Early morning greeted us with the lowing of the cows in a nearby field, the same ones that had left their "pie presents" behind prior to our arrival to camp. As we made breakfast that morning a few of them decided to visit our camp, and while they were big, Bow, Jeff's Australian Shepherd and Luna, my German Shepherd were quick to lead them out of the area with barking and textbook natural instinct. We kept them leashed so they wouldn't end up with black eyes, so I wasn't able to get video, but it was a very cool sight to see them work together instinctively. Melody and I were the first to break camp so we could get a head start on the views and photo ops, and of course that always pays off.
The patch of Aspens was where we camped. The mountain in the distance with little to no trees on it is Mount Crested Butte (the backside of the ski area)
It didn't take long until we found the cows we chased off. Apparently they are use to vehicles traveling the road, they didn't budge an inch.
Took this photo of the line up of vehicles as we stopped for a quick fuel pump swap on the blue Scout
As we ascended the trail and headed toward the 12k plus Pearl Pass, the terrain became chunky, with sharp shale type rocks, though none of our vehicles had a hard time with this section, higher clearance would be required later up the hill
We were of course greeted by several of the locals
Mike and I took our vehicles to the end of the road just before the glacier and took this epic photo
I hiked out to the point where the glacier was and found these two massive locals, bedded down in the shrubs
At this point, we all grabbed lunch, which I have to say was the highest meal, I've had (besides a plane), at 12,500'. We finished up lunch and a couple of us decided to go scout out for the woman's belongings as Jon had found her shoes (remember the couple that hiked for 6 hours the night before?). So her story totally checked out, we even found slide marks on the glacier where you could see her path of fall. Wow!! Anyway, we recovered nothing, because the belongings were unreachable. We packed up our lunch camp and headed back down the way we came.
We decided to head back to Crested Butte to fill up and then head South and around the reservoir to the area just North of the small town of Tincup Colorado. As others debated on airing back up for the 30 plus miles of anticipated tarmac, Melody and I decided we would break away from the group for a hot meal at "The Last Steep" a great little bar and grill in the town of Crested Butte. The half pound burger and fries hit the spot and we were able to catch back up to the group on the tarmac. A turn off on to dirt, pointed us toward the camp for the night, which turned out to be cow pie free and filled with open space and epic Big Mountain views!!!
After setting up camp and starting dinners, Mike Kern, found some small pieces to start a fire with
Temps that night were cool, I would guess mid 40's, but that would be appropriate considering our elevation of 9995' (according to the Garmin). That night we decided to make this our base camp for the next two nights. The next morning we finished breakfast and then gathered to watch as Jon welded his rear control arms, which had twisted and cracked the day before, no doubt because of the power from the port fuel injected LS motor he has in the red Scout. Proof is in the photos!!
What's wrong with this picture?????
See Jon normally uses a self darkening set up at home!!! This is better
By this time, it was nearly time for lunch, so we all headed in to the town of Tincup for a bite to eat. We would then continue up to Tincup Pass and the Continental Divide.
Love this sign as you enter the town
And the Town Hall was awesome!!!
After eating lunch at Frenchy's in town, one of 28 of the original saloons, and the only one still standing, we headed to the pass.
Jon's welding patchwork seemed to be holding up as we climbed the hill
This was a highlight for sure
Just down the hill from that picture there was a stock FJ Cruiser (new model) that had broken a tie rod). We offered to help briefly, he said that he had help on the way and a lady approached on a quad advising there were 4 bull moose in a field about a half mile toward St. Elmo, so we booked it and what do you know we found them. This may have been the pinnacle for me, as at 36 years of age, I still had never seen a moose. I must have taken 50 something shots of these big guys, but here are the best ones.
After the moose laid down, we didn't really have much else to see, so we moved on to St. Elmo. It was a cool little town, with lots of history.
Main Street
The blue Scout in front of the Post Office
The kids in the group fed the local wildlife and then we headed back to our camp
To be continued....
