September 30, 2013 - Hello Telluride

Mmm, good breakfast

With two foot-warmers in each down bootie and four layers on my upper body I slept as snug as a bug in a rug until 6:30!  We were the first up and out and headed into Silverton for what turned out to be a delicious breakfast of eggs, sausage, hashbrowns, and fry bread at Matties and Maud's, a local diner joint tricked out with purple vinyl chairs and pandora playing the Andrew Lloyed Weber Station.  After getting a coffee at Nimbus we headed back north to Ironton and Ouray to see what we might see.

Views from Red Mountain Pass

The color coming over Red Mountain Pass was indeed glorious in the mid-morning light.  Though the aspen were dinged a bit by the recent hard frost, the mountain sides just glowed with yellow.  Though the area did not have the dramatic background as Kebler Pass, it was still pretty stunning.

Idyllic Ouray

We stopped in the historic mining district of Ironton where I took a few shots and then we proceeded on down to the Town of Ouray.  Where we did a quick walk-about to check out the stores along mainstreet.  It is  a cute Victorian town whose economy was once based on mining but is not dependent primarily on tourism.

Another View from Red Mt Pass

From Ouray we headed up to Ridgway and then west to check out the colors along the county roads heading into the San Juans.  Unfortunately it was clear before we went to far that the aspen were only just beginning to change.  That combined with the unseasonably warm temperatures and the potential threat of getting a flat on these roads (it has happened before but in this case there was little to no photographic return for the risk) we decided to take the main road to Telluride and scope out how things looked there.  After a quick bite and a nap along the San Miguel River, we headed south along Ophir Pass into the Lizardhead Wilderness down to the small Town of Rico.  Colors looked slightly better along the road here but still nothing too inspiring.

The Very Distinct Ophir Needles

Coming back north we saw that the south-facing slopes seemed to be ahead of the rest of the slopes in terms of changing colors but even they weren't far enough along.  We headed into Telluride to check into the Hotel Telluride.  We cleaned up and had cocktails at "There" and dinner at 221 South Oak.  The dinner was nothing remarkable but the cocktails at "There" were divine though a bit strong.

Not sure what tomorrow holds in store for us.  We may just head back or stick around a day if we can keep ourselves occupied.