July is an excellent time to leave Albuquerque and visit cooler places like Colorado. Carol and I loaded up the Airstream and spent most of a week in the Telluride area including a gondola ride up to Mountain Village and a 4WD trip over the top of Imogene Pass with a stop at Mesa Verde on the way home.
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Loading up and getting ready to leave the 90+ heat. |
Arriving in Colorado at Matterhorn campground at 9500 feet elevation in the Uncompahgre National Forest. This is our first trip with new mount for bikes on the front of our vehicle. We enjoyed the bikes in Telluride on the bike/jogging path through town and along the river. This campsite, #9, had no hookups but nice views. Click for another larger image. |
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 Carol did some reading and I photographed the wildflowers. |
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Here is a view down the main street of Telluride, CO. If you look carefully at the center of the photo then about one and a quarter inches to the right you can barely see Ingram Falls at a dark spot. Rolling the mouse over the picture helps. |
| The Galloping Goose was sort of a passenger bus grafted onto railroad wheels. It was used for mine worker commuting before the highway was built. |  |
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We took a gondola ride up from Telluride to the ski area then over the top to Mountain Village. If you look behind the town of Telluride, you can see a diagonal road heading up to Tomboy Mine. |
| Outdoor lunch at Restaurant 9545 for my 63rd B.D. The restaurant was named for its elevation. |  |
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The exciting part of Telluride was taking the jeep road over Imogene Pass. This route was constructed in 1870 to transport gold ore from the Tomboy Mine over to Ouray. Here we are posing in a tunnel. |
| Along the way we saw this marmot. Easterners call them woodchucks. |  |
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At higher elevations we saw lots of wildflowers like these Columbine. |
| This cow elk was posing like the mate to the bull elk in the Hartford Insurance ad. |  |
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An old cabin slowing sinking |
| Some of the ruins of Tomboy gold mine. When Tomboy was in full operation in the 1890s hundreds of men living at the camp enjoyed such unusual luxuries as tennis courts, a bowling alley and a YMCA. |  |
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View down the valley. Notice the zig zag road with the sharp switchback turns. |
Finally we arrive at Imogene Pass. There is a cold breeze and the jacket feels good. In the background you can imagine the wheezing engine saying, "OK brakes I did my part now it is your turn." |
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I asked Carol to make a snowball for the picture because snow is so unusual in July. Her hands were cold so the snowball is really small. |
| This is a view of the jeep road down the far side of the pass toward the town of Ouray. |  |
Me having the time of my life fording a small stream. The brakes probably liked the bath.
Another view of the road down. The speck under the rock wall overhang is a yellow jeep. See below.
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Finally we were down in the town of Ouray and stopped at a cafe for a coffee. We continued the drive on paved roads :-)
This pretty well concludes our Telluride activities. The web page has become very long. Click here for the continuation at Mesa Verde cliff dwellings.
