Four-Wheeling in Southen Colorado, July 29, 2010

We have just returned to Lyons, Co from a 3-week stint of four-wheeling in our Jeep in Southern, CO. Our last posting showed pictures of some of the early days of our trip.

I never seemed to get fully acclimatized to the altitude. We were staying at South Fork, and later at Buena Vista at an altitude of 8,000 feet, plus. Most days we were trekking up mountain summits or passes, and eating lunch at altitudes

of 12, 000 to nearly 14,000

feet --- most days at

about 13, 000 feet. I certainly learned

that I will never be able to hike to these places, so four-wheeling is becoming a way to go to places, I would never be able to go to!

I used to worry that four-wheeling was not environmentally kind. While this is certainly true to some extent, in the west, out here, most of the four-wheel trails are up old roads to mines and ghost towns. The old mines are now revered landmarks, but for sure, the tailings, the acid streams, and hazardous holes in the ground are not

all that environmentally friendly either!

The first three photos are of a trip up Bristol Head, a flat topped mountain to the west of Creede. These lava cliffs are on the edge of a huge caldera. The first photo show our Jeeps climbing to the summit. The next of a man "watering"his dog. and the third photo of the surrounding countryside through a gap in the lava.

The next photo shows what is touted as a natural bridge. It is actually an eroded gap in a lava dike, that has risen above the surrounding countryside. The hard lava dyke has outlasted the softer rock, which it intrude eons ago, and which has eroded away.

From the South Fork-Creed area, we moved north to Buena Vista, where we met a new group of friends who like to four-wheel and who also own motor homes.

Buena Vista is the home of the Collegiate Peaks, a series of mountain peaks, many of which are named after Ivy League Colleges , and are over 14,000 feet high. Alas, there is no Mount Cornell.

One trip was up Mount Antero, which, although not named after an Ivy League School, is over 14,000 feet high. The picture of a group of Jeeps parked near a rock pile is at a point near the summit, but not quite there, and at just a few feet under 14,000. The actual summit can be reached by walking over a narrow ridge and making the final climb --- the point at the left of the next picture. In this picture, one can see Pike's Peak, the furthermost mountain --- looking a little hazy in the distance.

Another day we took an interesting ride over Mosquito Pass. This is an old toll road going between Leadville and Alma (Alma is a town near Fairplay.)

The old road goes up to over 13,000 feet, and it was cold up there with remains of many snow banks. We drove through what was the plowed- out portion of a snow drift showed in the next picture.

There were many beautiful flowers up at these high elevations. A picture of one collection of flowers in on a rocky ledge is shown in the next picture. The large white flower is a type of thistle with showy blossoms found at high altitudes. We are told they mostly come out in the evening, so we were lucky too see them. There were also an Alpine version of Spring Beauties, as well as many shades of Indian Paint Brush, and Colorado Columbines.

Aa we went down the other side of the pass, we found the picturesque remains of the London Mine. The final two pictures are of the mine.