9.9.09 Guardrails and Horses

Up early for some Corn Pops and some laughs about the previous night's antics. Headed back into where Tony's hotel was at Mt. Crested Butte. Changed into riding gear and we all rode from the parking lot to the Deer Creek Trail which was in the vicinity of the 401 trail but down lower in the valley. Again some nice shots of the mountains from below. Passed by Joe and Sara, employees of the National Forest Service, who were re-digging holes for trail marker posts and re-setting them. We did about half of the trail as the entire trail wraps around Crested Butte Mountain and would have taken 6 hours or so. Good riding, a bit hot, but a great day nonetheless.

Heading into downtown Crested Butte for some lunch and to fill our tourist quota. We hit the Mountain Bike Museum/Crested Butte Museum to learn something. The Bike museum was very small but interesting nonetheless. The Crested Butte Museum was full of interesting factoids about how it was an old mining and cattle (we know!) town but now primarily relies on tourism for support.

Hit the road south towards Durango...about 4.5 hours via Gunnison, Montrose, Ouray and Silverton. We also passed by the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. The trip was an adventure getting our grandmother van up and down the passes and gulches with no brakes and 3 pistons. Gunnison is a nice little town, Montrose is Target City and Ouray and Silverton are old mining towns. Going through Ouray and Silverton was pretty wild as you can see all the abandoned mines up and down the mountain sides. A quote of the trip is as follows:

Mike: "Wow these abandoned mines are so abandoned"
Chad: "You're smart"

Another quote as the white mule van does the electric slide along the million dollar highway with no guardrails.

Chad: "Apparently guardrail technology hasn't reached this part of the United States"

Chad as we're entering a falling rock zone. "They don't bother putting up the falling rock sign. Actually the falling rock sign was struck down by a falling rock. Falling falling rock signs."

Our final destination was actually Hermosa, about 30 miles north of Durango for camping. The campground was located on some back county road which did not appear to have been graded since the turn of the century. We felt like we were test pilots for some new funky car suspension system that was failing. Settled in, got the tents set up and cooked up some Chef Boyardee spaghetti and meatballs over the fire. Time for sleep.