Day 5: Up and Up
Knowing today would be a carousel of sights and smells as opposed to a marathon, we departed South Fork at a reasonable 8:30, and headed a whole half mile down the road to the Tiny Timbers Coffee Bistro for a fill-up. Tiny Timbers was supposed to be closed today, but the gracious owners couldn't turn us away and they served up a great day-starter and some welcome advice about coming road conditions.
It seems it was a record year for snowfall in the mountains and the net result is avalanche damage, boulder falls, flooding, and 100+ feet of snow still on some of the passes and roads we hoped to traverse. Best laid plans.
In the end there's so much to see that having a road or two closed matters little - we left for Creede with clear skies and little wind, turning there toward Lake City and the first significant elevation of the 2019 Prefrontal Tour, our path entwined with the Rio Grande. We passed over the Continental Divide at about 10,900 feet, dipped momentarily and rose again, up and up over Slumgullion Summit at 11,530 feet, by now well above the snow line - the tarmac a thin thread of black between towering drifts and solid fields of snow. The conifers took on an alpine look, stunted and pencil-thin, their abbreviated branches angled sharply downard by years of ice and snow. Many of them are dead, killed by a beetle infestation that's working its way through Colorado.
But there were enough happy trees left that Bob Ross would have had a field day. My feeble literary skills will strain to describe the grandeur we enjoyed - the red crags skirted with their celery slopes, an aquamarine thread of rushing water bisecting the lot from below, and that ever-present peak, farther still, providing a snow-clad backdrop to it all.
We passed through Lake City and on to Montrose before sliding south to Ouray, a beautiful little town, all "retro modern" saloons and fancy restaurants in the style of Bar Harbor or Saratoga Springs, only this town is slotted in a canyon between towering red cliffs that conjure Zion Park, and yes they're backdropped with snow-capped mountains.
Every valley brought a new landscape today, pointed peaks, flat mesas, expansive grasslands, even the dry desert of Montrose - literally something for everyone. And dotted here and there for your viewing pleasure were bison, elk, whitetail and mule deer, pronghorn antelope, and the occasional Dall sheep. We missed the moose at Slumgillion Summit, but the aggressive S-turns were demanding our attention more than the rubber-necking.
I wish I could share the scenery, but as my wife will attest, you just can't get a good picture of a vista.
Until tomorrow dear readers. Onward and upward!
It seems it was a record year for snowfall in the mountains and the net result is avalanche damage, boulder falls, flooding, and 100+ feet of snow still on some of the passes and roads we hoped to traverse. Best laid plans.
In the end there's so much to see that having a road or two closed matters little - we left for Creede with clear skies and little wind, turning there toward Lake City and the first significant elevation of the 2019 Prefrontal Tour, our path entwined with the Rio Grande. We passed over the Continental Divide at about 10,900 feet, dipped momentarily and rose again, up and up over Slumgullion Summit at 11,530 feet, by now well above the snow line - the tarmac a thin thread of black between towering drifts and solid fields of snow. The conifers took on an alpine look, stunted and pencil-thin, their abbreviated branches angled sharply downard by years of ice and snow. Many of them are dead, killed by a beetle infestation that's working its way through Colorado.
But there were enough happy trees left that Bob Ross would have had a field day. My feeble literary skills will strain to describe the grandeur we enjoyed - the red crags skirted with their celery slopes, an aquamarine thread of rushing water bisecting the lot from below, and that ever-present peak, farther still, providing a snow-clad backdrop to it all.
We passed through Lake City and on to Montrose before sliding south to Ouray, a beautiful little town, all "retro modern" saloons and fancy restaurants in the style of Bar Harbor or Saratoga Springs, only this town is slotted in a canyon between towering red cliffs that conjure Zion Park, and yes they're backdropped with snow-capped mountains.
Every valley brought a new landscape today, pointed peaks, flat mesas, expansive grasslands, even the dry desert of Montrose - literally something for everyone. And dotted here and there for your viewing pleasure were bison, elk, whitetail and mule deer, pronghorn antelope, and the occasional Dall sheep. We missed the moose at Slumgillion Summit, but the aggressive S-turns were demanding our attention more than the rubber-necking.
I wish I could share the scenery, but as my wife will attest, you just can't get a good picture of a vista.
Until tomorrow dear readers. Onward and upward!
