Day Trips - Telluride and Silverton

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We’ve wanted to get to Telluride and figure this will be our closest stop in Colorado. It’s about an hour long drive so we head out early on Sunday morning so we can spend the better part of the day exploring the area. The town is actually in a valley surrounded by mountains on three sides, so there is only one road in and out. We understand parking can be a big problem in town, but they have a creative solution to allow visitors without the need for cars. A gondola service runs between Station Mountain Village where there is a free parking garage and Telluride. There are two intermediate stations along the way to allow access to some of the nearby trails, shops and sightseeing. But possibly the most unexpected aspect of the gondola service is the price - it’s free! Here’s a teaser photo of the view up top.

We get into the parking garage without problem and walk over to the Station Village Parking terminal. There are lines for either pedestrians or cyclists. Each gondola car has racks for two bikes. We don’t have to wait to jump into the next car. These are nice enclosed cars and have plenty of room with very large windows to look out of on the ride. The surprising thing is how fast the cars move. We jump on a fully stopped car, slowly go thru the terminal as the doors automatically close and as we leave the terminal, the thing accelerates to 11 MPH almost instantly. It’s a rather exhilarating feeling, not quite roller coaster speed but still impressive. The first segment of the ride is only about 1/2 mile and only goes up 350 feet. We get off at Station Mountain Village to look around.

View Out Gondola Car

Bike Racks

Looking Back Where We Were

We didn’t stay too long since we have a goal to check out some hiking trail up at the mid-mountain stop at St Sophia. We hop back on a car for the next part of the ride. This 3/4 mile section gains nearly 1000 feet for about a 25% slope. As we quickly rise above Mountain Village, the views become even more breathtaking. At the San Sophia Station, you can either get off or stay aboard for the ride down into Telluride. We jump off and head out to check the views.

Gaining Elevation Fast

View from Up Top

In the perfect world, we would have tried to do what everyone says is the most scenic trail from this point - the See Forever Trail. Unfortunately, there is some sort of construction going on with the trail or near it so this trail is closed. There are lots of signs and orange construction fencing to keep people out. We knew this was going to be the case so we have an alternative plan. We asked around and were told the Prospect Trail was open and nice. They pointed us in the general direction and we headed out. The gondola station is at 10,500 feet and our destination is up a dirt road past the closed trail. We went past a smaller ski lift station that was converted into its summer mountain biking mode and there were lots of cyclists coming and going in all different directions.

Ski (Bike) Lift

Cyclists Head Out

As we continued on, we realized this “trail” was simply a gravel road. It might be an excellent trail for skiing in a few months but it wasn’t what we were hoping for in terms of a hike. The trail system on top of the mountain is rather confusing. Some trails are for mountain biking only. Others allow biking and hiking while others are only hiking. Plus there are all these labeled ski runs that aren’t working for us. We saw a group of ten people walking in the woods just on the other side of a retention pond. They all had harnesses and helmets and thought they might be heading to do some rock climbing but then we figured out they were part of a zip line group. We watched them for a short time as they sped off down their course.

We realized that there must be some sort of hiking trail in the woods so we head in that general direction and find a single track trail. From what we could tell, we were allowed to hike this trail so we set off. A biking trail was nearby and we could hear cyclists going by from time to time. A bit further down the trail we saw where the mountain bikers go up and over a wooden bridge to avoid intersecting our trail. We got to another trail intersection point and decided to just turn around since we were unsure how to get back without backtracking. We head back towards the San Sophia Station and had our lunch at a picnic table overlooking Telluride.

Mountain Biking Overpass

Our Turn Around Point

Overlooking Telluride

We enter the station and line up to head into town. At this station, passengers coming from Mountain Village can stay in their gondola and continue on into town so we need to wait a couple cars to get aboard. The ride into town is just over a mile but drops nearly 1800 feet - a whopping 29% slope. As we approach the Telluride station, it feels like we won’t slow down to a stop but we do and walk into town. We hadn’t really scoped out what to see or do here but we used a couple of geocaches to gives us a brief tour. One stop was at a “Galloping Goose” train car. We had seen another one of these at the museum Golden Colorado but this one was in a small park and had a platform to look inside. We walked some of the streets and did some window shopping. It looks like a cute little mountain town. Although probably a very expensive one!

Gondola Station in Telluride

Another Galloping Goose

Inside the Goose

Downtown View in Telluride

Old Stone Bank

We had read that Bear Creek Trail, on the south side of town, was a really good one. We weren’t sure if we were up for a 5.1 mile out and back hike with almost 1100 feet of elevation gain, but we decided to give it a try. The trail is really wide and quite rocky at points but is a fairly gradual slope so not too bad. Initially there are some views into town.

Heading Up Bear Creek Trail

View of Town from Trail

Pretty View

It was a fairly busy trail but not too crowded and since it is so wide, even when we meet up with other groups it isn’t a problem. As we get higher in elevation the views start to improve even more. At about the 2 mile point we can see the end goal - Bear Creek Falls. Chris decides that she should consider this her turnaround point since technically she saw the falls. I push on remaining half mile to the 80 foot falls. The last few hundred feet is up a narrow and steep single track. It wasn’t easy going especially since it’s just under the 10,000 foot point in elevation. The falls were pretty nice and my timing was good since there was only one other person up here when I arrived.

View Across Valley

View Down the Valley

Bear Creek Falls

Worth the Effort

I head back down, find Chris waiting patiently and we head back into town. We debated about stopping for a bite or a beer, but realized we still had to take the gondola back to the car and then still drive home, so we opted to simply eat one of our snacks we had along and head out. We didn’t have to wait long to get an empty car and we simply stayed put as we passed thru the San Sophia station. At Mountain Village, there was a bit larger crowd so we needed to share the ride to the parking area with another couple. We grabbed something else to drink from the small store near the parking garage and enjoyed a pretty drive back to Ridgway. Quite the fun day, it would be fun to have more days to come back for further exploration.

We were still hunting for a new car to tow behind the motorhome. By this point we have narrowed down the options to three different trim levels of the Jeep Grand Cherokee. And we have gotten pretty proficient at using the “build your own” tool and finding what inventory there is on dealer lots in Colorado. We have an idea of what option packages we would like to have and what colors we prefer. If we were willing to drive back across the Rockies to the Denver or Colorado Springs area, there were lots of potential options. But on the western side of the state where we are at, the selection is a bit more limited. There were two on a dealer lot up in Grand Junction where we would be heading in a couple days and another possibility in Durango. I start to seriously wash and wax the current Jeep so it looks presentable if we come upon a new car.

View from Town of Ridgway

For our last day at Ridgway State Park, we decide to head south again along the Million Dollar Highway. Since we had already visited the town of Ouray, we just drive thru and continue south. It is an incredibly beautiful drive and as I’ve mentioned before, it’s the route we took on our cross country bike ride. We had reviewed the scrapbook with pictures from this part of the trip so we knew which areas we wanted to stop at. The Red Mountains were the first stop south of Ouray. We remember being amazed with the series of red mountains as we biked by 31 years ago and they are still looking good. There is an overlook parking area near one of the old mines that is undergoing environmental remediation to help get vegetation growing again.

Red Mountain

Old Mine Site

Continuing south, we pass thru Silverton. We skip going into town on this leg of the trip but will stop on the return leg.

Overlooking Silverton

Nearby Peak

The next stop along the route is Molas Pass. There is a large parking area with a walk to an overlook. The views from here are pretty nice too. We can actually see a light dusting of snow on the mountains to the east. Hmmm, maybe we should consider moving to lower elevations before the snow reaches us.

View from Molas Pass

Snow on Peaks

We end up driving down into Durango to check out the Grand Cherokee Trailhawk the local dealer supposedly has on their lot. We spot the car and a salesman spots us. We chat for a long time and he opens it up so we can look it over more thoroughly. We have really been torn between the Trailhawk and Overland models. The former has better off road capabilities while the latter has more creature comforts. We ask him about the process for ordering a new one exactly like we want. He tells us about two Grand Cherokees ordered a day apart, one took 3 months to arrive while the other took 9 months! And he wasn’t able to tell the two customers when to expect their car to be delivered ahead of time. Since we don’t stay in one place for this length of time, ordering one, even if we wait until we are in Arizona for the winter won’t work out. This one likely could have worked out but we purposely didn’t bring along our title and we were leaving the following morning to head even further away from Durango. Having just driven the Jeep on the Million Dollar Highway, I knew I didn’t want to change our reservations and head to Durango with the motorhome. We thank him for the information and head back north.

We had noticed something odd on our drive into Durango so we stopped by to see what it was on our drive back. Pinkerton Hot Springs is only 50 feet off the road. There is a good sized parking area to pull over. The large hot springs draws a crowd. Back in the late 1800’s a bath house was constructed near the spring and people would come to soak. Even today, there were a few people relaxing in the warm pool just below the spring. We opt to stay dry. We head further north and pull over to get a picture of Engineer Mountain. We had stopped 31 years ago simply based on the name and both of us being engineers.

Pinkerton Hot Springs

Engineer Mountain

When we got back to Silverton, we stopped to look around town. It is an old mining town that has survived over the years. Today it is possibly visited most by those taking a ride on the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. It sounds like a really scenic ride but does take a full day, which we don’t have. We wander the streets and find a geocache along the way. There are definitely some very nice old buildings in town and likely some good hiking in the nearby mountains. We will settle for just a brief visit.

County Office Building

Silverton City Hall

Interesting Place

Our 10 nights in Ridgway State Park seems to have flown by. We could have spent more time here but have a reservation for another state park up in Fruita near Colorado National Monument - more on that in the next post.