Colorado 2016

[Desert Rat 1]

We finally were able to realize our dream jeep trip to the San Juan Mountains and the Rio Grande headwaters. The plan was to run some of the trails in the San Juans for the first three days and then run to Stony Pass, find the Rio Grande headwaters , collect water from it and follow the Rio Grande all the way down to New Mexico to where it meets Texas and Mexico and forms the border between the U.S. and Mexico, where it's known as Rio Bravo. This report will cover only our three days in the Silverton-Ouray area, where we were able to do some very nice trails and passes.

On our way to Silverton




We wanted to camp somewhere along south mineral creek but it was full, so we decided to keep going to Bandora mine where we found a nice spot.

 

[Desert Rat 1]

Next morning we woke up to a beautiful mountain view. After breakfast, we went to town to look around and on our way back we saw a nice spot had clear, closer to the creek; so we went back, broke camp and went to our new camping spot.

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[Mykh]

Wow, amazing scenery and great ability to capture that via photos!

Sounds like an awesome route

 

[Desert Rat 1]

-Thanks Mykh!-

The following day we continued with our adventure on the San Juan Mountains and went to some high mountain passes and lakes well above the tree line, around an altitude of 11,000 ft., after that it was all alpine tundra with beautiful flowering plants and grass at the beginning then changed to rocks and snow banks on the north facing slopes.


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[91AzXJ]

Thanks for sharing, looks like it was a lot of fun. Durango-Silverton is one of my favorite places in the U.S.!

 

[Desert Rat 1]

More...We had seen tons of pictures of these places, but being there is something else; the scenery up there is so amazing words can't describe it and pictures don't do it justice!
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[Desert Rat 1]

A video of Bandora Mine and south mineral creek.


[video]https://youtu.be/EIPypIZZOWU[/video]

 

[Desert Rat 1]

More pictures...

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[Desert Rat 1]

And more...

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[WKexpedition]

Amazing photos! Looks like a great trip. How difficult would you say these trails are? From your photos they look pretty flat with maybe just some narrow portions. Any major technical parts?

 

[Desert Rat 1]

They are pretty easy, even though the photos don't actually show some of the more difficult parts, any stock 4x4 can do them. Time and weather prevented us from doing some of the harder trails, but God allowing we'll come back next year to do those exclusively.

 

[smlobx]

Fantastic panoramas!
Thanks for posting.

 

[Desert Rat 1]

Yankee Boy Basin

This was our second day, but some how I messed up and posted our third day first. We went to Ouray driving the Million Dollar Highway...million dollar views!...
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[Wilbah]

Love this area and great capturing it's beauty. Though as you say pictures never fully do it justice. Everyone needs to see it to appreciate it.

WKexpedition I'm not sure about the Ouray sections he did but I did Hurricane and California passes in a stock Yukon with no problems. I think I did it around the same time of year as the road above Lake Como had the same huge snowbank, although I did the loop in the reverse direction from what is reflected here. Just an absolutely amazing area.

 

[Rut Ro]

What amazing views. Thanks for sharing. Looking to get down there sometime next year.