| Reader Note: Our blog posts were stuck so you may have missed some. To see them all on one page, with the latest on top, try this link: https://2naturebuffs.wordpress.com/ |
Our time at Canyonlands was at an end, it was time to head back East. One thing we’ve learned is to ‘discipline’ ourselves by judiciously using the Interstate. It’s handy for getting to your general area of interest quickly, but pretty stressful and sterile otherwise. On our way West, once we passed Oklahoma City, we put Google Maps in “avoid highways” mode and just took our time on state highways and backroads. Many of these roads are in excellent shape and allow you to take in the scenery at a slower pace with interesting stops along the way.
Based on our friend Ez’s suggestion, and the need to stop at a pharmacy, we decided to head toward Montrose, Colorado and then drop south through Ouray, Silverton, and Durango. This section of road is known as the “Million Dollar Highway” due to the high mountain passes and the difficult construction. It’s rated one of the most scenic highways in the world.
Google Maps directed us up the Upper Colorado River Scenic Byway, a beautiful 44-mile stretch of road alongside the Colorado. Yet another area to explore with lots of camping spots. It looks like a great area for horseback, we saw several ranches through here.
BUT, we didn’t nearly do the 44 miles. Google turned us into Castle Canyon, heading east away from the river….
The sign says “No Road Maintenance Oct 15 – Jun 1”
Hmmmm, the road looks pretty good! I mean, it is November and I see some snow in the La Sal mountains, but it’s warming up, right?
Near the river is was in the ’50’s, by the time we met the roadsign where the road turned to dirt, it had dropped 16 degrees F. There was a parking area with lots of cars, so there must have been a trailhead there.
So of course we kept going…
Gorgeous views! But there was still a good bit of snow in the mountains and we were heading around the north side with less sunshine. The road became worse and worse, with melting snow and slush. And everytime we thought it would begin to descend, it would meander its way around a mountainside and climb a little higher!
With road names like “4.4” and “Z2 4/10” I’m not sure what we would’ve done without Google Maps at this point, there were quite a few intersections with roads enticing us down the mountain.
| Road Trip Note: Did you know that Waze has an option called “avoid dirt roads”? We didn’t either! Maybe we should have used it rather than Google Maps? Maybe, but we would have missed out on using the Ranger’s Terrain Management System! We were able to test both “Grave/Snow” and “Mud/Ruts” all in one go. |
Now this is interesting…
The road was pretty soft, I found myself riding the ruts because I was afraid of sliding into the ditches. Fortunately we had plenty of ground clearance, it seemed we were descending, and the road was finally improving.
We saw what looked like a white SUV heading our way. Since the road was nearly single-track with the slippery ditches, I found a wide place and eased over. As it came closer we realized it was a Honda minivan! And it was just barely clearing the ruts. This selfishly put me at ease, because I figured that if he can make it this far uphill in a minivan, surely the trusty Ranger can get down the hill with 4WD!
There were two couples about our age inside. The driver had a big leather cowboy hat, he was laughing with a toothy grin, I realized he was a kindred spirit, hahaha. As he pulled up beside us, I could see that they were all grinning. He said, “How’s the road up that way, about like this?” I replied, “Well, it’s a little worse, how is it down that way?” “About the same,” he says. We talked a bit more and I told him what we had seen and how it was a few more miles to the pass and pavement. But they decided to go for it, they were on their own adventure. As long as he stayed out of the ruts, with the weight on the front wheel drive, maybe they’d be ok? He did tell me that once I hit the Colorado state line there would be a road grader and that I would drop into John Brown Canyon before reaching Gateway.
And it was so, the guy running the grader was accommodating, and we dropped down into the canyon and came out in the small town of Gateway.
Gateway was clean as a whistle, as most of these small towns have been, everything fairly tidy and painted up. The folks obviously care about their homes. As we crossed the Delores River, we traveled up beautiful Highway 142 and passed The Palisade, an impressive mountain peak.
We eventually found our way to Montrose, we took stock of the massive amount of gravel and mud now attached to the new truck. Glad I had those running boards and mudflaps!
The Historic Wiesbaden Hotel
At Montrose, we grabbed a quick dinner at probably the only national chain restaurant we visited, Applebee’s. After that, we started looking for a place to stay. We were hoping to find something with a hot spring, so we checked out Orvis Hot Springs in Ridgeway, a small town on the way to Ouray. According to the website, they had several beautiful soaking pools, including The Lobster Pot, which was between 108 and 114 degrees! We figured on a Wednesday we’d have a shot at one of the 7 or 8 rooms, or maybe we could camp.
Did I mention it was clothing optional? Well, live large and find an empty pool I say (and I say he’s getting a bit too personal here)! That is…until we got there. All the rooms were booked, the campground was filling up and there was a live-in school bus parked in the parking lot with a towel-clad young man.
Ok, I liked the concept, but waaay too many bodies in COVID Nation for me! We moved on. A new search turned up the Weisbaden Hotel in Ouray, named after an old world city in Germany which has been renowned for its hot springs since the days of the Romans.
Well, we arrived after dark and discovered we were the only tenets. There was a signed photograph by Chief Ouray, an ornate enameled wood stove that I would kill for, just all kinds of ‘artifacts.’ Their signature attraction, the vapor caves, were being remodeled, so the nice young manager gave us a free hour in the private hot pool. This sounded nice. It was private indeed, and with the Milky Way and a couple of shooting stars above, it was a very pleasant soak.
The hotel is a step back in time and has loads of character. The little suites had baseboard radiators for heat…on every single wall throughout, I’ve not seen that before. And the room was hotter than the soaking pool! We called it in and the manager told us they use the hot spring water to feed the radiators, they can heat the place for free. But they had just got them working and needed to adjust the valve or something. And that makes sense. Since the hot springs was under 120 degrees, it took a lot more radiator than a steam boiler system would.
Ouray is a true mountain town, nestled between the peaks at about 7,800 feet. We loved the feel of the place and is somewhere we’d like to visit again. The residents, like the mule deer, didn’t seem to mind, she was busily pulling bulbs from someone’s flower garden. Just about all of the roads off the main highway are dirt, except around the school and some municipal buildings. Just too harsh a climate to maintain asphalt and concrete I suppose. The town is named after the Ute chief, who worked tirelessly for peace for his tribe. The area is also known as the Switzerland of America and marks one end of the Million Dollar Highway that runs the mountains south down to Durango.
After our stay, we grabbed some excellent coffee and started down the Million Dollar Highway. It crosses three passes that range from 9,000 to almost 11,000 feet. Lots of snow up here!
Right around the first corner was a bighorn buck in the road. He didn’t care about us, around the next bend was a doe, the object of his affection.
More trail magic…
As we came upon the first high pass, there was a trailhead parking area. About half of it had melted, but the other half was solid ice. As we came across, we saw an F150 4×4 crewcab trying to back out with all 4 wheels spinning. “Should I stop?” I say, looking for that positive reinforcement. I mean, after all, I’m just traveling through. “Of course,” she says, “Why would you not?” I had packed a few things. A tow strap, a saw (HA! There aren’t many trees to worry about!), air compressor, some tools, and apparently extra iPhone cables, lol. So we wheeled around.
‘Sam’ came out of the truck and said, “I really screwed up! This is my backyard. I’ve lived here for 30 years! I just went a little too far in the parking lot.” I said, “Well, I have a strap, what if I just give you a tug, I think the front end will just pop back up on the pavement.” So we got set up and, realizing I had one wheel on ice and the other on pavement, I enabled the locking differential (holding the button for two seconds this time) and popped him right out.
As it turns out, Sam is the local glassblower in Ouray, we saw his shop when we were getting coffee. He mentioned being a snow rescue teacher (he had his shovel out for the truck) and was about to do a trail loop. We couldn’t decide if he was cross-country skiing or just hiking, super nice guy. He knew about Middle Tennessee and had spent some time in Murfreesboro working his trade.
The Million Dollar Highway
Well, how do you capture that? You can’t, just go there. The ride into Silverton was great.
Silverton was perfect. At 9,300 feet you have to work to get here. A main street with lots of colors and character….I had to get more coffee! The next pass revealed the town in its setting. It reminded me of Damascus, Virginia of all places.
There is a scenic rail and they run an old steam train between here and Durango. This looked like a fun thing to do, but alas, they were booked up.
We finished up the Million Dollar Highway and rolled in to Durango.
Why are we here and the existential plight…
Durango was fairly crushing. It could have been Murfreesboro, Tennessee for all I know. Chains of all sorts. Keep in mind that the biggest town we’ve been in so far was either Conway, Arkansas or Santa Fe, New Mexico, but we kind of skirted the bulk of both of those. Durango was full, crowded, and touristy. We just moved on.
We thought Pegosa Springs might be interesting. Unfortunately, their hot springs are high-dollar resorts and chains, chains, chains. We had a most awful experience at “Mountain Pizza,” where some IT geek took all the soul out of eating. A bad taste in the mouth, even though the pizza was good!
As we pondered East, the feeling was it was time to go home. Camping in Kansas? I need more rocks, right? So we hammered down and looked for the shortest route.
Back through the panhandle.
It’s different somehow. After we left Oklahoma City and rolled to Lake Meredith it seemed perfect. Okay, other than the gale winds. But for a hundred miles west or east of Borger, it just stank! It’s all CAFO, Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation, and it’s intense. Every town was a roustabout town, industrial and transient. We just plowed through and marveled at all of the lights on the horizon.
We hit the Interstate at Elk City and found a Marriott around midnight at Weatherford, just before Oklahoma City. I’d made up my mind to ‘get home,’ one of those unstoppables that can get you into trouble if you are not careful.
No breakast here! Just cold carry bags with some bits in it. Roll on!
The Interstate ain’t what it used to be.
Man, this was intense. There were literally more trucks on the road than passenger vehicles. The majority worked pretty hard at keeping in the ‘train’ on the right lane. But there were quite a few that wanted pass at just a minimal speed, it would take literally 5 miles for them to finally move over.
White knuckle on a Friday.
Funeral Express?
As we rolled past Little Rock toward Memphis, the traffic became pretty heavy on a Friday afternoon around 2:30pm. We noticed a bunch of cars with their hazard lights on, what was this? An accident or something? But then we noticed they were all in the right lane and there was a motorcycle rider with bright neon in front and rear. It was a funeral procession!
I’ve never seen such a thing on an expressway. They were doing 70 mph…but everyone else was doing 80 or 85. So the folks in front of us began to bunch up, and the leader, just as befuddled as me, didn’t know if he should pass the lead motorcycle (out of respect) or not!
This is not good. Bunched up with slow cars and trucks, right? And then a 3-foot piece of retread comes over the top, THUMP! Fortunately the Ranger has steel bumpers. The retread knocked the paint off the bumper and skinned the right rear wheel, whew! Get me home!
What a crazy thing, I hope I never see it again. Surely there would have been an alternate route.
After a tense ride through Memphis and riding the rolling coaster bridges on the Tennessee 840 bypass, we made it home!
Now I remember why we don’t drive West very often, I’m tired.