So my siblings came out to visit for the first time since I moved here two years ago. As part of their introduction we took a trip around Colorado. The itinerary was to head down to Southwest Colorado to Silverton/Ouray, then up to Crested Butte, camp a night in Granby, then head up over Trail Ridge Road and back home. 5 days and a little over 900 miles.
Here are a couple of pictures from our travels.
One direction of our views from Molas Lake Campground outside of Silverton, CO.
20150613-DSC_0091 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
Turning 180 degrees...
20150613-DSC_0070 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
Part of the goal of going down to Southwest Colorado was to try and do the Alpine Loop. The idea was to split the group up into two trips as the GF's Civic was in no way going to make that trip. We started off with a brief visit to the Animas Forks ghost town.
20150614-DSC_0142 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
As with most of the ghost towns, it has an interesting boom-bust history to it. We wandered around for a little bit taking pictures before airing down and getting ready to hit Engineer Pass. I don't have many pictures of the trail on the way up as I was driving, it is a pretty narrow shelf road, and the fact that it had just opened up a week ago made for slow going. I definitely felt the length of the DCLB going around a few of the switchbacks, but it was nothing a 3 point turn couldn't take care of. I am still impressed with how easily the Tacoma walks up the steep rocky sections.
We made it to the top of the pass before realizing that doing the entire Alpine Loop would take the better part of 8+ hours. As the rest of Engineer Pass is a 2wd road into Lake City, we decided to turn around and come back down the way we came up.
20150614-DSC_0153 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
Things got a little bit more interesting as we encountered traffic coming the other direction. The trail is simply not wide enough to fit two vehicles in most places, so when I ran into two other trucks I had the pleasure of backing down the shelf road, through healthy sized ruts and in the snow/ice, while the other guy was essentially on my front end. I found it quite rude actually.
The rest of the encounters along the way were nothing to mention. We made it back down in fairly short order and headed back into town. I fully intend to come back and do the entire loop at some point. I know we will be back in the Fall to check out the Aspens, so we'll see if the weather cooperates.
As with any trip, the more you get out, the more you learn about what works and what doesn't work. I keep a mental list of things to work on/improve and this is what I came up with from this trip:
- The weather was less than optimal the entire time we were out with scattered showers every day. I really need to get an awning to provide some sort of shelter in those instances.
- I also need to find a better solution for airing down. Whether it is the ARB quick deflator or a set of Stauns, I need to save myself the trouble of finding that perfect stone to depress the valve stem and save the 10+ minutes airing down.
- I happened to see the elegant way that Paul from Equipt integrated the Expedition One Geri can into his rear platform setup. I happened to stumble upon one while in Ouray and picked it up with the intentions of doing something similar. At the very least it provides a low profile, easy to pack additional 4 gallons of water capacity.
- Curtains are now on the list for the topper windows. Getting blasted in the face at 6am from the rising sun is a major buzzkill.
- I also need to research navigation setups. Although I was well prepared with the Funtreks guide book, a paper map, and a GPS unit, I need to consolidate that all into a good, single, easy to read package with a paper map backup.
Now to try and sneak in some time to work on the truck before the next camping trip. Hopefully the rainy season is now over so some of the house related items on the to-do list move down on priority from mission critical.