August Trail Run / Meeting

billb596 · 07-30-09, 06:04 PM

Greetings all,

Our next run/meeting will be to the magical lands of Ouray! This will be another single day/overnight run depending what you can do.
The dates will be the 22nd and the 23rd. We will be meeting in Ouray at 11am in the City of Ouray at the pool, we will be leaving town at 11:15 for the trails. I think some of us will be heading up Friday night, if your interested in this let me know.

This will be our August meeting and also a great chance to get together to see some beautiful scenery. Most of the trails are rated moderate

with the biggest threat being a very loooong drop to the bottom!

If anyone has any questions, thoughts or suggestions please let me know.

Alan "Ace" Brown · 07-30-09, 11:02 PM

Ouray again? I just spent two weeks there

. I know, poor, poor me. I would like to go again but not sure where I will be in 3 weeks. I would be more likely to show up if we could arrange some boondock camping in the high country. In all the trails I drove up there I saw very few places that allowed dispersed camping. I did see a few tents set up on California Gulch trail but suspect they may have been illegal.

Alan

84cruzer · 08-04-09, 09:57 PM

Just spent 4 days cruising the area "breathtaking" I might try to make the run on Sat, have to go to Denver Sun and pick up the

at the airport.

Enjoy the pictures!!

billb596 · 08-05-09, 03:14 PM

The plan I had was to camp somewhere in the "High Country" no staying in Ouray. Folks can surly stay in Ouray as an option but like I said I was planning on primitive camping.

LOVE the shots you sent in they look amazing. Would love to see you there if you could make it.

Alan "Ace" Brown · 08-10-09, 03:29 PM

I was exploring a road that starts near the Imogene pass trailhead and came out to a beautiful high alpine lake in Silver basin. It is actually a county road but a pretty difficult one, harder than Imogene Pass Road. I did not stay and look around because it was just getting dark and the one guy who was camping there did not seem to like company. There had been a wedding there the previous week..... it's that pretty!

Ace

Alan "Ace" Brown · 08-21-09, 02:56 PM

Is anyone going to be camping in the Ouray area Friday night? I am in Cedaredge at present and undecied about when I will head to Ouray. There was some discussion of camping along the way but with nothing posted here.......?

Ace

billb596 · 08-21-09, 05:10 PM

Ok I am all sure you have heard the saying "The Best Plans" well this is the case for us this weekend. The trip is still a "GO" but a few modifications. I will be in Ouray at the "Ouray Pool" at around Noon (12:00 PM). There is a group that would like to join us for the Sunday portion so here is what I have come up with in my thought process.

We will meet up at noon at the pool in Ouray and be heading out on the trail by 12:30. From there we have a few options that we can discuss when we meet up but here is what I was thinking:
Ouray to Engineer Pass
Engineer Pass to the North Fork Cutoff
North Fork Cutoff to Animas Forks Ghost Town area.
Somewhere up in the high country we will camp out for the night on National Forest Service land (I call the Ouray office and they said as long as its not marked we can camp).

The on Sunday morning we will head out and run some trails into Silverton where we will meet up with the group joining us. I am planning on this being at 11:00 am. From there we will do "Black Bear Pass" into Telluride.

Like I said this is open to discussion but that is the initial plan. Please shoot me an e-mail back if you plan on attending so I have a better idea.

Alan "Ace" Brown · 08-24-09, 02:27 PM

We had an enjoyable and interesting trip but where was everybody? Bill and is boy Matt in their 80, Doug and his wife Susie in their FJC and myself in my FJC showed up Saturday and ran Upper Camp Bird Road to the turn off to Silver Basin (described above) where we camped for the night. Well except Doug/Susie, they had to get back. The beautiful alpine lake I described before was just a little pond. Apparently w/o snowmelt to feed it it quickly dried up. But the basin and view to the valley below were still incredable views. At least until the t-storm hit. Mostly it was the wind that caused us problems. I had tied my tarp to a wedding trellis (a mini-tower of saplings) which the wind blew over on top of me durring the night!

Sunday we ran the difficult trail Poukeepsie and came out through Corkscrew. The former was pretty darn challenging. It had fixed winch points on one wall climb and we both used them. There was a big sign at the start "for expert drivers only", so if anyone asks Bill and I are now experts.

It was a good trip but I really wish we could have had more members to share the fun. Maybe next time.

Alan

billb596 · 10-27-09, 08:17 PM

What an amazing place Ouray is. There ended up being three of us on the run the 1st day and then two of us spent the night at about 11,700 ft. It was an awesome trip and Alan is now an official "EXPERT" trail rated leader!!

Enjoy the pics:

Alan "Ace" Brown · 10-29-09, 07:04 PM

In the photo above by Bill (great shots) you will note I had a tarp tied between my FJ and a wedding trellis. Well, the wind got up hard during the middle of the night pulling the trellis down on top me..... ouch!!

Nice trip otherwise, but where was everybody?

Alan