Alpine Loop

The Alpine Loop

Words can't really describe the beauty of nature that we saw this weekend and pictures can hardly do it justice either. The Alpine Loop: a labyrinth of trails connecting Ourey, Telluride, Lake City and several other mountain towns of Colorado. We had driven the highway through this area before and been taken back by how green and impressive these mountains are, but being able to take the dirt trails in, around and among them, climbing multiple times up to well above 12,000 feet and still feeling small compared to the surrounding mountains, was truly a humbling and exhilarating experience! Anyone who wants to get a view of heaven, climb on up!
















All in all we counted 84 Marmots!! They were our entertainment! Jadeyn got a special treat when a "dumb" one walked right up to the RZR and Jadeyn got to squirt him with a spray bottle!!



We did 300 miles of trail in 4 days and certainly saw the country!! Five peaks well over 12,000 feet!




















Rain, hail, sunshine, slick rock, loose shale,wildflowers, mud, marmots...who could ask for a better time!?!

Jadeyn was our little trooper as always in the back of the RZR. Almost every truck, 4-wheeler and fellow RZR we passed got a chuckle out of him in his car seat and helmet! One time he was completely asleep going over the bumps for over an hour and the first words out of his mouth when he woke up was "These sure are beautiful mountains mom!" The first words after his next nap were "Mom, I think we're gunna have some rain!" And sure enough, that was the day it hailed on us!!

Being above 12,000 feet, the weather can change in an instant. Light drizzle, heavy rain, hail (yes...hail!) saturated us a few times, but we didn't let it bother us! We donned our rain gear, kept driving and marveled that in the rain, this place can get even more beautiful!!



In the video he is doing his best to describe what happened to all the broken down houses!
Translation: So many dead ends. Dig them shovel in underneath and drop them in. See that house? That's a boat, might be boat, not a house. Ah, this a nice building. Oh my cow! This is a mess!! Mess, mess, mess. All tore up. Whoa, whoa, boom, boom, boom. That house fall all apart."

The history being all the mining towns we went through was fascinating! We began at Animas Forks established in 1873, followed by Eureka, which came into play around 1896, then finally Howardsville and Silverton. Each town had its mining boom and then was dissembled and moved further down the river and each time the technology improved. It was interesting to see the progression. We happened to be there on the one day of the year when they were doing mining historical tours and got to listen to historians describe each town in detail including Lake Emma draining. A rich gold vein was being dug near the Sunnyside Mine and was halted when the engineers announced that they were too close to the bottom of the lake. That very weekend the lake broke through and flooded the entire valley. The lake never recovered.

Jadeyn is contemplating an outhouse in this picture.

At the top of Hurricane Pass/Corkscrew Gulch, Kevin climbed up to the very highest point and took this spectacular 360 video of the surrounding mountains. We only wish that we had caught it on a blue day!




Poughkeepsie Gulch challenged us with an amazing tough stretch of rock! We arrived at "The Wall" and joined six Jeeps all surveying the line of the rock to chose the best way up. It was steep with rock shelves a few feet high! There was even a winch point to help you get your vehicle up if necessary!! I'd never seen that before on a trail! It was quite fun though talking with the other off-roaders and pretty much joining them for lunch at the base of the Wall.
Then it was our turn! Jadeyn and I got out and watched Kevin brave the rocks! I don't mean to downplay the difficulty of it, but the RZR made it up easy: piece of cake!! The Jeeps that followed had to gun it a bit and do a "Moab Bounce." At the top of this trail was the amazing turquoise Lake Como.
















Here is our little ham playing it up with a giant trout! And here he is "shooting fish in a barrel!" He actually dropped berries in the water and was doing target practice!



This has to be my favorite picture!!!! The poor grasshopper!!!! Sadly our little friend only lived for about 20 more minutes before being buried, legless, under a pile of rocks!!
Jadeyn also decided that he was going to have a lot of cousins come visit and cooked them all "steak-rocks." He cooked them well-done!

Red Feather Lakes

Our third camping weekend in a row! We sure love summer. We went north this time to the Red Feather Lakes Area and camped off of Dead Man's Road. Once again, it was beautiful country, but not as breathtaking as the past trips this summer.


It is so incredibly tough to get a "perfect picture" of our boy. I mean, I'm not looking for perfection, but I would appreciate a smile in the general vicinity of the camera lens once in awhile. So here are eight pictures I took trying to get a good one! Nice!


We did a bit of fishing at Chambers which brought back some fun memories of camping there when Jadeyn was just three months old! But we had more fun fishing in the tiny streams and catching beautifuly colorful Brookies. Their color is so intense. Oh and we had a little visitor. A brave chipmunk stalked Jadeyn for a handout and Jadeyn was pretty ecstatic to feed him!



















Not as much mud as Coffee Pot Road a few weeks ago, but there were a few fun areas and then a few areas we didn't want to attempt!

There has been so much moisture this year that everywhere we have camped has felt like Oregon: thick undergrowth, ferns and mushrooms mushrooms mushrooms! Its kinda weird since I can't stand the taste of any mushroom, but they are really quite pretty and I took a few too many pictures of them!

The only bummer part of the trip is that Jadeyn got sick. On his last day at daycare one of the other boys had a really bad cold, and Jadeyn got it. By the second day he was coughing prety good, runny nose and fever. So, we figured since we got out a day early (Thursday) that we would cut our trip short and come home on Saturday and hopefully Jadeyn would sleep a little better.

So on our way home we stopped at 7 Mile Trail south of Red Feather. Third time is the charm; we had been on this trail twice before and both times were stopped by snow. It was a heck of a lot more extensive than we had ever guessed and had a lot more variety: Deep ruts, huge rocks, soft hilly areas, creek crossings. It was a lot of fun!