July Trip - Summer Escape from Tucson to the San Juans

[hobietony]

Well, I've had a build thread on my 4wd ambulance project going for a few years, here - http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/63380-AmboVan-Restarted - but I figure it is time to post a bit of me using it.
-
July in Tucson kinda sucks, and it is a great time to head north to someplace cooler, left Friday, July 4th, got back Sunday July 13 - 9 nights, 10 days on (and off) the road. It went a little like this...
-
DAY 1 - Tucson to the Mogollon Rim, past Roosevelt Lake and up through Young
-
Pretty sure this is 'parker creek' on the map, forest road 488 - pretty cool canyon, vertical walls, not surprised to find a climbing bolted anchor at the top of one of them.
Looking towards Roosevelt Lake

Looking up towards the Rim

Careful of the edge!

-
Camped on the rim toward Heber, in a re-growth area, burned a while back.

-
DAY 2 - Mogollon Rim to Cortez, CO - Via Pertified Forest and Canyon de Chelly
-
Petrified Forest was a bit stark, cool to read about how the logs got there, and it probably should have been expected that the petrified forest area was protected in the early 1900s as a response to the full-scale removal of the biggest deposits of petrified wood - Story of America, I suppose
-
This valley was full of logs in the 1800s

Keep hustling north...
-
Took the driving tour of lookouts on the South Rim of Canyon de Chelly, and took the hike down to the White House Ruins (I believe). Would like to take an extended tour of the canyon bottom sometime, but no time this trip

-
Spider Rock, pretty sure

-
Hike down to the ruins. This is the only one that we were allowed to go on without a guide - lots to see here, next time.

-
Pressing on, looking to get into Colorado by the end of the day. Made it to the Ute Indian town of Towawoc, south of Cortez (and, of course, the associated casino). Pressed up into the hills above town, got camp set up just a night was falling. Bonus was a view of the Saturday night fireworks show put on by the Casino, it went on longer than any municipal firework show I've ever seen!

-
Creative leveling, beer helped.

 

[hobietony]

DAY 3 - Cortez to Durango. Easy day, watched the train in Durango, walked around downtown, got some groceries, did town stuff.

We needed to find a camp spot close to town, we were meeting some friends from town the next morning, so we wanted to be a bit efficient with where we set up camp. A local suggested Missionary Ridge, we found a great spot a 'few' switchbacks up, and at what the map sez is Wallace Lake - More of a potential lake than an actual one, very cool.

Looking down into the valley

Just sitting around

Went for a good bike ride on the ridgeline that surrounded the lake - Find the truck!

This picture was a bit after I ripped of my derailleur, luckily it was all downhill to the truck, great ride anyway

Set up the Solar Shower, Lani got a great shower, I was doing pretty good until the monsoon/hailstorm hit while I was trying to get the soap out of my personal regions - Good times!
-
DAY 4 - Durango to Silverton. Met with our friends John and Julie from Tonto Trails - http://www.tontotrails.com/ - Met them at Expo, awesome couple, living the dream with a fleet of rental expo vehicles, including sportmobiles. We had planned on a bike ride on Engineer Trail, but I needed to get to the bike shop first - bike shop opened at 9, bought it and installed it in the parking lot, and still made our meeting time at 10. My wife Lani took the dogs, John, Julie and I shuttled to the upper trailhead - I'm not proud, I'll take a shuttle over a long road ride anytime.
-
Dogs and Flowers

Ozzie Dog, the Tonto Trails mascot

Columbine

Mud bog

-
Back to the van early afternoon, hit the road to get to Silverton. Coal Bank and Molas passes, into Silverton, and pressing on to get to a camp spot in the high country. On Johns recommendation, we hit Stony pass first, a bit less travelled, and it was still near July 4th weekend - I had no idea how busy Silverton is in the summertime - Jeeps and Razrs and ATVs, oh my!
-
Real Mountains

High country streams and flowers

Getting Higher

Made it

Maybe a mile down from the pass summit, found an awesome camp spot, near the entrance to an old mine shaft - although everything in the San Juans is near an old mine shaft

Family shot

Flowers and a dog

To be continued...

 

[roverrocks]

Nice trip. Nice vehicle. Looking forward to more.

 

[heehawhardy]

What an excellent trip, I can't wait to be able to head that way for a week or so

 

[agavelvr]

Nice report. I spotted your rig at Animas Forks

 

[beerhiker]

More! Saw you on Hwy 50 outside Cimarron in the construction zone on the 10th.

 

[mph]

great trip....great photos! Was there in June. Awesome country!

Your rig looks sweet and capable!

 

[hobietony]

DAY 5 - Silverton to almost Engineer Pass
-
In the morning, we went for a short hike, then headed back down Stony to Silverton to do some laundry and buy a shower at one of the RV parks, and decide where we were going next. Tranny felt a bit wonky on the way down, and I'm sure this is the biggest thing I would want to drive on this road - Pretty sure my heart rate was a bit above normal.

-
Got to town, got our cloths and ourselves clean, and had a rum drink at Montanya's while the monsoons built up. Decided to push towards Lake City via either Engineer or Cinnamon passes, and see how far we got that day. Took off from town, tranny still felt funny, a lot of 'lash' in the torque converter, kinda. Rains rolled in too. We pressed on through Eureka towards Animas Forks, and had a talk with a Ranger patrolling in a little RZR side-by-side. He expressed some concerns about the off-camber-ness of the crux switchbacks on both Engineer and Cinnamon, and didn't seem impressed by the fact that I had been over Stony the day before. We continued towards Engineer, where I was definitely the largest and slowest vehicle out there. Even though it was a Tuesday and the holiday weekend was over, there were still a load of jeeps and RZRs and ATVs, and all of them were travelling faster than me. Much of this part of the trip was about leapfrogging to wide enough spots in the road to allow other vehicles past.
-
We got to the last fork before the road up Engineer itself starts, and had a moment of reflection on the conditions around us - Mid-afternoon, recent rainfall, active monsoon patterns in the whole area, transmission that still didn't quite feel right, and a Ranger who is worried about us flopping over. Do we really want to set out on the highest exposure part of the route right now? Maybe we look for a place to camp instead? Good idea.
-
The road up Engineer is in the background in the first pic

Noble Dog

-

To be continued

 

[RYOUNG]

We spoke to you on Tuesday near Engineer Pass. We were in the Black LJ hope you made it to the top OK. Our whole group thought your rig was Awesome.

 

[hobietony]

DAY 6 - Lets call it a tactical retreat back to Silverton.
-
Camp was at the base of what the map sez is Denver Hill, near a small lake, a bit off the main road. Took some pics from camp, and set off on a good hike up what the map labels as Denver Pass.

Partway up to the saddle

Cirque above Horseshoe Lake (I think - the map calls the creek out of the lake Horseshoe Creek...)

At the saddle. Those logs we are sitting on are poles that appear to have supported phone/power/telegraph/whatever wires going up and over the other side, to Hurricane Basin. Looks like there is still an active mine site there too.

A few panos from the Iphone

Hurricane Basin

Back at the Lake, still had a few icebergs floating - Dogs swam anyway

Suck in that Gut!

Mining remains on the way down

Tough hike

 

[hobietony]

Day 6 continued
-
So, a retreat back towards Silverton. Figured we would head to Animas, and talk to some folks about California/Hurricane passes on the way back to Silverton, so we didn't fully slink back with our tail between out legs. Found the same Ranger as the day before, he said if we could get past the first switchback on California pass, we should be home free. We gave it a whirl...
-
Animas

California Pass

The only shot of Hurricane, I was running for the barn at this point

Down from Hurricane

Parking lot of Silverton Ski Area

Decided we really needed someone to feed us that afternoon, went straight to Grumpy's at the Grand for a big fat burger and some Ska IPAs. Went back up past the ski area for a camp spot, for those familiar with the area we set up right between Waterfall and Mandatory Air, looking straight up 2 Smokes

More to Come...

 

[hobietony]

We spoke to you on Tuesday near Engineer Pass. We were in the Black LJ hope you made it to the top OK. Our whole group thought your rig was Awesome.

View attachment 236162

Funny, this was just about where I had my moment of reconsideration. I remember your caravan as well

 

[PetitFrereArmada]

Great pics!!!

 

[hobietony]

That camp site on the backside of Silverton was pretty perfect, we had pretty well relaxed into the upcoming evening, when our dog came back covered in fully ground-in human feces. Why do they do that? More good times! Off to the stream for a very cold bath, once we got over our initial horror. Buzzkill.
-
DAY 7 - Silverton to Lake City
-
Via pavement, unfortunately. Red Mountain Pass, stopped in Ouray to spend a couple hours in the public hot springs, and take a real shower. Right at Montrose, Hwy 50, took the Lake City Cutoff road to 149, north to Lake City. Great town, good vibe from everyone we talked to. Got a couple grocery items at the general store, and got a suggestion from one of the employees/guides at the great outdoor store who's name I don't remember, and went to find a camp off of Nellie Creek road.
-
Looking through my pictures, it is clear that we used out usual picture taking strategy - Long periods of forgetting that we even have a camera, interspersed with lots of pictures of the same thing.
-
Red Mountain Pass

Camping on Nellie Creek

-
Day 8 - Lake City to Durango
Hiking/biking up the road from camp, it looked like this for a while. steady climb on the bike, and whoo-whee, what a fun run back to the truck.

Waterfalls

Camp

-
Pictures start to get a bit more sporadic now, we are starting to realize that at 55 MPH, (and way slower on the passes) we have a lot of driving if we want to get home by Sunday. Longer periods now between when we remember we have a camera. Break camp and hit the road - 149 through Creed to South Fork, 160 over Wolf Creek Pass, through Pagosa Springs, through Durango, and find a spot to camp just before we drop out of mountains before Mancos.
-
I think these mine pics are of the Ute Ulay Mine, east of Nellie Creek, and before we hit pavement getting away from camp and towards Lake City

Driving is tiring

And, last picture until we stopped for the day.
-
Found a spot off of Forest Road 316, on the slopes of Madden Peak

Another area of fairly recent burn activity, lots of dense shrubby little aspens

No real bike rides or big hikes from here, we chilled around camp that evening, slept early, and high tailed it out of there first thing in the morning to get back on the road
-
DAY 9 - Durango/Mancos to Hannagan's Meadow, south of Alpine, AZ, Cortez>Shiprock>Gallup>Cross the Zuni Reservation to Hwy 191 north of St Johns>Alpine>Hannagan's Meadow. Put on a Joe Nesbo murder mystery book-on-tape, went on auto-pilot across the Rez, and didn't take a single picture until we set up camp in Hannagan's meadow. Sorry, I wasn't considering my internet friends on this leg of the trip.
-
Bad fires in this area a few years back, lots of evil Locust trees now with spikes to rival cactus thorns.
-
A little brushy getting to our camp spot

-
Creative leveling

-
No sweeping , expansive views from this camp site, just a wide enough swath through the regrowth to drive on, and maybe chuck a ball to keep the dogs happy

-
Once again, early to bed, early to rise, we have to drop out of the cool country for the last time tomorrow, and make the last leg back to Tucson

 

[hobietony]

DAY 10 - Hannagan's meadow to Tucson. The section of 191 from Alpine to Morenci is one of the most consistently curviest pieces of hiway I've been on, it would be super awesome on a motorcycle, or in a Miata with the top down
-
191 south through Morenci/Clifton, east through Safford, keep dropping down 191 to I-10, interstate back into Tucson, pull into the driveway maybe 1pm, where is, refreshingly, only a few degrees above 100. You think I was a slacker on pictures yesterday? This was the only picture taken on this leg, looking south from a viewpoint to the mines at Morenci.

-
And that it! Great trip, thanks for following along...