Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Imogene and The Last Dollar

Another long but fun day on the trail.  We tackled Imogene, a trail that goes west, up and over a 13,140 foot pass and back down into Telluride.  It was cloudy most of the morning and sprinkled on us as we were stopping for lunch but then quit until we were ready to move on.  This trail had some very challenging parts over big rocks but overall it was a fun drive.

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We then drove over to Alta Lakes, Alta Mine and the Gold King Mine.  The first thing we saw in the lakes was a baby beaver swimming past us. This is a very pretty area.  We then drove over to the bowl that contained the Gold King Mine.  Not much left except for a few wooden structures over mine entrances.  There was no evidence in this area of the water leak that occurred several weeks ago.  The Alta Mine still had several structures standing.  At one time this was one of the largest mines in the area.  Gold King is also the mining company that first used alternating current to run it’s stamp mills.

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The Last Dollar trail cuts a few miles off of travel between Telluride and Ridgway but time wise it is a lot slower.  There are a lot of beautiful homes in this back country. After we had pulled back on the highway just outside of Ridgway a big black bear ran across the road in front of Bob & Cathy. They got pretty excited!

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