Offroading in Ouray

We went over to Ridgeway to check out housing, buy diesel, and get my sunglasses that I had left at the bike store. 

We looked at this duplex that just came on the market, which is a foreclosure.  It is a 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath unit in really good condition for $154,900.  I wish we had a couple of people that would be interested in co-oping with this!  Lots of parking space in the front.  Any takers out there?  We will even buy the Jeep to leave here for everyone to use!

While in Ridgeway, we went to their little train museum, which was interesting.  This is a prison wagon that they used to haul our distant cousin, Jesse James, to the federal jail.  ha

After we left Ridgeway, we took an off-highway trip up to Yankee Boy Basin.  This is a shot of part of the shelf road up.  We were glad that the rock didn't fall on us, which happens sometimes, as you will see by the next picture.

Double click this picture and you can read the plaques.  The one on the left is for Jim Parker, a member of the Lone Star Jeep Club out of the Dallas area.  One year while the group was running this shelf road, a large boulder fell from above and killed Jim.  His wife was riding with him but wasn't injured.  After the collision, the Jeep veered sharp left into the side of the mountain and stalled out.  Had it gone to the right, it would have gone over the edge.

When we came to this spot, there was an elderly couple that we visited with.  Their 21 year old grandson was killed here 13 months ago.  He and some friends were here over July 4th last year and for some reason, their grandson jumped backwards while shooting fireworks and went over the edge.

Nice view.

And more.  Wow, what good photographers we are.  Of course Toni deems herself as the pro!

More of the same.

No comment necessary, but.................as Toni says, I like to talk so I have to say something, even if it is meaningless!

This is an old gold mine.  The old building was used for processing gold ore.  There is a lot of this in the entire region.

Lots of wildflowers.  (Toni took this one.)

I will say it again.  We like the Ouray area much better than Yellowstone.

Nice little stream that crossed the trail.

More of the Lord's handywork.

The road up here was really steep.  This is one of the better spots.  I actually had to use 4 wheel low and the old Dodge did a great job.  For you gearheads, 2000 rpm's in low, low only does 5 mph. 

Lots of these spots up here.

We are near the top here, at the end of the trail.  You can see the corner of a house that is for sale.  My goodness, the road to this point is long and treacherous!

I don't know whether we were going up or down here!  I think up.

I am pretty sure we were going down the mountain in this one.  Toni isn't much of a thrill seeker so this run is probably the last one we will make off-highway. 

A person doesn't have to have a highly modified vehicle to do most of the trails but you definitely need four wheel drive and high clearance.  The main drawback to our long wheelbase crew cab pickup is its length.  We had to do several switchbacks but they happened to be large ones and I didn't have to do any backing up to get around them.