Colorado Trip 2012 Part 3

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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