Trip to Gunnison Area 5-12/13-07

Another adventure involving the Jeep, the mountains, and us...
Jason and I wanted to get out of town for the weekend so we decided to go to the Gunnison area. We bought a winch (I spelled it right, Dad) and all the necessary chains, etc. that the winch requires. We also bought a book of 4WD trails in Colorado. Then, we packed lots of warm clothes/blankets, food, flashlight, matches, water, Toby (he is a portable heater) and his accessories and headed out. I only tell you what we brought with us to demonstrate to everyone (especially Mom), how prepared we were. We left the Springs about 3 on Saturday and took a beautiful drive down through Canon City. We left the windows for the Jeep at home because the weather was supposed to be sunny and 85. Never believe the weathermen in Colorado. We drove through a rain storm just outside of Canon City, but it wasn't bad. We saw a beautiful rainbow though. It was actually 3 rainbows on top of eachother...well worth having to drive through the rain. We got to Gunnison at about 7 and found a cheap motel. Jason set up the winch and realized we needed a few more accesssories to make it work, so we picked those up the next morning on our way out of town. See Mom, we are even testing our equipment, just in case we get stuck! SO PREPARED!!!
I planned our route the night before, we were going to drive up to some tiny mountain towns and then get on a 4WD trail to St. Elmo (a ghost town I really wanted to see). Then, we were going to take another 4WD trail to an old mine and snoop around there a bit. There are supposed to be a lot of old buildings where the miners lived and some storage buildings up there. We were then going to wander our way back past a big resevoir and through a really high pass next to the collegiate peaks...all 4WD trails.
So much for plans...
We started out toward the tiny mountain towns, got to the start of the trail to St. Elmo...CLOSED till the end of May. 2 weeks away!!! Kinda frustrating since the book we bought said nothing about this. All the other trails I wanted to take could only be gotten to from that road...as I said, so much for plans. So, we found a trail that was open, it was not nearly as interesting as a Ghost or Mining town though. The trail we took took us past a lake and then back out to the main road.
So, we decided to go up toward Crested Butte. There was another 4WD trail I wanted to take that was the senic way to Crested Butte instead of the highway. So, we drove toward that trail. It decided to start hailing and pouring on the way there. So much for sunny and 85. It stopped raining but was still lightning/thundering.

We got to an old mining town called Baldwin.


It was really cool. It was on private property so we had to climb over a barb wire fence to explore the houses. The fence did not like Jason's pants.

We wandered around the town, looking in the old houses. It was pretty cool, interesting to see how people used to live.


Then, we kept going toward the trail. And, guess what...we get to the start of the trail and...closed...till May 30th. Seems to be a trend going here...
So, we turned around, got back on the highway (yuck) and went up to Crested Butte. It was really pretty up there. All the snow is melting so there is a ton of water everywhere. Of course, there was another trail up there I wanted to take, but was sure it would be closed. This trail goes to Marble, where Opa took us to the marble mine one time. I have always remembered that trip and really wanted to go there again...but yes, the trail was closed. Ugh, we were pretty frustrated by this point. So, we headed back toward Gunnison. We went up to Taylor Resevoir on the way back. We found lots of gorgeous camping spots for later in the summer. On the way back to the springs, we saw a heard of Elk. Jason had never seen Elk before so that was pretty exciting. We tried to get a picture, but...it was too dark. Oh well, at least we were overly prepared...for lots of highway driving.
Stay tuned for our next trip up there...when the trails are open!!