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 use low/2nd gears a lot), but is very passable.
Vivid fall foliage on display. Yes, the colors really are that amazing. I adjusted the exposure slightly in post-processing, but that is the original color from the camera.
Detail of the aspen stands along Owl Creek Pass. As I detailed on my Day 3 blog post, make sure to ditch the wide-angle lens at times and switch to the telephoto/zoom lens to get really good detail of distant landscapes. This was taken using 105 mm focal length. Unfortunately I had the aperture set a bit low at f/5, but I still like how this photo turned out.
Noah and Curtis surveying the pass.
I had first heard about Owl Creek Pass from Roger Edwards, a forecaster at the Storm Prediction Center who posted a photo taken in this area. We did not go through the exact spot his photo was taken, but I was intrigued. I think Curtis was also familiar with the spot. But while at first it was just "another" scenic drive, there was something that quickly caught my attention when researching this area. A very famous movie scene was filmed near the summit of Owl Creek Pass: the shootout in the meadow from the 1969 western classic True Grit starring John Wayne. Once I found out about this, I had to visit the pass. This was just the cherry on top for what was already a beautiful drive. You can't miss the meadow, it's a large clearing on the left when getting near the top of the pass, but the latitude and longitude is 38° 09' 44.7" N 107° 34' 08.0" W. Special thanks to the Colorado Vibes blog for more details about this location, and other filming locations from True Grit.
The famous shootout in the meadow scene from True Grit (even though the "statute of limitations" should have passed for a movie released in 1969... spoiler alert!).
Panorama of the meadow.
In addition to just being a great piece of movie history, the location was very beautiful.
Chimney Peak and Courthouse Mountain (which can be seen in the background of the movie scene) tower over the meadow.
After reaching the top of the pass, we turned around and went down into the town of Ouray (pronounced like "yer-AY", where the first syllable rhymes with "cure"). We had a quick lunch at Fellin Park (the big open green area on the north side of town just south of the hot springs), then hiked a portion of the Perimeter Trail from near the hot springs to Cascade Falls. As an aside, I visited the hot springs on a different road trip in Summer 2019. The hot springs are really just a public pool that is fed by hot springs, so while in my opinion, it isn't anything overly special, it is a great spot to soak after a long day (or several days) of hiking. They also have showers and locker rooms available. At any rate, we only did a small portion of the Perimeter Trail (one of these days, I'm going to hike the entire loop!) which offers great views of the town and ends up at a waterfall. This waterfall can dry up during particularly dry spells, but I have lucked out in both of my visits to the falls. In Summer 2019, Colorado was coming out of one of the snowiest winters in recent memory, so the falls were roaring. In Fall 2020, it had been generally dry, but an early season snowstorm in early September had "recharged" the falls.
View of Ouray from the Perimeter Trail
Cascade Falls in Summer 2019 after an exceptionally snowy winter.
Cascade Falls in Summer 2019.
You can sit behind the falls by walking along a rocky ledge. It's a bit tricky and requires being on all fours, but it's doable. The view is definitely worth it. This photo was also taken Summer 2019.
We wrapped up our day by getting a beer at the Ouray Brewery, which I highly recommend. I visited for the first time in Summer 2019, so we wanted to go back this year. This time around, we only got beer, but the food is also excellent. The best part is the wonderful rooftop patio. As for the beer, I'm partial to the Camp Bird Blonde, but depending on your beer tastes, I'm sure they have something anyone would enjoy. A friend on the trip sampled a couple different ones and liked them all.
Ouray Brewery on U.S. 550.
View from the rooftop patio at Ouray Brewery (photo taken in Summer 2019). If there weren't so many awesome places to hike, I could sit up here all day.
The Camp Bird Blonde on the right (and water on the left). Love the glasses!
Tomorrow, we make the trek over to Telluride to see some of the finest fall colors of the trip.
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
As of the 10 a.m. CDT advisory, Tropical Storm Barry has maximum sustained winds of 65 mph and minimum pressure of 998 mb. This represents an increase in winds of 15 mph, and a drop in pressure of 7 mb since this time yesterday. Manual surface analysis valid at 10 a.m. CDT Friday showing Tropical Storm Barry. The forecast has not changed that dramatically during the last 24 hours. The official forecast track continues to bring the center of Barry near the Louisiana coast in the vicinity of Morgan City on Saturday morning as a category one hurricane. After landfall, the center should track roughly along the U.S. 90 corridor, bringing it near or just east of Lafayette, then into Central Louisiana. Barry should weaken after making landfall. NHC Official Forecast Track issued at 10 a.m. CDT Friday. The main concern with Barry continues to be rainfall. The slow-moving nature of Barry, combined with already wet soil conditions and high rivers in South Louisiana will result in a v
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