So we went off-roading today. Four of us (Vicky and myself along with Rhonda and Lynn Heenan – Vicky’s sister & brother in law) loaded up the Heenan pickup truck and we headed for the hills. Our goal was to take a back-country trail to California Gulch in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. And we did.
The country is stunning, and this is an especially good time to be here because there were few other trail riders out and about this time, the weather is fantastic with temps in the low 70’s and lotsa color on the trees. We trundled up highway 550 out of Durango to Silverton. There we found a dirt road out of town which in turn soon turned into a typical mountain jeep trail. We saw ghost towns, abandoned gold mines, still functioning mining operations, and a lot of beautiful mountain scapes.
There is something about bumping (really bumping) along a narrow, mountain road with a steep drop-off of about 500 feet just feet away. And it always seemed to be on my side. The view over the edge varied quite a bit. There might be rocks the size of a softball and then some trees hanging on for life, then some more rock, then larger rock, some more random trees, and the more rock until you reached the bottom where you might find a cold, mountain stream. Or maybe not. The grad was usually steep, like 80 degrees down steep. But Lynn is an excellent driver and so I was not worried. No sir ree... Not me.
We paused for lunch in the former mining town of Animas Fork. Of Animas Spoon and Animas Knife, there was no sign. There are many buildings from the late 19th century which you can enter and explore in this ghost town. One such home belonged to Charles and Leti Gustafson. Charles built the usual mountainside home with a privy out back. But the winters were fierce and cold, and nobody liked to go outside to do their business. So, over a few years, Charles kept adding on to the back of his house until he had a series of rooms going up to the outhouse, which was soon included into the house. The Gustafson’s are said to have had the first home with an indoor toilet in town.
There are many abandoned mines along the trail. Some are up on the side of the mountain and have been shut down for some time. Others are clearly abandoned but look like they were in use just a few years ago. And others are complete wrecks with collapsing buildings, fallen bridges, sagging cable-car systems and simple holes in the ground. There are a few operations that look to be doing business today, but they turn out to be superfund cleanup sites where mining operations pumped lots of arsenic, lead and other contaminants into the Animas River.
Continuing up the trail we finally came to California Gulch. It is a very picturesque canyon that wanders up toward the snow-tipped mountaintops. As the road headed into the snow, common sense prevailed and we turned around and retraced out tracks back to Silverton. We didn’t spend much time in town this time around as I had to get back for a 5:00pm (local time) virtual student orientation session for my upcoming class on RV systems and repairs.
Tonight was pizza night and we decided to stay in by ourselves. We kicked back, ate our fill of HomeSlice Pizza from Durango, and enjoyed a quiet night at home on the road with two cats. We didn’t even turn on the television.
Comments