The Mining Towns of Colorado

After Crested Butte we visited a few of the more famous mining towns of Colorado.

Crested Butte was a great place to start. The town had a real mining town feel with few "upgraded" buildings.  Most of the commercial buildings had plaques indicating they were built between 1880 and 1890, and the residential buildings were almost all single story and 900 - 1000 square feet at most.

The residents add to the small town feel. The preferred mode of transportation is the bicycle,  kids play in the side streets (the yards are small and there are no sidewalks),  and hiking boots and shorts are the preferred dress.

But small was not = inexpensive. These small jewels, if you can find one for sale, go for 1.5 to 2 million dollars. But the entire town has been designated a historic district,  so I'm sure it's almost impossible to do any significant expansions or remodels.  The safety valve for the really big money with their MacMansions is the ski area a few miles north of town where you do see plenty of 5 bedroom, 5000 square foot ski homes.

From Crested Butte we headed south to Ouray,  making a short detour to Telluride for lunch.

(Yes, those are a few afternoon thundershower raindrops on the gondola window.)

Telluride is the perfect example of what happens when a mining town meets $$.  Although the main street has a couple blocks of pre-1900s buildings, the majority of the homes and businesses are of a more recent vintage, and on some side streets everything is two and three story condos with shops below.  Not much history here aside from the name.

A good example of the difference was our experience at the visitor centers. In Crested Butte it was manned by a 20 something who had her mountain bike parked at the door while in Telluride we thought we had walked into an art gallery and the hostess looked like she had just returned from a photo shoot for an Elle ad.

After our burger it was on to Ouray,  located at the north end of the Million Dollar Highway. The name comes from the millions of dollars of silver and gold taken out of the hills between Ouray and Silverton.

Ouray is much like Crested Butte. Almost all historic buildings, set at the end of a canyon that makes it almost impossible to add condos or upgrades easily. Plenty of tourism as it is on the only major road south to Durango, but a town that has real businesses and hardware stores.

We had 2 nice hikes out of Ouray.

The first was a climb up to a ridge 2000 feet above town, on a trail originally developed for the Alpine Mine. You can still see the remains of the operation.

The second day we walked to Ice Lakes, reportedly the most walked hike in Colorado. We did see a few people, had clear blue skies, and ended up at the most impressive azure blue lake we had ever seen. I suspect there are some minerals dissolved in the water that add to the color as it is unlike any of the ice melt lakes I have seen in walks in the Cascades or Canada.

The hike was 5 or 6 miles from Silverton,  so we visited our last mining town and had lunch before heading back to Ouray.  And were lucky enough to see the Durango to Silverton steam locomotive loading for it's afternoon trip back to Durango.

We have been so lucky with weather, there have been afternoon showers, but we did our hikes early and have managed to stayed dry.

For more pictures - https://photos.app.goo.gl/zaskJ3N94LzKXGZw6

Crested Butte - The BIG Day.

If I was forced to pick one place to live in the US, it would be a tough choice between Colorado and Northern California - Marin County just north of San Francisco.


We drove the scenic route between the Black Canyon and Crested Butte. The road needed a little work, but the extra time was definitely worth it. High peaks, aspen trees, and very few people.

The biggest challenge of our 2 day stay was picking where to  hike.  We had seen a high, open area that looked promising as we crossed Kebler Pass into crested Butte, and the next day drove back to the pass to do a walk up to Scarpa Ridge.

It is amazing how easy it is to get 360 degree views with only a 30 minute drive and a 2 mile walk. The wild flowers were just past their prime, but I'm sure we saw at least 3 dozen different blooms before we quit counting..

Day 2 in Crested Butte was The Day.  I was warned that I could only wish a Happy Birthday once (but I really did manage another 2 or 3).

We started the day with an early morning walk near town, and later in the day walked up to another ridge with views in all directions.

Then it was home for a quick shower and off to Soupcon, a small 5 or 6 table establishment that marries a french style of cooking with farm-to-table. The entrance was off an alley, and I think it was in an old garage. But they served some of the best lamb and beef I have had in quite a long time. It was almost enough to make me question my vegetarian leanings.

Our thanks to Martha and Tom for the bottle of fine bubbly we shared to toast the day.

And then on to a great meal finished with something special (with a candle) for Kathy. 

Happy Birthday, Kathy!!

For more pictures - https://photos.app.goo.gl/zaskJ3N94LzKXGZw6

Going to Crested Butte & The Black Canyon of the Gunnison

I'm not sure when the idea of visiting every National Park took its first breath, but for the last few years Kathy and I have made regular detours to whittle down the list of those not yet visited..

You'd think Colorado would be easy as it is so centrally located half way between Concord and Mukilteo. And we did see Great Dunes on a trip to southern Texas a few years ago, and Mesa Verde as part of several road trips to the red rock parks of the SW. One park that has managed to elude us has been the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.  A precipitous cut into the metamorphic rock underlying central Colorado, so deep that the sun gets all the way to the bottom only a few hours a day.

This year is Kathy's 60th birthday so we decided to celebrate it with another notch on our National Park's belt.

The adventure started with a "pre-trip".

Kathy wanted to treat her two cousins to a trip to Alaska and as it worked out, the 3 of them could split their travels to come to Seattle for a couple days, then on to Alaska for a Backroads multi-adventure trip, and the Kathy coming back to Seattle while the cousins continued on to Chicago to link up with their folks.

One of the highlights of their adventure was the Harding Ice Fields. The three of them hiked 9 miles and 4000 vertical feet!!

One of the reasons we have never been to the Gunnison is that central Colorado is a 3 day drive from Seattle (2 if you are a masochist).

Day 1 - Seattle to Twin Falls Idaho.  We found a real gem in the Shoshone Falls State Park (where we escaped this summer's blistering 100 degree heat with a morning walk before getting back in the car.) And as a bonus we got to see the launch ramp for Evel Knievel's legendary attempt to rocket across the Snake River gorge.   Here's a short video for a bit of history.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5LdesoNFpY

Day 2 we headed for Green River, Idaho, where we visited the John Wesley Powell Museum (anyone who has visited the Grand Canyon or parks of the SW has heard of Powell's adventures as an early explorer and surveyor of the region) and the visit really helped tie all the stories together for me.

It was still over 90 degrees at 5 PM so Kathy got to take a dip in the Green River.

Day 3 we drove on to Montrose via the Colorado National Monument near Grand Junction, Colorado. Amazing views - and easily worthy of National Park Status.

The next day we visited Black Canyon National Park.  And I can report it is indeed black and it is indeed very deep. I had taken our bikes, and the ride along the rim road (about 20 miles total) was an ideal way to see the canyon. As I look at my one biking picture for the blog, I realize that I am a few desserts over my limit already for this trip.  :-)

We got our final look at the Black Canyon the next day on a Park Service boat ride into the upper canyon (which has been dammed for agricultural use) on our way to Crested Butte.

For more pictures - https://photos.app.goo.gl/zaskJ3N94LzKXGZw6