We are at the end of the road at the top of the mountain. It's the only place in the park where there is any cell. We have decided to stay one more day because I want to hike down to the river. Jenny is using something she calls "good judgment" and has decided not to accompany me. Here are some of the pics from today's hike.
Today's drive pretty much followed the Gunnison river. We are camped on the edge of a 2000 foot deep canyon that the Gunnison river has gouged out over the Last few years (+ or - a few hundred million) we are on the south rim in a site with electricity only. The scenery is breathtaking. We will be here 2 nights. Our WiFi is weak here and I can't post any pics. I'll try tomorrow.
We drove with Hal uphill for about 30 minutes to the town of Crested Butte. He lived here for several years and owned some properties here. We played 9 holes of disk golf, ate lunch with one of his old friends and then drove down the mountain and visited with another of his friends who lives on the Gunnison river. The mountain above the city is Crested Butte, the cities namesake. We leave tomorrow and plan on visiting The Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP.
Hal took us up to visit his property in the mountains this morning. We were at 9200 feet and there were a few patches of snow. We returned to Gunnison and attempted to positively affect it's economy. Tomorrow we will drive to Crested Butte and I can only assume it's economy will be equally effected.
Today's drive took us over the continental divide. We chose Monarch Pass (11,312 feet) we disconnected the MP from the Forester before the climb because we weren't sure how hard it was going to be. It was snowing at the summit but both vehicles performed admirably. We linked up with our MacArthur HS friend (Hal Vagtborg) and had a good visit. We will spend the day with him tomorrow. He has some property near Crested Butte that we are going to visit.
We had enough rain last night and this morning that we were unable to get to the trailhead for our mountain climbing hike. I did put on my rain suit and rode my bike but Jenny has only briefly stepped outside. Tomorrow we go to Gunnison Colorado to visit with a high school friend who lives there. We are beginning to think about our turnaround. These pics were taken from the MP window and from behind our camp.
We hiked down the last rim to river trail this morning. We have now hiked all 5 of them, plus the entire river side trail plus several others on the rim. If the weather holds we will climb a mountain tomorrow and then we will have pretty much done this park. Today, near the river, we found another area with petroglyphs, we visited a very robust spring and we were awed by the class 5 whitewater. My very active day ended with a bike ride.
