8/27/22 Colorado Gunnison, Gothic

 Saturday, 8/27/22

We wake at 6:45 and decide to drive on and get some breakfast farther down the road.  

We are continuing north but have to go south a bit and over to the town of Alamosa before catching 17 North.  After getting back on the main road we run into HEAVY fog.

 We stop at a McDonalds in Alamosa for coffee and breakfast. Our usual breakfast sandwich meal is over $17 here!  We speak briefly with a man who is moving to Dennison, Texas to be near his son.

Still lots of fog for a while as we head north. The UFO Watchtower is along Rt 17, but doesn’t open till 10:00, so we just drive through.  Apparently it is set up by a woman who believes in extra-terrestrials.  She noted that this area of the country had lots of reports about UFO’s so decided this would be a good place to set up a watchtower.  Note:  there is a $10/night campground which seems might be a good stopover.

 Didn’t get the “tour”, so don’t know much else.  

We continue through mostly flat highway with occasional ranches and farms, to 17AA, a good dirt road, to 114 toward Gunnison.  The flatness quickly disappears as we cross mountains and go through Cochetta Canyon. This is a beautiful rocky canyon with photo ops around every curve between mileposts 25 and 15.  Just Wow!  We cross the Continental Divide where they have re-introduced lynx. That would be cool to see!

We’ve noticed that magpies - pretty big black and white birds - have replaced the crows that we had been seeing and hearing for the previous few days. 

We stop in Gunnison for their Farmer’s Market.  We had done this once before, and again we purchase a few Colorado peaches for the road. Delish!

There is a jam session going on in front of a guitar store near the market.

Taking 135, we next head to Crested Butte and, beyond it,  the ghost town of Gothic.  Crested Butte, and the almost adjacent Mount Crested Butte are busy and as a ski area it is filled with little shops, condos, hotels and restaurants.  One very prolific artist has created gleaming metal sculptures throughout town.  This dragon and knight is the first one we encounter!

We continue through town and onto Gothic Road, which becomes dirt a few miles outside of Mount Crested Butte. 

Nice scenery as we enter the West Elk Mountains. 

 We reach Gothic, which is NOT a ghost town.  After speaking with a lady at a small museum/store we find out that it WAS a ghost town for nearly 30 years in the late 1890s till 1928 when it was purchased by the Rocky Mountain Biological Research Laboratory (known as Rumble).   They actually use many of the original structures for housing and labs.  Greg and I decided they leave it listed as a Ghost Town to attract visitors who then learn about (and contribute, they hope) to their endeavors. They do a lot of studies on climate, pollinators and such.

Just a little further along the road there are several trailheads.  We decide to take the one to Judd Falls, a short 1/2 mile.  About a half mile later, after a steep climb, we find out the Falls are now 1/2 mile from THIS spot.  A few brave souls have driven the crazy, wicked road we walked!  Whew.  This 10,000’+ elevation is tough, especially on Beth! Down there is where we parked.

We soldier on and are rewarded.  The Falls were named for the man who remained in Gothic when it was abandoned. The Falls are sweet - probably much fuller in the Spring.

We decide to try Brushy Creek Dispersed Camping for tonight, up Washington Gulch Road.  This is high above the town of Mount Crested Butte.  It is the main ski area and is right next to Crested Butte.  It has many condos, lodges, etc. along with multi-million dollar homes and fabulous views!

We find the dispersed camping area which is partially filled, but chose a site and Greg manuevers to back in.  Beth is giving directions, and not doing very well at it, as we scrape the undercarriage on a small bank.  Something is torn loose and begins dragging as we head off, having given up on that site.  We have to stop and make repairs.  Thank goodness Greg is handy at this and has a tool kit with us that has the required clamps, zip ties, hammer, etc. that he needs.  A young man named CJ stops to help, thankfully.  

 We learn that he is from Texas!  He went to college up here and fell in love with it.  Tried working in Denver for a year or so, but says the city life just isn’t for him.  So he is back in the mountains, working on irrigation systems in good weather and snow removal in the winter months.  He showed us some mushrooms he was forraging for this morning. He reminds me of Matt's friend Wes Johnson, who also left Spring for Colorado.

Back together again, we find another easy access site #WG21 and stop for the day. We can spot a few elk high up on the mountain across from us and our neighbors say they just saw a bear up there, but we can’t find the bear.

  We do find a few cows later in the day and in the morning.  Free range cattle and sheep are common.  We will also find a place in the National Forest that grazes goats to help control unwanted plants. Not exactly the kind of wildlife I’m looking for...

Nice fire for the evening and picture post-card sunset. With all the mountains and canyons we rarely see the actual sun set, but clouds catch nice color reflections.