Grand Lake - Gunnison Journey Day 9

The day started well walking down to the Village Hub cafe where we enjoyed bagels and coffee on the veranda surrounded by locals coming and going. We even had the character wearing dungarees and tattoos and apparently nothing else who was heard to say, “My Daddy was a criminal but it weren’t his fault it’s how is was brought brought up.... but I’m proud of him anyway.”

We returned to Lone Eagle Lodge, packed and headed off, calling briefly at a supermarket where the girl on the till struck up conversation about she would like to go and work in the UK. We decided to abandon part of our original sketch route and not go to Boulder, Denver and Colorado Springs but work our way down the middle to the Rockies to rejoin the route later.

Initially, the Lakes and Mountains around were beautiful but soon the clouds and the rain that would come and go all day began.

I would call the Rockies soft old mountains, they are not the perky jagged French and Swiss Alps and with no snow caps or blue skies remain impressive but not dramatic. The only snow in evidence is old rifts where it must remain shaded and that has lost its whiteness. In this are just south of the National Park, there are a great number of trees that are brown, looking dead. It looks reminiscent of the acid rain damage shown in the Nordic countries. It does no spoil the views as the brown and green paint a more complex backdrop but it seems odd.

Flat bottomed valleys lie below heavily forested hillsides up to the tree line. We are driving at around 8000 ft so the tree line is not that far above us. I kept jumping out to keep the photo stock growing though with the weather as it is they may be very dull.

Approaching Leadville, we come across a young mother with her child in the back and a blown out and shredded tyre. Being somewhat cautious and considering the location and visibility we stop and change her wheel for her. Fortunately, the rain held off during this exercise.
At about 2 we are passing via Leadville and grab a Subway thinking we’ll eat it when we find a good view. It is much cooler today; other days we would not consider eating out as it has been just too hot. We wait before driving from Leadville as the rain hammers on the car bouncing high off the bonnet.
We climb higher again to above 11,000 ft over the Monarch Pass. At the top of this pass is the Continental Divide, the point from which water would flow to the Atlantic or the Pacific, the backbone of North America. This is rather Apt at tonight marks halfway through our journey in days travelling.

Dropping down West and toward the Pacific, we descend rapidly to around 8000 ft. The geology is such that on this side, the Rockies plateau at about this height so though you are still high enough to notice it in breathing the terrain seems like lowland with large flat valleys with poor quality grass growing in wetland conditions.

We have settled in for the night in Gunnison. Stopped about 6:30 which is early by previous days. We really needed to get some washing done and eat earlier than we have been doing. Also, stopping here means we get chance to look at the Black Canyon tomorrow which we would have missed if carrying on to Montrose.

Statistics: Miles today: 243 miles ; Miles so far: 2,801 ; Fuel added so far: 133 gals ; States: Colorado ; Time Zone: Mountain (UK -7)