Colorado, as with many other scenic mountain locations, carries a certain majesty that transports you body and soul to a different place. The mountains and valleys make you feel small. The narrow trails with loose rocks and cliff drop offs make you feel mortal. Whatever it is, you're going to feel something - it's impossible not to. I certainly understand the lure many of friends felt (and still feel) to permanently relocate themselves from the great plains of the midwest to the exciting, never-ending adventure of the mountains. While I feel like I've experienced too many of the downsides of them on this trip to ever share that sentiment, the mountains never fail to leave me with a sense of wonder and rejuvenation.
After the trials of the previous day, on Saturday the whole crew wakes up with gusto - ready to tackle the Bridge of Heaven trail. This trail is the end of the Ouray 100 course, so it seemed like a fitting hike for us to tackle as a group. It's difficult though... at least 8 miles round trip and it takes you up over 12k ft. One way to access the Bridge of Heaven is by driving to the Dexter Creek trailhead, from there, if you don't have 4WD, you have to have to park and cross a creek on foot and walk another mile or so to the Horsethief Trailhead - this supposedly adds another mile onto the already 8 mile hike.
We somehow managed to completely bungle the directions, though, and picked up the Dexter Creek trailhead instead. We realized pretty quickly that we were likely on the wrong trail, but it didn't really matter at this point because you can't really go wrong with trails in this area.
After the hike - oh so here's that creek we were supposed to cross...
That afternoon we picked up an early dinner at Timberline Deli (Dad requested the friend chicken), pit stopped at the liquor store and narrowly made it back before the afternoon storms rolled in. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening drinking and goofing around. I believe there was an epic Spoons tournament involved (Terry is ultimate Spoons champion), hehe. Later that night, the crew decides they want to go check out the distillery in town - KJ Wood Distillers. I had already had too much to drink at this point so I hung back with Andrew and Julianne. The distillery looked really nice though! You can get a sample flight of their spirits, as well as a small selection of cocktails. Afterwards they went to Goldbelt Bar and Grill for some late night pizza cravings. We were lucky that they saved three slices for us even though we didn't tag along in the fun. Very few things hit the spot like pizza at 10pm.
KJ Wood Distillers
We knew that we wanted to go to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park the following day. You need a wilderness permit if you want to hike into the canyon, though, so we called the ranger station before they closed this evening to see if it would be possible to secure some. Not a chance... Apparently (and we were halfway expecting this from things we read online), if you want to get a wilderness permit, your best bet is to line up in the afternoon for when they drop at 4:30 for the next day. Ouray is a good 1.5hrs from Gunnison south rim, so going a day in advance would have been kind of a drag. Fortunately, there are plenty of stunning hikes you can take along the canyon rim - you just aren't allowed to hike all the way down to the river.
The hikes along the south rim do not disappoint! We did the Oak Flat trail and the Canyon Rim trail - both are fairly easy and the views are spectacular. I've been wanting to go to the black canyon for years - ever since my family did it without me back in the day (might have been 2012? I was interning at the time and couldn't afford the time off to go).
This trail was the harder of the two, but it wasn't too bad at all! It takes you down into the canyon a bit with excellent views of the river and the inner canyon. There were a couple areas that were steep with loose rock, but nothing we couldn't handle at this point. Kristi did insist on going back to get those poles from the car though 😅
There was no shortage of stunning viewpoints like this one
Imagine hiking down to that river! It's a long way...
It's wild how you can see where it's raining off in the distance
This is from the Canyon Rim Trail - super easy stroll that rewards you with views like this every 10-15 ft - an absolute must-do if you're at the South Rim visitor center area
You can look down at the river from that rock I was sitting on
We all took turns taking pictures on this rock, lol - it's not nearly as dangerous as it looks
We had already been rained on several times during these two hikes, so we decide to head out for a bite to eat in the nearby town of Montrose. Unfortunately the restaurant we had picked was closed on Sundays, so we decided to go to Fiesta Guadalajara instead and what a fantastic choice that was! One of the best meals of the trip with huge plates of delicious Mexican comfort food and excellent margaritas. Also look at the size of Diana's cerveza!! This place was a winner.
Cheers to the best crew!
This evening was another silly night full of laughs, games of checkers, and pillow fights between myself and a ferocious velociraptor named Andrecito 😂 The next morning the Angel-Romero family left early in the morning to get to Colorado Springs before the highway 50 closures. Can I just say that highway closures due to mudslides (and other things) were a total theme on this trip. As luck would have it, a massive mudslide took out the entire eastbound direction of highway 70 - it actually made national news. But the only other east-west highway had a section that was closed most of the day due to construction! So Diana and Andres left early to make sure they got through that section before it's scheduled closure for the day. We found out later that because of the mudslide, they had decided to keep highway 50 open indefinitely while the mud gets cleaned off highway 70. Colorado is just too much sometimes... haha.
Diana and Andres also had another terrible drive as it rained in the mountains and a really intense fog set in making it really difficult to see.
The now-open construction area on Highway 50
Holy fog!
They made it safely to Colorado Springs where they spent some time at Pikes Peak, climbing 2768 some odd stairs at the Manitou incline, visiting Garden of the Gods, and riding gondolas to a mountain top merry-go-round and insane sky bridge at Royal Gorge. The rest of us took it easy - or so we planned. We embarked on our last journey to Cascade Falls which we were told was a very easy hike - the only problem is we decided to walk there from the airbnb rather than drive. Julianne and I weren't stoked on the half mile uphill on the Ouray roads, poor legs had had enough by this point (never mind Diana and her 2768 stairs, the ultra runners are in a different league, ok?!)
Cascade Falls trail
Always climbing waterfalls - if you can't feel the mist you aren't close enough
We are officially done hiking at this point! Well, except for Dad and Terry who split off to find the Bridge of Heaven trailhead in Ouray. Remember how I said we were supposed to pick up the Horsethief trail from the Dexter Creek trailhead parking lot? Well, there is a completely separate, alternate route to Bridge of Heaven that starts in Ouray - this is the course of the Ouray 100.
While they're off doing that, the rest of us head to town for some shopping and we all plan to meet up for a bite to eat at the Ouray Brewery later. A few hours, several souvenirs, a scoop of ice cream later, we learn that Dad and Terry came back from from the hike after turning back before getting to the Bridge of Heaven. I'm not sure if they actually intended to go the full way or just experience more of the course that Dad unfortunately didn't get to see. I believe it's a full 10mi round trip if you go to entire route, and some parts of the trail sounded quite difficult and even requiring you to crawl and some points. Can't imagine doing that when you're already 90 miles in... But I digress (I can't imagine having done 90 miles in the first place so... haha). So alas the title of this blog as the Bridge of Heaven remains elusive.
We were so fortunate to get a table for seven on the rooftop of the brewery! You don't get table service on the roof, but it's really easy to go up to the bar and order beer or food to your tab. This place is great - this time we got the elote dip (yeah that's right... why didn't we ever think to eat our elotes with chips before?!) and I got a southwest style salad with fried chicken (yum) and as much Summer Saison as I could put down in this time period - I already miss that beer.
Saison in the sun
And now for the grand finale of this trip - time to soak in the hot springs! The Ouray Hot Springs Pool is a really big tourist attraction for the town and it's not hard to see why. The pool deck is large and it's also great for kids as it has varying degrees of temperatures and super fun looking inflatable obstacle courses and water slides. You definitely want to get here early on weekends though, they were at max capacity when a few of us tried going a few days prior on a Saturday! But now it's Monday at about 5pm and it's not very crowded at all! It's a little pricy to get in at a $18 entry fee for adults (add another $3 for the waterslides), but at least this is a day pass which would allow you to go and come back if the weather suddenly turns (which it always seems to do...).
The pools vary in temperate from 75F (which is setup as a lap pool and play area) to 104F
Hmm... looks like it could rain...
So excited!
Just a bunch of adults in the adults only section 😅
Of course it DID rain - and it rained HARD. But they don't kick you out of the pool unless there's lightning and we got lucky. Being in a geothermal pool surrounded by mountains in the pouring rain was quite an experience - I loved it. Then when the rain stopped, the sun came back out and treated us to beautiful views of the mountains. Here's a post-rain storm shot.
And that's a wrap on Ouray! We said bye to Kristi and Terry and headed back to our now very quiet airbnb. The next day Dad made us cinnamon rolls for breakfast before heading to the airport. Andrew and Julianne had the unthinkable task of driving the van back to Chicago, and little did I know, but at this point I already had Covid, ugh. I started showing symptoms the very next day when I was back at work. I'm ok now but it was definitely an interesting two weeks following this trip. Though we can definitely say that even with all the hurdles we faced, we still had a great time, and I think it's also safe to say that it brought us all closer as friends (and family!). Colorado, you truly are something else. Until next time!
Before I sign off - some bonus pics of the Black Canyon from the plane!! How cool, right?
Now THAT'S a view of the river!
