by Gayle via Dianne
Wednesday, August 8,
2012
Greetings from our absolutely beautiful lake side overlook
with a temperature this morning of 40 degrees and clear blue skies. It is with
great pleasure that I can report a decrease in the mouse population. In the
last 5 days only 5 have gone to that big trap up yonder. Now I don’t know about
the pack rats. We still have caught only 2 but we are seeing dead ones on the
road when we take our hikes.
Our jeep rental started at 5:00 Monday afternoon with a return of 5:00 Tuesday afternoon. Four wheeling is the only way one
can get to so many of the beautiful places in the area. Even though our truck
is 4 wheel drive she has a long turning radius making it seem impossible to travel
the 3 roads we did Monday and yesterday. Monday afternoon we went to Carson. The distance from
the main road was 4 miles and took 1 hour of straight uphill climbing over
boulders bigger than basketballs.
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| Restored buildings in Carson |
Carson was an old mining town built in the 1800’s. According
to the number of buildings that the Bureau of Land Management have partially
restored with new roofs it is hard to imagine how many people lived there.
There is only one 2 seater outhouse left standing. The next time we go to town
I will Google a search to find out. We also saw a large steam boiler that
provided steam to power a huge winch that pulled cars out of the mine loaded
with gold, silver, cooper, and who knows, maybe even diamonds.
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| Powerful old steam engine |
Just think about a horse pulling a wagon loaded with all of
the heavy equipment and building materials up the road I just described. Now just
imagine having to deal with 200+ feet of
snow during the winter and also black bears, mountain lions, and other
predators. We did see fresh bear track so we made lots of noise. In some areas
around Lake City there is still mining going on.
Yesterday our day began at 5am with the temp once again in the low 40’s. Our first
destination was the trail head leading to Unconpagre, one of the 14000 foot
mountains. This is the mountain that Jim and I climbed to within one mile of
the top 2 years ago before weather forced us back. Nellie Creek is the name of
the road taking us to the trail head. It is almost as difficult as the one
yesterday. The scenery was different with beautiful groves of Aspen
trees on both sides of the steep road. Their white trunks were gleaming and
their leaves sparkled with the early morning dew in the sunshine. It really did
feel like Heaven was looking down on us and I could not speak. We hiked just
far enough for me to get a great shot of this beautiful mountain.
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| Too many sheep to count |
From Nellie
Creek Road it was on to Engineer Pass,
13500 feet, and what we hoped was a close encounter with at least one sheep and
a dog. It took 2 hours to travel the 13 miles with every one of those miles not
wide enough for 2 jeeps to pass except at certain pullouts. Even then the jeep
on the outside had its tires very close to the edge of a steep drop off to
nowhere. When we finally made the last turn to the pass there were sheep as far
as we could see. The sheep herder gave us a real interesting talk about his
love for his flock of 2000 sheep, 2 Great Perinea’s, and 4 Border Collies. They
also had an old canvas tent set up and his wife was serving lamb stew. It was
delicious! I took a picture of their “home” and it is enclosed.
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| Sheep herder's home |
Sheep were first brought to the Colorado Plateau in the
1500’s and grazing began in the mid-to-late 1800’s. Our government has put so
many regulations on the livestock owner’s ability to protect their sheep from
predator attacks that the protection dogs have become an extremely valuable
means to reduce predator attacks. Even a domestic dog or a mountain biker is
subject to attack if the dog fears his flock is being threatened.
We hated to leave the beauty and flatness of this beautiful
plateau where we felt like we were on top of the world.
Ahead of us lay Cinnamon Pass, another 12000 foot pass,
followed by all down hill driving on what is called “the shelf road.” Look out
roller coaster here we come again! This time we encountered 4 switch backs that
would have made our headlights shine in our rear view mirror if it had been
dark. Jim did a great job navigating all the challenges this day and we arrived
back in the campground at 4:00
giving us an hour to go into town to fuel up with $4.05 regular gas. The price
of gas would have been $6.05 per gallon for the jeep owner to fill it up. Lake City
has certainly not seen the lower gas prices that we have seen in Virginia.
Today was a laid back day. I did manage to make a run to the
bakery where I got some “good stuff” to celebrate yesterday’s successful road
trip.
Thursday, August 09,
2012
Jim finally bought a fishing license yesterday and this
morning he caught 20 Rainbow Trout. None were big enough to keep but he had a
ball and is still smiling.
Tonight is Bluegrass Music
night and then more days filled with fishing, hiking, looking at more beautiful
scenery, and just enjoying being with each other and celebrating the start of
our 51st year together. We are so lucky
to have each other and such a wonderful family although I am sure they wonder
when their parents are going to stop being such free spirits. We hope it won’t
be for many more years to come.
Take care everyone and God
Bless,
Gayle
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which arrived a couple of days ago from Amazon.
