...and had another spectacular day!
Tomorrow (7/28) is my mother's birthday, so I treated her to brunch at the Fresh Fish Co. Sunday mornings are "All-you-can-eat buffet" featuring baked salmon, crab legs, and a whole bunch of other good stuff.
After that, I decided to drive us up to Argentine Pass. What a great drive! There is a whole bunch of trails around the Waldorf Mine trail. We drove around and explored most of the day around there. On the way back to the original trail. I pulled up next to a nice gentleman in a silver 4th gen who had just come down from Argentine. We chatted for a while and I referred him to YotaTech for lift info on his rig. After chatting with him, I thought "what the heck. Let's try Argentine." It's a very easy trail. It looks harder than it really is. At the top, we were greeted by a mountain goat and its young. Both became very curious as I was snapping pictures of the scenery. I had one eye looking through my view finder and one eye on the dark clouds moving it from the east. I turned around to see momma goat standing 15 feet from me. A little close for comfort. Not willing to go home with injuries received from a head-butt, I slowly walked to the driver's side of my truck and tapped the horn a few times. That made her put some distance between us. As I continued to snap pictures, I noticed something in the corner of my eye. I turned and saw a couple Pica. But these were no ordinary Pica. These were anti-sunflower seed Pica. I threw one seed, then two, then a hand full (several actually hitting the furry dope) and they paid no mind. Discouraged by their lack of civilized taste, I decided to take their pictures.

Unfortunately, the east side in not passable to motor vehicles unless you have the sudden urge to commit suicide. I walked about 50 feet, turned around and came back. It's VERY rocky and unstable and narrows from 7 feet wide to about 18". DeLorme lists it as a pack or mountain bike trail only. I wouldn't even mountain bike it!

You can see all my pictures
here. Be warned, the doc is image heavy!

EDIT: Updated link.

 

Great pics. I do not think I have been up
Argentine Pass.

I have one more Saturday to cut wood for
the winter and then the rest of my weekends
are mine to play in the mountains.

Glad you ahd a great trip.

 

Well Alan, I did get to make the trip up here on Sunday like I talked about. Life at 13,207' is grand! Turned out to be an awesome day and had nice clouds to add some depth. It was pretty cool, when I was going up the road on the upper section, a couple bikers were waiting for me to pass. As I went by, one of the guys said, "nice" as I passed, referring to the Runner! As I came back down and went by 'em again, he said, "That is dope!" just after I had passed. It's nice hearing that, especially from the biker crowd. I thought it was cool anyway.

Anyway, it is a real easy trail and the views speak for themselves. I also ran Mosquito and Weston Passes to cap the day off. Yep, the two highest passes in one day. Not a bad day's work!

Did you end up do Webster on Sunday? I haven't done any of those trails in that immediate area yet. I'll definitely have to fit them in before the snow comes. Those look to be fantastic.




Ruby Mountain above Horseshoe Basin


Grays and Torreys Peaks above Horseshoe Basin


Looking south


"This is your captain speaking . . ."

 

"...you'll note that we are on a 15° down angle. Please do not be alarmed."

Nice pictures, Darren! Looks like you had excellent weather. What were the temperatures like?
No, I didn't get up to Webster. Probably do that later this month.

 

Ha! Actually, all the passengers (me) handled the situation calmly and very well.

Yeah, it was good weather during the day. It was actually somewhat cool on Argentine, though I couldn't begin to guess the actual temp. Well okay, low 60's maybe without the breeze. Mosquito was even cooler by the time I arrived there.

Then on my way home through South Park, I ran right into a lighting show with pretty heavy rain. Every few seconds a bolt was doing its thing. It was fun to watch from a distance, but not when you're right in it.

No Webster for you, hey? Yeah, like I said I'm really looking forward to doing the ones in that area. In fact, every so often I have to view the crew's report from last years run in that area. Scott and Mike have some links to pictures in that thread here. That happened before my group riding days. I really hate missing those types of events anymore.

 

After reading a few threads on CO4x4, I'm kind of anxious to get back up to Red Cone again. Should we plan a weekend for Red Cone, Webster, Mosquito, etc?