said he was registering low on two tires.  That's when we saw it:  who ever heard of double flat tires on a brand new truck!! We couldn't believe it!!  What are the odds, and what did he it in order to cause that!!!?!?!?!  The back one was completely flat and the front one was well on its way with air still hissing out.
 
 The rain is pouring down and all 13 of us were pretty much stranded scratching or heads to figure out what to do.  Suddenly, the men sprang into action, hoisted up the truck with the jack, removed one tire, chucked it in the van and sped off.  The plan? Its 4pm, they have 60 min to make it into one of the towns and find a tire shop before they close at 5pm!!  Me, Kevin, Mark, Nathan stayed behind with Grandma and Jessica in the truck.  We had some time to kill, so we hiked back and tried to figure out what blew the tires.  We talked to a passing forest ranger who said we were the third double flat in two days because they had just grated the roads and it kicks up new sharper rocks!
We killed time until is RZR with two really nice people from California pulled up.  RZR people are always so willing to help.  The gentleman hopped out and offered to help and suggested one thing that we hadn't thought of: plugs.  He pulled out his compressor and they started to fill the tire and discovered that there was only a single hole, put Kevin's RZR plug in it and crossed our fingers.  By now it was really pouring and we were soaked!!!!  Papa hadn't made it back with news on the tire, so we headed back up the trail hoping to catch them before they made it back.  They were waiting for us in Eureka with news of an un-fixable tire with 1.5 inch gash! But we had a functional vehicle and it didn't get abandoned on the trail!  Whew!  The funniest part of the story is that we had all been so concerned about the mini-van on the trail and its tires, we never suspected the two month old F-150!  Back to camp for dinner and to dry out!

Friday morning while Papa and Grandma went to town to fix their tires, the rest of us headed to Ice Lake, a 7.5 mile hike.  Wow, what a trail.  2,000 foot elevation gain, almost every step of the way was uphill, but it was beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.  Melanie's family are all hikers, and with the motivation of having his cousins around, Jadeyn did awesome!!!We stopped a few times for a few snacks, and plodded away. Waterfalls rewarded us every half mile or so and one that we found at the bottom and stayed off the trail to get higher up to it, we discovered that several switchbacks later on the regular trail, we were at the top!!
 

The trail opened up to a beautiful expansive meadow, right then the thunder started.  We still felt pretty safe as we started climbing the rocks.  The lake ahead to be only about a quarter of a mile further up the rocks when KA-OOM!  The thunder started cracking way too close!!  Lightning followed too closely by the crash of thunder was so inspiring and frightening!!!  Needless to say, we all decided that the hike all by itself was reward enough, and we shouldn't risk lives for the lake.  It was a good decision as the hail started and we clambered to get our ran gear on.  We were soaked and slid/slopped back down the trail.  Jadeyn lead the way, humming with every step!!

 
Ready for the next event?  We were all pretty wet, and exhausted so the kids all decided to change into warm clothes and hang out in the 5th wheel while their shoes dried out until the grandparents got home.  Jessica opened the door of the trailer to be shocked by a crazed chipmunk frantically trying to get out!!  Grandma had propped open the vents on the roof to "air things out" and a chipmunk crawled inside and chewed up several of the screens to try and get out and even chewed up the temporary permit hanging in the window (the trailer is only a few weeks old!).  Thankfully, there wasn't any other damage, and Grandma and Papa took the news a lot better than we thought they would when they got home with their 4 new tires!  Crazy!!

We all enjoyed a delicous meal by Grandma and Papa and the adults enjoyed chatting by the fire while the kids played games in the camper.  We took turns taking the RZR out on a few trails to look for animals.  Oh, here's a few other funnies: Brendan's shoes got so soaked the first day that he burnt a hole in them drying them by the fire.  On the hike we couldn't figure out what was stuck to his shoe until we realized it was his muddy sock that had busted through the melted hole!!  Grandma's camper broom somehow exploded, and she had an ember land on her and burn a hole in her new pants too!

What a trip!!!!  Saturday we all dried out an packed up to go home.  It was so much fun to get together and let Jadeyn romp with his cousins who he adores so much!  On our way down the mountain, we couldn't pass up three more trails that we have been itching to do.  Governor Basin, Imogen Pass, and Yankee Boy Basin all off of Camp Bird Rd.  Once again through the mos beautiful country we romped and marveled at the green, and the cliffs, and the blue skies!  Spectacular.
 
We added something to our bucket list!  We got to the trail-head for Mt Sneffles and decided that it would be our first 14er in a few years when Jadeyn is able to hike more!  At the peak of Imogen Pass and several of the other passes we summited 360 degrees of beauty surrounded us.  There are not any words to fully describe just how amazing it is!

 We ended our trip by staying the night at a hotel in Gunnison and hitting the hot tub and pool!!  Nice!