Took a trip down to Silverton for the 4th weekend to visit with the folks.

Did some mild but beautiful 4wheel drive roads.

(Be patient, there's 15 pics.)

Animas Forks




Lots of snow still up there


Nearing the top of Engineer Pass


Descending Engineer Pass


Some old guy towing his buddies pickup over the pass, lol!


A friendly marmot


Casual cruising


Still some decent snow up on Cinnamon pass

 

Corkscrew Pass






The town of Silverton (Elevation 9318)


Silverton Train


My first attempt at capturing fireworks

 

Nice pictures, Great job at taking the photo of the fireworks.

 

Very cool shots! Well, that makes at least three of us YTers who went down there over the weekend. I only drove a couple of the passes. I would've done a couple more, but the traffic was nuts during the days as I'm sure you witnessed, especially around Silverton and Animas Forks.

 

Traffic was pretty crazy on those two main passes, made worse by the fact that Black Bear and Imogene weren't open.
Some of those ATVers were especially reckless.
I just took my time and enjoyed the view.

We overheard some people saying that there were around 10,000 ppl in Silverton for the 4th this year.
I was surprised at how much there was to do - parade down main, water fight, rubarb pies in the park, fly over from f-16s, bluegrass band from durango, and a great fireworks show!

 

Great pictures. I rode the silverton train when I was about 5 years old! (29 years ago)

 

thats what i was going to say shiftless, except it was only about 15 years ago for me

 

Wowzers!
Just what I needed before I go to bed. I was in Telluride in 2000 for the Bluegrass fest and we did some serious mtn bikingin the 'hills' and the sites are alway different and yet majestic.
Next year we are driving out and doin some wheeling if all goes as planned. I will have my 95 runner and Jed will have his T100 I live up near Lake tahoe(one hour from the Rubicon) Still Colorado you have the height and crisp beauty
AWESOME PICS!

 

Great pictures! I grew up in Durango and have spent alot of time 4wheeling, Mtnbiking hiking up in Silverton. Makes me homesick!

Robb

 

Hey Crux,

We're planning our Polaris Ranger Rally in this area next summer, and was wondering if you saw what would be a campground centrally located to the trails that has lots of rv sites and cabins where we could ride right from the campground(unlicensed vehicles).

Chris

P.S. If you don't remember I met you last year in Buena Vista. I was the one that had just moved out from TN in the little Ford Escape just along for the ride.

 

i love that light blue on the 3rd gen!

 

Just noticed this thread. We were down there that weekend. Awesome fireworks. Saw the likes of Dan Micks from Moab, the Expedition Exchange(?) Land Rover, among others.

We did Ophir & Imogene. Imogene was wet most of the way over, rain, rain...

We were still shell-shocked from doing a body recovery off Little Bear in the Blanca massif a couple of days before. Driving down from Blanca should have been fun but wasn't very.

You have to watch out for those "friendly" marmots! They'll eat the leather right off your boots if you leave them at the bottom of a rock. Or they might eat the back of your backpack right off to get the salt from your sweat that's in the fabric.

 

Awesome pics, thanks for sharing. Great pic of the fireworks. Been up there twice for the 4th of July, was denied Black Bear cos of snow bith times, and misse dthe fireworks both times due to spending too much time on Die tryin in Montrose...