san juan mountains

Saturday, June 14, 2014 The desert has been heating up recently and I've been looking to start getting up into the mountains soon. The first reports of roads opening up in the San Juan Mountains have been coming in, so I decided to head up towards Silverton and Ouray to see just how fast the...

Saturday, January 11, 2014 The Original Trip Report on ADVENTR.CO On Saturday, Diane and I drove down to Ouray for the annual Ice Festival. This is the third year in a row that I have gone to photograph the climbers and I always have a great time. Maybe next year I'll try my hand at a little...

Sunday, October 6, 2013 The Original Trip Report on ADVENTR.CO After another cold night in the San Juan Mountains camped below Whipple Mountain and high above the San Miguel River I was up before the sun and had my camp loaded in the Jeep while it was still dark. When darkness transitioned...

Saturday, October 5, 2013 The Original Trip Report on ADVENTR.CO After spending a cold night camping near Vista Point along Owl Creek Pass Road, I was up in the darkness taking down my camp. The temperature was in the upper teens, but surprisingly it didn't feel that cold when I got out of...

Friday, October 4, 2013 The Original Trip Report on ADVENTR.CO I left work on Friday and headed south to the San Juan Mountains near Ridgway to start my annual week-long October trip. Normally, I spend this week in the desert of southern Utah and northern Arizona, but this year I decided to...

Saturday, September 28, 2013 The Original Trip Report on ADVENTR.CO Getting out on the last weekend of September to check out the fall colors in Colorado is kind of a tradition of mine, and this year would be no different, even if the colors are a little behind this year. On Saturday, Kelly...

I recently spent a few days shooting wildflowers and mountains in the San Juan Range of Colorado. My original plan was to spend a few nights camped out at Ice Lakes Basin but due to the intense lightning storms that have been plaguing the area (and me being a bit intimidated by them) I decided...

I went with a small group from Grand Junction to hike up the almost 13ers near Ouray. The scree was pretty thick and made for very slow forward (up hill) progress. Three of us got to about 12,300 and decided to abort. Two others pressed on and made it to Red Mountain #2. Weather was PERFECT...

Last June I was in Telluride for a work trip and on a previous trip I had ridden their free bike park up at Mountain Village (includes a free gondola ride up to the top of the mountain if you can believe that!) I was talking to one of my co-workers about the trail conditions and he suggested an...

Saturday, January 12, 2013 The Original Trip Report on ADVENTR.CO On Saturday we battled the frigid temperatures to visit the annual Ouray Ice Festival. We check it out last year for the first time and had a lot of fun, so we made sure to return again this year. We arrived early and spent...

I think I'm a few trip reports behind, but I'm going to go ahead and post the most recent pictures. Over the long weekend of October 6, 2012, we headed out for a road trip of the Telluride/Silverton area of Colorado. After reading some TRs from IntrepidXJ I just wanted to get back in that...

Fall Colors 2012 Saturday & Sunday, September 29-30, 2012 The Original Trip Report on ADVENTR.CO This weekend Amanda and I went back down to the edge of the San Juan Mountains for one last weekend of photographing fall colors this year. We ended up spending most of our time along Owl Creek...

Saturday & Sunday, September 15-16, 2012 The Original Trip Report on ADVENTR.CO On Saturday morning Amanda and I got in the Jeep and drove south to the San Juan Mountains again. This weekend I was hoping to find some early fall color and had heard a few reports that there were already some...

Friday - Sunday, August 10-12, 2012 The Original Trip Report on ADVENTR.CO I had really wanted to go backpacking in the San Juan Mountains this weekend, but was unable to find anyone that was able to go with me. Since this would only be my third backpacking trip (first time in the...

We once lived near Sawpit, Co, about 15 miles down the canyon from Telluride. In the fall on 1996 I had an architectural design firm in Telluride, and on this bright sunny morning I had an important meeting in town at 9:30 am. At 7:30am I discovered that the only road into Telluride along the...

Saturday, July 7, 2012 The Original Trip Report on ADVENTR.CO This weekend we left home on Saturday morning and headed back up into the San Juan Mountains. I had received reports that the wildflowers were in full swing a few weeks early because of our dismal snowpack and dry spring, and I...

Saturday & Sunday, June 23-24, 2012 The Original Trip Report on ADVENTR.CO After spending a few hours in the morning at the Shavano Valley Petroglyph Park near Montrose, we continued driving into the San Juan Mountains to get out of the heat for the weekend. Shortly after crossing over Red...

Saturday & Sunday, June 16-17, 2012 The Original Trip Report on ADVENTR.CO Amanda has been wanting to get back into the mountains for a while, so that's where we went this weekend. Saturday morning we left the heat of the Grand Valley behind and drove up into the San Juan Mountains. Back in...

Sunday, January 8, 2012 On Sunday, Amanda and I headed down to watch the ice climbers at the Ouray Ice Festival. We have always wanted to go check it out, so it was nice to finally make it down there. I'm not a climber of any sorts (and have no interest in starting), but it was definitely...

The Great Western Expedition of 2011 capped off with Day One of the 24th Annual Ouray Jeep Jamboree. There were several trail options available to us: Imogene/Ophir, Imogene/Last Dollar Road, Yankee Boy Basin, Mineral Point/Corkscrew Pass, and Poughkeepsie Gulch. We signed up for Poughkeepsie...