Day 2 – Cruise the San Juans

/ JKB Adventures

Day 2 – The Alpine Loop: Poughkeepsi Gulch, Lake Como, California Pass, Animas Forks; and return to “The Super Secret Trail”

After a good night’s sleep in the roof top tent, we were ready to head out early to see what else the San Juan Mtns had to offer.  Our trusty trail leader, JH1, planned for all to explore the Alpine Loop.  The Loop is about a 65 mile trail through the mountains and provided some challenging trail obstacles.  We started the Loop at Poughkeepsi Gulch – this section of the trail climbed over loose rocks, through streams and led us to the main obstacle – “The Wall.”   Even though Landcruisers are not rock crawlers, they can hold their own.  We all made up “The Wall”, with only one having to be winched up, due to lack of a suspension lift and larger tires.  The scenery up to this point was nothing short of amazing….it is literally something you see “in the movies” and is known as the “Switzerland of America”.

Just a few miles up the rocky road, we stopped for lunch at Lake Como — A turquoise colored lake nestled in the midst of the mountains. Refueled, we headed through California Gulch and ended the Alpine Loop at the ghost town of Animas Forks.

Animas Forks, a small mining town, was first established around 1875 and remained active until the 1920s.  The town reached it’s largest population in 1883 with over 450 residents.  After years of decline, the town rebounded in 1904 with the construction of a giant mill – The Gold Prince Mill, which only stayed open for 6 years.  Today, several of the buildings are still very much intact and are open to the public. 

After visiting the ghost town, we headed into Silverton.  A couple of Landcruiser stragglers had arrived late the previous day, and missed “The Super Secret Trail”, so with some time on our hands, we decided to revisit the trail and share the view.  The second trip did not dissappoint.  With clear skies, we were able to see the green mountains in a totally different “light”. 

Back at camp, we had another night by the camp fire….we could definitely get used to this!

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1st Annual 100 Series – Cruise the San Juans

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We spent the weekend exploring the San Juan Mtns and Uncompahgre National Forest with 6 other Landcruiser owners (including one year old twin girls).  Most of the group was from Colorado, but there were a couple of long distance travelers – one from Arizona and another from Wyoming.  We all met at base camp in Ironton Park (near Ouray) on Friday afternoon and did not waste any time to start exploring a few of the nearby 4×4 trails.  Most of the offroad trails in Colorado were created around the 1800s during the mining boom.  And they are all packed full of stunning views and traces of Colorado’s mining history.

Day 1: Corkscrew Gulch and “The Super Secret Trail”

Corkscrew Gulch was our first expedition.  The beginning of the trail was like entering an alien planet. The trail head winds through the Red Mountains which are rich in minerals, especially iron.  The iron rich ground does not have any type of vegetation growing on it; creating a rocky, almost “Mars” like landscape.  After passing through the Red Mountains, an afternoon shower set in.  Since slippery, muddy roads can make for a dangerous trail ride, we cut short the remainder of the trail and headed to the nearby mining town of Silverton.

After waiting out the rain at the Silverton Brewery, we met up with a local Silverton Landcruiser owner, who offered to lead us on a nearby scenic mountain trail.  This “Super Secret Trail” (real name unknown) was one of the easiest trails we encountered, but offered some of the most fantastic views of the weekend.  The low hanging “after rain” clouds hung close to trail and provided some spectacular scenery.  We also met hundreds (literally) of local free range sheep that surrounded both sides of the trail.

We spent the rest of evening setting up our roof top tent, enjoying grilled blue cheese burgers and sitting around the campfire.

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Invasion of the Elk!!

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We decided to escape some of the heat and head to Rocky Mountain National Park on Saturday.  We have explored the park many times and it is always different and never gets old.  We entered through Estes Park and decided to take a different route up Old Fall River Road.  This is not the main road and we figured we would get away from some of the crowd.  It is an 11 mile dirt road to the top and it did not disappoint, with lots of wild flowers, animals and beautiful scenery.  We crossed the continental divide and headed down to the Timber Creek Campground on the Colorado River.  Luckily we found a spot, as this is peak camping season in the park.  We set up camp and relaxed and just hung around.  We have a new camp stove on order, so we decided not to cook a whole lot.  We did bring some freeze-dried camping beef stew, which was really good, but not so great a few hours later…  K enjoyed a few wine spritzers and I did NOT forget the beer.  After dinner, we were inundated with a herd of grazing elk.  We were in their territory, so they just strolled right through our camp like they owned the place.  The temperature dropped drastically to a chilly 40 degrees by morning.  We got up, had some coffee and eggs and hit the river for some fishing.  I was able to snag a few trout from the Colorado River, but nothing to brag about 🙂  We did come across two grazing moose, which really excited Furry B.  It is always great to get away to the mountains and we look forward to the next trip.

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Wheeler Lake

/ JKB Adventures

Apologies to our loyal readers, we have not posted anything in a while as we have had some out-of-state company (which we thoroughly enjoyed!!).

I took a day trip with a friend to Wheeler Lake on Sunday.  It is a 4-wheel drive trail located between Breckenridge and Fairplay, almost in the center of the state.  After turning off the road near the Montgomery Reservoir and airing down our tires, we came to the Magnolia Mill.   Gold brought miners here and the mining camp/town of Montgomery was founded in 1861.  The Magnolia Mill is located just above the Montgomery reservoir where the original town of Montgomery (now an underwater ghost town) was located.  By 1862, a town of over 1,000 had sprung up, but by 1866 the miners had moved to other areas.  In 1957, the Montgomery Reservoir was completed and the remains of the town were forever lost underwater.  The Magnolia Mill is the sole survivor, aside from some mining equipment left behind that sparsely dots the landscape.

After leaving the mill, we headed up to Wheeler Lake.  This was one of the roughest roads to date, which allowed for some of the most pristine scenery I have seen.  Once we got to the lake at over 12,000 ft, we set up camp, grilled cheese burgers (with some mysterious Roman steak seasoning that I have to get) and did some hiking and fishing.  There was an awesome waterfall that seemed to flow out of the top of the mountain like a volcano that streamed into the lake.  Unfortunately, I did not catch anything, as a storm rolled in and we had to pack up and leave.  Driving on wet rocks = no fun!!  I did however manage to catch a Furry B.  He put up quite a fight…  When we first got to the lake, he was very excited to see the water, but I don’t think he realized how cold the water was.  I let him find out on his own and he swam longer than I thought, with just a few shivers when he got out.  It was a great day, aside from the clouds and little bit of rain that moved in.

Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey

/ JKB Adventures

In our efforts to support small businesses, we visited Colorado’s first Micro-distillery.

http://www.stranahans.com/index.php?q=home

We went to Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey distillery in Denver.  It was a great tour with friendly people and of course, GREAT whiskey!!  It was really interesting to see a small time distillery compared to the likes of Jack Daniel’s in Tennessee and Maker’s Mark in Kentucky.  Stranahan’s is definitely one-of-a-kind with it’s “Rocky Mountain Straight Whiskey”.  All of their ingredients come from the Rocky Mountain Region, with the most important ingredient being Rocky Mountain Spring Water.  After the tour was over, we were able to go to the bar and sample some Stranahan’s Whiskey.  Everyone received one shot, (I got two shots because K’s favorite, is not whiskey 😉 which we sipped and discussed the different flavors that come from the distilling process, from the caramel and vanilla to the subtle oak flavors this whiskey gets from the aging process in oak barrels.

Stranahan’s shares it’s location with the “Rackhouse Pub” http://rackhousepub.com/ so after the tour, we had dinner.  They had good food with a nice atmosphere.  J had the buffalo burger and 5 cheese mac and K had the prime rib sandwich and fries, mmmmmm.

Mount Evans

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What better way to spend the 4th of July than to hike a 14’er?? 

14’er Defined: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14er

Well, we can’t claim a 14’er yet, we just hiked part of one and started around 10,000 ft, but we have big plans to summit the majority of Colorado’s 14ers:  http://14ers.com/

We started at Summit Lake around 12,000 ft up Mt. Evans and headed up the trail.  Beautiful scenery, lots of sun and, of course, wildlife.  We saw mountain goats, marmots and a pika and then spent lunch on the south side of the mountain with views of Chatfield State Park and Pikes Peak, some 50+ miles away.  Mt. Evans, at 14,265, can be seen from over 100 miles away to the east and many miles in other directions.  It is one of the most dominating peaks of the Denver skyline/Front Range and is also home to America’s highest paved road.

Click HERE for information about Mount Evans.

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Royals vs Rockies

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                                     http://colorado.rockies.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=col

♫♪♪Take me out to the ball game…♫♪♪

This was my first outing to a Major League Baseball Game….Royals vs Rockies at Coors Field. The seats were great & cheap (FREE from a co-worker) and the food was good.  While watching the game we enjoyed monster nachos, a foot long hotdog, and a $5 Diet Coke.  Oh, and let’s not forget the ice cream.  On a day this hot, I was not about to leave the stadium without a cool treat.  I wish I could say the Rockies played a great game….but we left near the end of the 7th inning and the score was 18-6 Royals.  And I’m sorry to report that there was no improvement in the score after we left.

Even though the score was depressing, we had a great summer day in an awesome atmosphere and I can’t wait to go back.

I love the patriotic feeling you get at sporting events.  From the national anthem, to Lee Greenwood’s God Bless America, and then Take Me Out to the BallGame….It makes one proud to be an American; especially on this 4th of July weekend.

God Bless Our Country and Those Who Defend Our Freedom!