Black Canyon of the Gunnison

We pulled out of Ouray, headed to Salida, Co. with a stop at Black Canyon of the Gunnison.

On the way to Gunnison we were stopped for a landslide on Route 50! Waited about a half hour for clean up!

The Black Canyon is a narrower version of the Grand Canyon, with steep dark cliff walls and a gorgeous

 emerald blue river at the bottom.  After we left Gunnison for Salida, we passed through a long sprawling reservoir

and then... we reached our highest altitude yet!  Monarch Pass at 11, 312 ft!

This was our view!  Again, it is so amazing how the landscape changes from mile to mile and around every corner!

Had dinner at the Boathouse Cantina with our backs to the
roaring Arkansas River.  A great end to a looooong day!

Ouray Weehauken Hike

Slept in until 7:00 a.m. this morning!  Ouray is nestled in a valley in the San Juan Mountains.  We had breakfast at a gluten free place and headed out for our next hike.  Weehauken Trail on the south side of town. This was a 1.6 mile hike with an 1100 ft. Elevation change. We ended up above 9000 ft again…basically to the top of one of the mountains that surrounds the town of Ouray.  We were eye to eye with some of the places we were admiring from down below. Incredible!  The hike took about 2.5 hours. I felt great today..no altitude adjustment needed.  I think I am acclimated to the altitude now.

We had  a gigantic lunch…gluten free pizza and burgers.  With a bit of energy left we hoofed up one of the side streets ( which is more like a ¼ mile mountain side climb!) in downtown Ouray to the Cascade Waterfall.  The walk up the hill was more strenuous than our morning hike…or maybe we were just tired from the morning, or weak from the cider and rum and coke we had with lunch! Ah vacation.  Tonight we will soak in our own hot tub here at the Inn…grill some sausages on the grill and then head to downtown for a live music festival.  Are you tired just reading about this?  We have done a lot…but it has been so much fun

Up to road to Weehauken Trailhead

 

At the tippy top!

Cascade Falls

Steep walk up to the falls from town!

Day Five -Mesa Verde to Ouray – Stop in Telluride

Alpine Glow view from our camping cabin

We packed up camp and got out early, headed to Telluride. The plan was to eat some breakfast and ride the Gondola up to Mountain Village.  We accomplished half the plan, but never got to the Gondola…seems I needed an ALTITUDE adjustment!  Got a little altitude sickness after we had our yummy breakfast.  Telluride is at over 8000 ft and you can feel it.  Got a little dizzy, nausea, and felt like my head weighed 100 lbs.  So, we decided the Gondola might be a bad idea! L.  Found an herbal remedy to calm down the symptoms and got on the road down to a lower altitude in Ouray. Sort of. Ouray is around 7000 ft. ( I was wrong about Taos being at 9000 in my other post.) Taos is much lower.  But, driving and looking at the unbelievable scenery into Ouray really helped.  Had a little time to kill before checking into our camping cabin at Ouray Riverside Inn. So, we decided to drive 45 miles to Silverton on the Million Dollar Highway to kill some time.  Roy was pretty tired of driving, so I took the helm.  We got about 2 miles and had to turn back.  Let me tell you, that road makes the Mt. Washington Auto Road seem like a little old curvy road through the mountains.  I wigged.  And with a thunder shower looming over the Mountain…I pulled over and made Roy drive us back into the valley.  Roy was not enjoying being on the passenger side where he was much closer to the drop offs with no guard rails!  It was ok though…the place we stopped to turn around ended up being a beautiful scenic overlook where we could walk to a waterfall.  Gave us some time to calm and get up the nerve to get back in the car and head back.  We headed to the Ouray Hot Springs Pool for more nerve calming.  No pics of that, but it is a 103 degree natural spring fed public pool where you can dip or swim and just relax in the mineral spring waters.  A giant hot tub, if you will.  They mix the hot water with cold spring water and so you can swim in 78 degrees, lounge around in 93 degrees ( which was so fun to swim around in!) or soak in the 103 degree hot pool.  A great way to end the day!

Headed into Telluride

Telluride Selfie

Headed into Ouray

Million Dollar Highway "to Hell!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Box Canyon Falls, Ouray

Finding our calm before getting back on the highway to hell

 

 

 

 

Day Four - Cliff Dwelling Hikes

Ok. Today was a big day for Hiking and sight seeing.  On the agenda were a 2.8 mile hike to the petroglyphs and visits to the Spruce Tree House, Cliff Palace and the Long House cliff dwellings.  We were already in the Mesa Verde National Park camping, but it still takes almost an hour to drive to each of the cliff dwelling sites.  Then you have to hike into Cliff Palace and Long House (which is on an entirely different mesa within the park) It is a loooooong day!  But, so worth it.  I have never seen anything so beautiful and awe inspiring as these ancient and sacred places.  I love it. I want to live in a cliffside alcove, hovering above a 1000 ft. canyon, facing south!  I WILL retire here.  

On the way to the Petroglyphs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A good resting spot

Petroglyphs!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cliff Palace

 

 

 

 

 

Long House wide view

 

Long House

 

Long House