I am unabashedly stealing the mantra for the Mountain Gazette Magazine, but damn, what words of wisdom they are. I wrote another post titled “In Search of Mojo” but after letting it sit a couple of days, decided it was too personal to share. Let’s just say that booze, women, and work were getting the best of me and I was in desperate need of a reset button. This past labor day weekend, I found one. I was relieved of Saturday farmers market duty because they had more than enough people lined up, so I decided it was time to skip town and head for the high country.
I called my super duper good friend Laura up, whom I was dogsitting for almost two weeks while she was enjoying a badass trip to Alaska. I wanted to see if she would be back before Saturday morning so I could go up to Telluride and not have to worry about her dogs. Turns out, she was already heading back to Durango, and to make things better, was interested in going with me.
We loaded up her truck with dogs, bikes, gear, and hit the road Saturday morning. Our first stop was the Ice Lake trail head. This 7.5 mile round trip hike starts near Silverton at 9,810′ and ends up at Ice Lake at 12,257′. The alpine lake is known for its breathtaking vistas, bright blue color, and of course, very cold water. A journey to such a unique place would not be complete with a dip to cool off, even if it only lasted 20 seconds…
So yeah, that was a bit chilly, but extremely refreshing. It actually left me wanting to get back in, but there were a few other hikers up there and I didn’t feel like they needed to see me in my birthday suit any longer, but I’ll definitely be back to this place for another swim.
After completing our hike, we drove up the road a bit and put it in4x4 to get up and over Ophir pass before heading into Telluride. We were hoping to nab a campsite in town park, but the Telluride Film Festival was going on and the place was packed. We decided to grab dinner and a brew at Smugglers before taking the advice of a local and trying to find a campsite up on Last Dollar road. It took a while, but we eventually did and hit the hay.
After an awesome breakfast at Baked in Telluride, we set out on our individual trips for the day. Laura went for a nice hike up to Blue Lake above Bridal Veil Falls, and a cool dude at a bike shop recommended a mountain bike loop that would take 3-4 hours and have some sweet singletrack.
It only took about 2 1/2 hours, and that was after meeting a pro on the trail who took me on some totally sick singletrack that wasn’t even on the map and added a little bit of distance, so I added in some extra mileage by taking a trail that climbed to Mountain Village, whereby I took the Gondola up and did one of the easier downhill runs that are part of the mountain bike park there (it’s all Free, and awesome). Well, mostly awesome. My hardtrail XC bike was able to handle it, but a downhill bike would have been a lot more fun….hmmm, more gear to add to the wish list…
Laura and I rendezvoused in town, and decided to take the scenic byway around to Ridgway, and then down to Orvis Hot Springs. Neither one of us had either been here. It is a clothing optional hot springs, and the outdoor pools are all set in rock-like natural pools ranging from 98°F to 110°F. We decided to go Au Natural, and although a little uncomfortable at first, mainly while you are de-robing and everyone is checking you out, it’s the only way to go once you hop in. We soaked for about two hours then went 7 miles down the road to Ouray to setup camp in a secret free place just outside of town before having dinner. Following some good food, we went back up to the springs where we had another hour and a half to soak under starry skies.
After a good nights sleep and a pretty good breakfast at the Silver Nugget in Ouray, our game plan for Labor day was set: we were going to hike up to Sneffells, one of 54 fourteeners in Colorado. Furthermore, I was going to ride my bike up the forest road to the trail head. Laura would drive ahead of me with the dogs, do a short side hike, and we would meet up at the parking lot to do start the hike. The hope was that this would tire me out and slow me down for the hike since she wasn’t feeling 100% that day. Plus I would get some good training in. My total ascent for the day would total be somewhere around 6400′.
Everything went according to plan, except that the ride didn’t slow me down much. There comes a part on the trail where it pretty much dissipates and you have to scramble up a steep scree slope for a good 1,000 vertical feet. The trail sort of becomes whatever you feel is easiest for you to climb. I’d never done any mountain climbing at this difficulty, but I must say, I rather enjoyed it and killed it. Laura was a little nervous, understandably so, and took her time. It is not recommended that you take your dog on this climb, but Rocco is a pretty good climber, so he came anyways. He had the easiest time of all of us, having four limbs and big paws. The altitude never seems to bother him either.
The last 100 feet of climbing was very steep and required a lot of climbing, and we did have to shuttle Rocco up one part, but we all made it, and all was good.
Too bad I had to go back to work Tuesday, but at least I knocked off 4 items from my Summer to do list here (Ice Lake, Telluride, Orvis, Sneffells) and I feel pushing this reset button has empowered me to do a few more fun things for the remaining weekends of summer and even a few weekends into fall. It has gotten me back on a track that I really need to be on. Thanks to Laura for being an awesome travel buddy. Thanks to all of you for checking in! Happy trails!