Birthday/North Loop

Rick created a 4-day/3-night loop trip: 566 miles

 We started out early Monday July 8th, on Rick's birthday. We make every effort to support local restaurants (vs. franchises) however, we tried a new place called "Starvin Arvin's" - JETHRO SIZED PORTIONS!!! Rick's breakfast ham rested on the rim of his plate! Noreen chose a cinnamon roll as her side-option. 

We stopped at Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park outside Montrose for a few hours before we headed up north on a scenic drive to McClure pass.

Night-One: McClure Pass, dispersed camping. Dispersed camping is free camping with no facilities of any kind on BLM or Forest service land.

Day-2, Noreen's birthday (July 9th) 

Marble, CO: breakfast @ "The Inn at Raspberry Ridge". The Inn had such a cool vibe, just a handful of folks around. These lil po-dunk places and towns are so cool.

We then drove the 4x4, high-clearance only road to The Crystal Mill. Yes, you read correctly, but trucks can't read, especially a 22 year old, 2-wheel drive...GO THUNDRA!

The 131 year old mill is one of Colorado's most iconic spots for scenic photography; the drive to the mill is steep, rocky, and rutted. The 6-mile drive took just over an hour and a half. The town of Crystal is a short walk, up the road, behind the mill.

After we spent a couple of hours at Crystal Mill (and it's 12 building town), we drove a few miles to see the marble mine, hence the town of Marble!

Pretty cool stuff.

We then drove to the historic town of Redstone where we stopped at a lovely park and had lunch by the Crystal river. Just across the highway were Coke Ovens. These ovens once converted coal to "coke" which, was used as fuel, mainly for smelting. Redstone is a pretty cool historic town to check out. We would like to return and spend a whole day or so there.

Continuing, we drove through the town of Aspen which, is very similar to historical Flagstaff. The drive out of Aspen was quite a scare as the road is narrow, situated on the side of a cliff, and has steep drops! Rated as one of Colorado's most dangerous drives, the road leads to Independence Pass and the Continental Divide. Fun fact: the Continental Divide separates which way water flows out to the oceans, west side eventually finds its way to the Pacific Ocean and east side to the Atlantic.

Coming down out of Independence Pass, we were treated to a herd of mountain goats crossing the highway.

The little babies (kids) were so cute!

We camped our second night at Twin Lakes dispersed camping. We had beautiful views of the lakes and mountains. We also had a b-day ribeye steak dinner to celebrate being old.

From Twin-Lakes, we took a drive up to Leadville and got the canoe wet in Turquoise l

Lake.

It was then on to Gunnison and Hartman Rocks recreation area for our third night. The area is a recreational haven for mountain bikers.

We left Hartman rocks and headed back to Montrose for some shopping before heading back home to Priest Gulch. We thought the loop was a great trip and enjoyed all the sights.

On to the next adventure!