Ridgway-Ourey-Silverton-Telluride, CO - STR-2021-15

Sunday, 4 July

Not very long after getting Sprinty settled in the Pa—Co-Chu-Puk campground, we got a text from Tom saying they were settled in their campsite in the Elk Ridge Campground. We broke camp to drive to one of the three other campground loops at Ridgway State Park to plan the week.

Tom offered to drive their truck if Darrell would plan the week. After sharing ideas and reviewing what was open, when, we came up with a plan for each of the next four days.

Monday, 5 July - Silverton

As Sprinty is sleeping in four different places in five nights, he had to vacate his site while his humans went off adventuring with Tom and Heidi. 

 The plan was to park Sprinty in the state park marina as checkin for Sprinty's next site was not until afternoon. Tom and Heidi were going to pick us up there in their truck at 8:30 for a day of adventuring.

All set, we started off for Silverton, CO. For about 200 feet. Tom and Heidi's Ford F-150 had the AdvanceTrac light come on and went into limp mode. After several restarts, we started researching what was going on, and what to do about it. Sprinty's spare code reader found a throttle body error code. Earlier this year, Sprinty had gotten a new code reader (Mercedes-specific) and Darrell was about to take the old generic code reader out of Sprinty. Sprinty won the argument by suggesting that by having it, he could help someone if they had a problem. Like today.

Long story, short, being a holiday, Tom arranged for a mechanic in Ridgway, all of 6 miles away, to look at it, figured out towing options, and arranged with the Ranger to park the truck at the visitor center. They repacked for the day, and about 1130, Sprinty and his crew for the day (Darrell, Kris, Tom and Heidi) set off on the original adventure plan for the day. While Sprinty may not be a very comfortable adventure-mobile for passengers, it does have six seat belt points.

The first activity was to drive to Silverton, CO on US 550. The first 15 miles of the trip to Ourey were typical US Highway. The section from Ouray to Silverton is called the "Million Dollar Highway", and is notorious for twisty, curved, narrow roads cut in the side of mountains with sheer drop offs and no guard rail.

Words cannot fully convey what driving on this road is like. Darrell's summary after driving it twice in one day is that it demands your full attention, two hands on the steering wheel, and no enjoying any of the spectacular scenery. Focus on keeping it between the lines, shiny side up, watch for oncoming traffic intimidated by the shear drop offs that they hug the centerline.

As stated on the Dangerous Roads website "Forget standard driving safety measures like guardrails and shoulders, there aren't any on this stretch, so swerving off the road is not advised!" For more on the Highway:

• Dangerous Roads: https://www.dangerousroads.org/north-america/usa/635-million-dollar-highway-usa.html
• Roadtrip America: https://www.roadtripamerica.com/places/million.htm

Sprinty tapped into his Mercedes sports car genes and handled the drive like a champ.

Upon arrival in Silverton, we headed for the Old Hundred Mine on the east side of town. Well sort of - it was 5 miles east of town, with four miles of dirt road and 700 feet of elevation climb to get there.

From the "Old Hundred Mine" website (https://www.minetour.com):

"The Old Hundred Gold Mine Tour is a guided mine tour that takes you 1/3 mile into the heart of 13,000 foot Galena Mountain where you can follow the vein and see real mining equipment in action! Go underground and experience the secret world of the gold miner!"

We arrived just after the 1pm tour started, so we got tickets for the 2pm tour. While we waited, we watched people pan for gold (included in the tour price).

Just before 2pm, we loaded on the mine man cars to ride them 1/3 mile into the mine.

Our guide Jake seemed to have been a miner as he was full of interesting tidbits. He not only showed us the drill machines used, but actually operated them briefly.

The mine tunnel we entered was one of at least seven drilled and blasted into the hard rock mountain. The rock was so hard that there was almost no shoring as one sees in typical mines. As Jake said, "the rock makes concrete look like a sissy."

The gold mine tour was fascinating. Sprinty has now visited a copper mine (Arizona), a coal mine (Pennsylvania), a lead mine (Missouri), a salt mine (Kansas) and now a gold mine (Colorado). Makes his humans wonder what's next. Maybe a Bitcoin mine? 😉

Adam and Kathryn of "Adventures of AplusK" explored the Old Hundred Gold mMine and drove the Million Dollar Highway this year. Link to their YouTube video: https://youtu.be/pEW3yZvRmm0

After the mine tour, we made our way back to the town of Silverton, the "Mining Town That Never Quit."

We then went to the San Juan County Historical Museum. The lady at the desk gave directions for touring the museum, starting in the 1902 County Jail. We then moved to the Mining Heritage Center. We immersed ourselves in the many interesting exhibits until closing time at 5PM when the lady prodded the remaining patrons towards the exit. Perhaps we can be forgiven for having set pretty low expectations for a small town museum after our earlier experiences. This museum was amazing. Probably the best museum that we have visited this entire trip.

After the museum, we headed north and drove the Million Dollar Highway again to Ridgway. There we had dinner at the True Grit Cafe, a tribute to the movie "True Grit, the only movie John Wayne won an Academy Award for. The south wall of the inside of the restaurant was the grocery store in the movie. Movie memorabilia, mostly John Wayne movie memorabilia, adorned the walls.

On a nearby building was a plaque showing the various locations in Ridgway used for the movie "True Grit"

We got back from the day's adventures about 8:30. After dropping off co-adventurers Tom and Heidi, Sprinty made his way to his new campsite at Ridgway State Park. Darrell and Kris spent most of the rest of the evening searching for a new smell (smelled like a dead animal) which led to the discovery of a different problem. The Adle heat system expansion tank was empty. We we had already added about 20oz of distilled water this trip, we were baffled as to why we were missing fluid when it was fine in Kremmling, CO about a week earlier.

Tuesday, 6 July - Telluride

Before first light, Darrell was already mentally trying to work Tom and Heidi's truck problem and Sprinty's Alde heating system. After contemplating the two issues wide awake in bed, he finally got up.

At 8:30, Sprinty picked Tom and Heidi up at their campsite to take them to the visitor center so they could attempt to drive their truck the 6 miles to Ridgway. The truck did not make it, despite turning it off and restarting again three times. After the third time and running out of suitable road shoulder to safely stop, they called for a tow truck and had it towed to Ridgway for repair.

After dropping off truck, we picked up mail we had sent to the Ridgway Post Office via General Delivery and headed for Telluride, CO. After getting Sprinty settled in the public parking lot on the edge of town, we walked to the gondola station.

Operated by the town of Mountain Village, it is a free gondola service. Originally built to improve air quality in the region by keeping cars off the road, the Gondola has been annually shuttling approximately 2.8 million skiers, snowboarders, mountain bikers, hikers, festival-goers and commuters up and over 10,500-foot Coonskin Ridge since December 1996. The ride on the "G" provides expansive vistas of the San Juan Mountains, Aspen-cloaked mesas and sun-struck waterfalls as well as a bird's eye view of both towns. On a clear day, riders can see all the way to the La Sal Range in Utah, but the views aren't the Gondola's only attribute: It's also the first and only free public transportation of its kind in the United States.  

The Gondola offers free, seasonal transportation for the public with handicap accessible and pet-friendly cars for your furry friends. From Telluride to Mountain Village, the ride is approximately 13 minutes in length, and eliminates the 20 minute, 8-mile drive between Telluride and Mountain Village. Conveniently, the Gondola cars offer racks for ski and snowboard transportation during the winter season, and racks for bicycle transportation during the summer season.  

We rode the gondola to the Mountain Village station, where we ate lunch watching downhill mountain bikers come down the slopes.

On the ride back to Telluride, we got off briefly at the top. Not much to see, and it started raining. Good excuse to get back to the gondola station.

Once back in town, we walked the Main Street headed east, and got on the San Miguel River Trail just on the edge of town.

The San Miguel River Trail merges with the Idarado Trail, which provided various interpretative signs about the mining days. The trail ended near the site of the Pandora Mill. In the distance, we could see Bridal Veil Falls.

An interesting fact about Bridal Veil Falls was that it put the theories of Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse into practice. The nearby Ames Power Plant, constructed in 1890 and put in line in 1891, was the first alternating current plant in the world. The success of the Ames Power Plant led to the construction of a power plant on Bridal Veil Creek completed in 1907. After several closures and restarts, the Bridal Veil power station is operational and in use today.

From the end of the San Juan River Trail in Pandora, we could see Bridal Veil Falls.

The hike was enticing, but we knew from our research it was not as easy a hike, and some were not up for it. Just as well, as we logged over 3.5 miles of walking for the day anyway.

During the day, Tom got a call from the mechanic about the truck. The issue was the throttle body, consistent with the amateur guess made using the code reader and some internet research.

Once back at camp, we spent the rest of the evening cleaning the galley sink p-trap (maybe the source of an odor we smelled earlier?) and looking for leaks in the Alde system. No leaks found - so the loss of about 50 ounces of glycol solution for the Alde closed system remains a mystery.

Wednesday, 8 July - Ourey

Sprinty picked up Tom and a Heidi, now sans truck, for a day in Ourey, about 15 miles south of the state park. Our first activity was a visit to Box Canyon Falls, a city attraction.

From https://www.uncovercolorado.com/waterfalls/box-canyon-falls/

"Box Canyon Falls Park is a developed waterfall attraction situated in the "Switzerland of America", Ouray. It showcases an 85 foot cascade of water down Canyon Creek.

The waterfall is the climax of Canyon Creek, which spills thousands of gallons a water each minute over the falls. You can witness this breathtaking attraction both above and below the waterfall. It thunders down into a quartzite canyon narrowly surrounded by 100 foot walls."

An impressive water fall in a canyon.

A view of the canyon and water looking downstream.

Conveniently, the trail to the top of Box Canyon Falls intersected the Ouray Perimeter Trail, a 5.4 mile trail around the town of Ourey. 

 We knew from the "Adventures of AplusK" YouTube (https://youtu.be/8l_xklAJ0Bc ) video that the trail provided several access points. And some steep drop off sections that Kris decided would not be fun for her. So we settled on hiking along the south side of town to the Umcompahgre River crossing.

Along the way, we had some good views of the Umcompahgre River.

In the Umcompahgre River gorge, we saw several Via Ferratas set up, and enjoying watching other traverse the Via Ferratas.

From Wikipedia: "A via ferrata is a climbing route that employs steel cables, rungs or ladders, fixed to the rock to which the climbers affix a harness with two leashes, which allows the climbers to secure themselves to the metal fixture and limit any fall. The cable and other fixtures, such as iron rungs (stemples), pegs, carved steps, and ladders and bridges, provide both footings and handholds, as well. This allows climbing on otherwise dangerous routes without the risks of unprotected scrambling and climbing or the need for technical climbing equipment. They expand the opportunities for accessing difficult peaks as an alternative to rock climbing and mountaineering, both of which require higher skills and more specialized equipment."

One of the trails was marked with a difficulty of "4B" - in other words, very difficult. Fun to watch, not for novices.

We returned to town, had lunch then checked in at San Juan Scenic Jeep Tours (https://sanjuanjeeptours.com/home.html) for our afternoon half-day tour.

As flowers were blooming in Yankee Boy Basin, that was the tour de jour. The tour description was: "Starting at Ouray, the jeep climbs by switchbacks along the sides of the high mountains and across grassy basins. Thousands of feet above these roads tower bare volcanic rock, and below the road, clear mountain streams dash in tumbling white water. We pass the Camp Bird, Revenue, Atlas and Ruby Trust mines. The spectacular mountain peaks, such as Mt. Sneffels and Potaso majestically tower far above the fields of wildflowers and waterfalls. This is truly a photographers paradise."

The vehicle was not an actual Jeep, rather a Dodge Ram 2500 diesel 4x4 pickup converted to carry 12 people in the back.

Our driver/tour guide, Keith, was very good at sharing the history of the mining and the area, as well as geography.

As we drove from Ourey at 7,792 feet elevation to Upper Yankee Boy Basin at 11,300 feet elevation, we enjoyed picturesque views of the mountains, the geology, and let Keith do the driving. Many sections of the dirt road were barely wider than one vehicle, so Keith was kept on his toes watching for traffic going up and coming down, while keeping the "Jeep" on track with many sheer drops offs. Way more challenging than the Million Dollar Highway we drove on Monday.

Once at Upper Yankee Boy Basin, we got off. Most everyone walked the trails to Twin Falls which were just gorgeous.

The trip down was a little quicker as Keith made fewer stops to provide info. Just as well, the drive down the dirt roads seemed scarier than it looked on the way up. As we came down, we saw a Subaru coming uphill struggle with one section, which visually showed the difficulty and the limitations of an all-wheel drive passenger car trying to navigate a high clearance four-wheel drive route.

After returning, Sprinty hung out at a pullout near Tom and Heidi's campground loop as cell services was vastly superior to that in our loop. We even had dinner there and enjoyed a more typical evening instead of trouble shooting Alde and p-traps. No odor today, and the Alde fluid level appears to be normal.

Thursday, 8 July - Ridgway

Tom received a call that his truck had been repaired, road tested and would be ready for pickup at 10am. 10am was the time we had set last evening for Sprinty to pick up Tom and Heidi for a trip to Ridgway to visit a couple of museums.

After getting their truck, we visited the Ridgway Railroad Museum. The museum is currently a display of vintage railroad cars. There was a self-guided tour information sheet which described each of the cars and it's history.

Next we went to visit the Ouray County Ranch History Museum next door.

An interesting museum. The reservoir at the heart of Ridgway State Park was not the original plan for a reservoir in Ridgway. The original plan had the lake completely flooding the town on Ridgeway. This plan effectively froze Ridgway in time as people could not get loans, no one wanted to build on land that might be flooded, and no one wanted to make improvements to buildings that might be underwater one day.

A positive outcome for the city was that Ridgway was used to shoot scenes of the movies "How the West Was Won" (1962) and "True Grit" (1968).

We enjoyed a lunch in the park across the street, taking advantage of a picnic table in the shade. After lunch, Tom and Heidi headed for Montrose to visit the Ute Indian Museum, get gas, and put their newly repaired truck through its paces.

Darrell and Kris toured the various True Grit plaques in town identifying the location of various scenes from the move "True Grit". Our visit to the Ouray County Ranch History Museum enhanced the walk as the museum had exhibits filled with test shots (photographs) of the movie scenes.

Along the walk, we passed a building with the date "1907" at the top. We noticed it seemed under renovation. Upon closer look, we saw that it had had a fire. Inside we saw a guy sitting, and we struck up a conversation. Carl was the contractor who was going to restore the building and provided lots of interesting information about the building and restoration plan. Carl was an interesting guy and quite proud of some of his other historical restorations including the Colorado Boy Brewery at the end of the block.

Equally interesting was looking up the address in Google Maps, and looking at the building in street view. Google's street view shows Clinton Street as an unpaved street, whereas today it is paved with sidewalks.

Look up "540 Clinton Street, Ridgway, CO" to see the Google Maps photos.

Sprinty took the afternoon off at his favorite cell service perch to allow his humans to plan our next adventures. His time at Ridgway State Park was coming to an end, and his humans had not even planned anything beyond golf tomorrow.