550 To Montrose

Last year we drove Highway 550 from Silverton to Ouray with an audio tour and learned a lot of news about the Million Dollar Highway.

No guard rails, plunging canyons and forty minutes of winding summer driving. We took considerably longer last year: 

https://conchscooter.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-million-dollar-highway.html?m=0

This year we were in a mission to get to the Ram dealer in Montrose who was going to take care of a factory recall for our Promaster. Layne stayed in bed quite possibly the first person to try to sleep through the spectacular twists and turns at high altitude. 
The highway got its name for some reason lost in history. Some say it was the expense of building it which seems the most likely to me. In the early twentieth century it was a toll road to offset that cost of construction. 

Mining and logging have given way to tourism and we get to drive the  Million Dollar Highway for fun not profit. Another story is that a sceptic on hearing that a road was to be built in the impossible canyons remarked that you couldn’t body him a million bucks to drive such a dangerous route. 

Guard rails are scare as winter plows need to push the snow over the edge to get it off the road. Something would have to be seriously wrong with my life if you were ever to find me driving this area in winter. 

Eight in the morning in Ouray (pronounced like Hooray Henry with a silent “h”) and the town was stirring before the sun protested the valley. I had places to go. 

The excitement ends shortly after Ouray as the road flattens and straightens to cross the 6,000 foot high plateau to Montrose home of the expensive and very effective Cactus Car Wash. $12 later on our American Express card (=Hilton Points) the weekend dust was gone. 

All that remained was to remove the interior dust after our transmission got electronically updated at Flower Motor Center, Jeep Fiat Chrysler Ram dealer on the north end of town. James took care of us promptly and let us fill our water tank from a spigot after my shameless wife asked permission. I was far too shy. 

We picked up some Asian food to go from an  unprepossesing shack that made superb Nepalese food of all things and after loading a few fresh groceries made for the hills. 

7900 foot altitude camp site on free BLM land outside the entrance to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. Layne looked around and pronouncers we could stay here a few days.

Last year we spent a night here after visiting the park and this year we have a couple of weeks before visiting friends in Chicago so a few days doing not much seems suitable on this spot.

I’d like to see Aspen, Leadville and Boulder before we make the trek to the Windy City but in retirement plans are suggestions not requirements. Just as I like it.

A Dusty Weekend

Oh well, we said, it’s time the van got a deep clean anyway.  

Coming and going Saturday and Sunday they raised dust clouds. Cars drove by from sunrise till midnight many at speed raising dust storms as they rushed to find serene wilderness at the bend of the roughly graded gravel road, number 585 to Ice Lake Trailhead. 

And yet our spot alongside the road was lovely. We kept the windows closed. 

We have discovered the San Juan National Forest just outside Silverton is extremely popular and justifiably so. 

This was one of the last summer weekends families could get out here before school and Fall close in and they took advantage with campers filling campgrounds and roof top tents and ground tents and Jeeps and trucks and mini vans rushing up and down the dirt road. 

An altitude of 9400 feet didn’t slow Rusty down, but for me altitude is something I seen to be slow to adjust to. We’ve been camping above 8,000 feet for a couple of weeks and I still get breathless walking uphill. Not Rusty. 

He seemed to enjoy the views as much as I did. 

I watched the freezing cold water rush through the valley and I wondered about the desert dwellers to the south, hot and dry and dusty. 

I don’t miss motorcycling but what I do miss is the innocence I had before my accident. Riding dirt on a heavy cruiser with no helmet gloves or jacket…. That will hurt. And it’s a shame I can’t see the joy and the carefree ride any more. 

We put our table and chairs among the aspens and  watched the sun cross the cloudless blue sky. 

Almost cloudless. 

At night the cars kept coming and going. I was half inclined to leave and get closer to our appointment in Montrose 90 minutes north in a less dusty place. Layne liked it here so I ignored the cars and ignored the dust and while Layne amused herself cooking I walked Rusty and read and watched the aspens shimmer. 

The weather we have pursued this long hot summer has stayed true to altitude, hot near ninety in the afternoon and cool at night such that we need blankets. Our last morning here at 9400 feet when I turned the engine on at 7 am to start the drive to the Ram dealer in Montrose the dashboard thermometer read 35 degrees. 

Most pull outs along the road were taken, and popular they are for people with cars who could set up their camp tents away from the road. I had to pull out our Go Treads, folding sand planks for use if we get stuck that do double duty as leveling blocks on a slope. They worked perfectly. 

Rusty wanted to walk the road for reasons known only to himself so I took advantage to photograph the washboard created by fast driving in loose soil. It wreaks havoc on vehicle suspension. 

I first met washboard riding a motorcycle in West Africa in 1979 and I was told the way to handle it is to get up to 50 miles an hour and the bone jarring bumps fade away. They do but it takes fearless determination and a long open road to get that fast on this stuff. The local off roaders preferred to bounce their trucks to death. 

I felt fortunate that we had nowhere to go and no deadline to go home. In the evening Rusty would collapse on his bed. As Layne made dinner a slow dusk fell outside accompanied by cooling temperatures, from the back of the van came the sounds of crunching from the slowest eater in the world on his bed. We had salad and some wild creation from the chef, eggplant sort of Parmesan, breakfast for dinner with egg in the hole or a towering impossible burger, the best meatless meat I’ve had and we aren’t vegetarians.

I’ve been hacking along through the history of the Mormons attempting to create an independent nation in the west and the slow moving efforts of the US army to put down the insurrection. They traveled nine miles a day with their ox carts on their way to Utah. And were constantly starving and freezing on their road to suppressing an insurrection on the orders of Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War in 1857. History is packed with irony. 

I look at GANNET2 and once again think how lucky I am. 

Mancos

A small slice of life hidden away in southern Colorado. 

A town of a few thousand people, a pretty historic district and a stream running through it. 

Mancos Valley is devoted to agriculture and, who knew, apples are a famous crop around here. Like everyone else when I hear apple orchards spoken of, my thoughts turn to Washington State and British Columbia just to the north. 

Mancos is named for an early resident of the area, a Spaniard who fell in the river and suffered an injury that led to the amputation of his arm. In Spanish “manco” means “one armed” so Mancos means town of the one armed people. Look it up for yourself but I wouldn’t lie about history no matter how daft it sounds.  

I think of the great good fortune early arrivals had in these places and the permission they gave themselves to name their communities and that’s the best they could come up with? One legged motorcyclist in the one armed town: 

We stopped at the Fenceline Cidery, a lovely outdoor space and Rusty friendly and met this guy Don who started chatting and when I asked what he was ordering told me he liked to mix two ciders in one glass and offered me a taste! Then bought Layne and I our drinks! Our dogs were wagging their tails together as we sipped our pink drinks. 

Mancos the small town, rather lovely at least in summer. I don’t think winter would suit me. 

Then back to our boondock in the woods fifteen minutes outside town.