Before I get into this latest post I have a comment about photos. In the past I have sometime put galleries at the end of my posts. The drawback to this practice is these photos tend to get lost the older the post is.
I have modified my Galleries page to include more photos, broken down into collections by topic or by event, such as my ATV outings. I will still include photos in my posts, but will also include a link to a gallery that will have more photos of that trip or event. It will be easier for anyone, myself included, to revisit photos I took months or weeks before without having to wander through old blog posts.
My latest outing was taken this past Sunday, September 2nd. I was again in the Ouray area, this time traveling the Engineer Pass Road.
I had picked up some used luggage for The Griz, and so had extra space to store a raincoat, gloves, guide book, Canon camera, and a gas can as well as my cooler. Here I am at the start of the route which begins south of Ouray off Hwy 550:
Start of the Engineer Pass Road
About 3 miles up the road is this waterfall. (This photo is our current desktop.)
Engineer Pass waterfall
The other elements of a good trip, evidence of old mining activity and alpine flowers, are both represented in these next 2 photos:
Boilers at the San Juan Chief Mill near Mineral Point
Yellow asters (?) were bright spots along the trail
The day began clear, but – as usual – a chance of afternoon showers was in the forecast. I headed up the trail, stopping for photos of old mines, the waterfall, grazing domestic sheep, and just enjoying the mountain scenes. Fall colors are beginning to appear, a bit earlier than average but I was getting up to well over 12,000 feet in elevation, and the trees turn earlier at the higher elevations.
At the top: Engineer Pass
Pam asked me a question: Why do you enjoy these outings so much? In truth, it is a question difficult to answer.
I have always liked history and mechanical devices. (Just look at my toys!) Both are combined in the mining history of Colorado. The mid-1800s into the early 1900s was a dynamic time for the west, including Colorado, with road building, mining, towns forming, railroads being built. The ingenuity, hard work, and sometimes just plain luck these early pioneers exhibited makes me stop and think about how we got to where we are today.
Then again, maybe it’s just sitting with my back against an old wall, looking at the mountains across a wide valley, munching an apple, and enjoying the warm sunlight on my face.
My Dad loved the mountains, and one of my earliest memories is of a framed photo of Mt. Shasta, California. (I was born in the town of Mt. Shasta that sits in the mountain’s shadow.) This photo hung in every house we lived in, and is one of the few items I would like to get from my parent’s estate. Mt. Shasta is a snow-covered peak in northern California. Was mountain living imprinted on me when I was born? Pam is more comfortable near water. Perhaps it is not a coincidence; she was born near a river and grew up along the Mississippi.
In any event, I enjoy these outings a great deal, and hope to have many more of them.
Here is a link to my Engineer Mountain gallery. I hope you take a look at it. 31 photos in all.
That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!