Well, our long awaited jeep trip was last weekend (sorry for the delay in getting this posted, but as you all know, we had a very ugly virus and just got our computer back this week), We left South Fork at 9:45 a.m. riding with Jim Chapman in his jeep. We met up with Jim's brothers, Ron with wife Cindy and Don with two friends Rick and Sharon along with another friend of theirs Rendall and his son and girlfriend. All total, we had (4) jeeps on this trip. The first part of the trip was pretty much all highway driving until we got to Lake City, Colorado. Once we arrived at Lake City, we all took a small break before we hit Engineer Pass ( 12,795 ft). The first few miles were two wheel territory, but after that it was all 4 wheel high clearance. We were on a total of four different passes that day: Engineer Pass, California Gulch Pass (12,963 ft), Hurrican Pass and Corkscrew Pass (12,217 ft). The scenery from the highways is always great here in Colorado, but......once you get into the back country you see some of the most spectacular scenery anywhere in the world. Both Linda and my eyes and heads were swiveling every whichway. The two track took us up and down and back up, sometimes over 12,500 foot. when you hit the summit, it was a long way down on narrow tracks that were dug out of the side of the mountains. Most of the roads were hand dug back in the mid to late 1800's by miners wanting to get their gold, silver and other precious metals to market or to a procesor. We arrived at our destination, which was Ouray, Colorado at around 5:30 p.m., checked into our hotel for the weekend, got a bite to eat and then we all CRASHED. We were all exhausted!!!!!!
Day 2 started with a nice breakfast and we were on our way at about 9:45 a.m. We left Ouray and headed to Imogene Pass (13,117 ft). This pass was much more difficult than the passes that we were on Friday. I'm glad we had a very experienced driver. We arrived in Telluride around 2:00 p.m., had a very nice lunch at Smuggler's, wandered around town a little (this is a very "yuppie" town) and got back on the "road" around 4:15 p.m. We took Ophir Pass (11,789 ft) back to Ouray and got back to the hotel around 6:00 p.m. Originally, we had planned on a nice dinner out, but since we ate lunch so late, we decided on a few drinks instead......which turned into a few more drinks......I think you get the picture.
I could go on for hours telling you how spectacular the trip was...but in reality you would have to do it yourself. All of the pictures we took (256) can not do justice to the trip.
An example of this is the picture of Linda above. If you look close you will see at her feet a valley. She is standing on the edge of a cliff that is at least 1000-1500 tall. Scared me, I had to look away in case she fell!!!! You all know that she has no fear of heights at all.....unlike me!!!!!!!!
So, instead of me trying to tell you how beautiful it is out here......just look at the pictures....it will give you some idea of what it is like.
We both told Jim C. that we wanted to do it again, only this time both of us want a chance to drive some of the trip....Looking forward to doing that in 2013 which is our next year to travel during the summer.
We can't thank Jim enough for including us in this wonderful trip.........
Take care, love to all of you
Jim and Linda
