09.21.09
More Colorado Exploring
The next day we convinced Neely to join us for some more exploring. We got up pretty early and made our way up to Telluride in time for the sunrise. It was quite foggy and quite beautiful with the aspens starting to turn in the valley. I jumped out and take a bunch of photos (may post some HDR ones soon as well) and they ran off to grab some coffee. I am happy with my pitstop and we continue on our drive. We head on up through Ridgeway with another beautiful view of the valley below, but opt not to stop at the True Grit restaurant to continue higher yet to Ouray.
We all know of Ouray as an ice climbing mecca and Neely had been there once before years ago. It was a super cute little mountain town- the total opposite of Telluride with it’s touristy & money-money feel. We drive around and decide we’d like to explore a little bit and happen upon Box Canyon – which happens to be where the ice climbing takes place. What’s interesting about this “Ice Park” is that they run pipes along the top of the canyon and when it gets cold enough they create their own ice falls for climbing. now some other areas do this but this is the one place that is known to have great ice and has a festival each year to celebrate it’s awesomeness.
Since it was fall and not quite cold enough for ice we continued on up the mountainside in the hopes of more exploration and fun. My photo books had some info about some roads/trails so we kept working our way up and did a little more off roading (at least it felt like it) and enjoyed getting “off the beaten path”. Of course we saw regular cars up at the some of the parking areas – but we all agreed there had to be some good scrapes on the bottoms. After scraping the bike carrier multiple times we finally decide to take it off – but in the process realize we’re now quite hungry. So we start our way back down to Ouray and stop in town to grab some breakfast. The food was so-so but it didn’t affect our opinion of the town.
Our bellies full, we decide to head back to Telluride and see if we can get a view of Bridalveil Falls at prime light. You can feel the money oozing out of people’s wallets as we drive into town, a very different feel from Ouray or even Ridgeway but it’s quite pretty nestled in the mountains with the waterfalls in clear view. We skipped town and just drove straight back to the parking areas to the falls. We decided to give the 4WD road a go and see if we can make it to the top. After some fun bouncing around we decide to stop at the first waterfall – which we determined later wasn’t bridalveil but quite pretty. I think it was here that Andy decided to get in his daily workout and start running back to town. We’d meet him somewhere on the other side after we checked out the main falls. We continue on up a little ways and decide to park at a dicey switchback. It wasn’t terribly far to the falls and the hike was quite nice. We missed the noon light but the double falls were still a sight and the mist felt wonderfully cool if you got close enough. We opted to cut it short and started to work our way back down – eventually catching up with Andy just outside of town.
After our day of exploring we start to feel a bit tired and decide to head home for another family dinner and relaxation. We had 1 small detour as Andy still had some energy left and wanted to try to bike home as well. We got him started at the parking area for the Lizard’s Head. while there we happened upon a hiker who needed a ride back to his car – wife and dog had had enough that day. So, we opted to give him a ride and let Andy get a head start. With the small detour Andy had enough time to determine that it was way too windy and a bit scary to make the whole ride home. So we loaded him back up and made our way back.