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Colorado Fall 2020: Day 4 (Exploring Ouray)

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For the next two nights of the trip, we would stay at Ridgway State Park , which has quickly become one of my all-time favorite places to camp. Not only is it just a great campground, but you have excellent access to the northern San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado. On Day 4 of the trip, we would explore the town of Ouray and its immediate vicinity. We started off the day by driving up Owl Creek Pass. Owl Creek Pass is accessed by Ouray County Road 8 which intersects U.S. Highway 550 very near Ridgway State Park. The road is unpaved, but well-maintained (at least during the summer... I cannot speak to it in the winter), and we had no problem driving a Nissan Armada up the pass (in fact, we saw a few sedans). The views did not disappoint as the fall foliage in the San Juans was very near peak! Ascending Owl Creek Pass. The road offers numerous easy turnouts to take in the views. Ouray County Road 8 in Owl Creek Pass. The road gets narrow and steep at times (prepare to go slow and u
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Colorado Fall 2020: Day 3 (Crested Butte to Ridgway)

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Picking back up where we left off, it was very cold the morning we were in Crested Butte. The car thermometer said 24 F, and I would have to guess it was at least that cold. It certainly rivaled the 16 F morning I experienced camping at Devil's Den State Park in northwest Arkansas in 2018. The problem this time though was that in the Arkansas experience, we were anticipating the extreme cold, and everyone was well-prepared. This time, it was colder than expected, and it was for one night of the trip, making it difficult to justify packing for extreme cold for one night. I basically prepared by wearing as many layers as I could, but absent thermal layers, wool socks, and extra blankets, it was still quite cold. But after a quick breakfast, we warmed up the car, and headed out. The main attraction this day was Kebler Pass between Crested Butte and Paonia. Kebler Pass is an unimproved road that goes through the West Elk Mountains, peaking at an elevation of 10,007 ft (3,050 m). While
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Colorado Fall 2020: Day 2 (Trinidad to Crested Butte)

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I am finally getting around to continuing where my series about the Colorado roadtrip left off. It's been a busy and hectic couple of months, but I finally have the time to write another entry. We left off at Trinidad Lake State Park. After getting a couple of items at the Wal-Mart in Trinidad, we headed north on Interstate 25 to Walsenburg. We got off the interstate at Walsenburg, refueled, and headed north on State Highway 69. This was a beautiful drive! Get ready for some slow speed limits as it was a narrow and winding road, but had beautiful views of the Wet Mountains to the east and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the west. The road reaches a summit at 8,579 ft when it crosses Promontory Divide on the border of Custer and Huerfano Counties. We then drove through Westcliffe which was a very quaint and picturesque community. I would have perhaps liked more time to stroll around the town (which I am told is a good base of operations for hiking in the Sangre de Cristo Range), b
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Colorado Fall 2020: Days 0-1 (Norman to Trinidad)

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Over the next several days, I will be chronicling a roadtrip through Colorado I took during the last week of September and first few days of October 2020. It had been a longtime "bucket list" item to see the aspens in Colorado during the fall, and I finally got to check this item off the list. It did not disappoint! The trip consisted of about seven days of camping and hiking in Colorado. While I reside in Fort Worth, the trip was "based" out of Norman where some friends and I met up. The purpose of this blog will be to recount some of the routes taken, sights seen, lessons learned, experiences that were had, and some of the challenges of a roadtrip amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. For this post, I start with "Day 0" as the day I drove from Fort Worth to Norman to prepare for the actual trip, as well as "Day 1" which is the drive out from Norman to Trinidad, Colorado. The dates covered here are September 25-26, 2020. The gang consisted of former Uni
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