Day 9, 10 = Durango, Colorado

Durango is beautifully set in the mountains.  Our campground is north of the city nestled between the mountains and by the Silverton railroad.  On our first day here, we rested in the RV mainly because I was so sick I could barely stay awake until mid-afternoon.  I still felt terrible that first night but so much better than I did that morning. 

The next morning, I felt good enough to sit up so we thought we would at least attempt one Jeep trail.  I am SO glad we got out of the RV and saw some of the surrounding areas.  We headed north towards Silverton, and turned left to Ophir.  We were looking for the Ophir Pass trail recommended to us.  The first part of the trail was so beautiful.  We had no idea that the second half would be more beautiful and really challenging.  Both Collin and I were a little scared a few times especially after I saw a car overturned down towards the bottom of the trail.  The car looked like it had been there for years but that did matter to me.  I also saw what looked like another car when I looked back. 

Several times, we crossed streams of melting ice.  We stopped at a few of them for Collin to run through the water.  He said it was FREEZING!  He learned it was so cold because it was melting snow.  Later, he was excited to play and slide down the snow at the top of the mountain.  Looking over at Dad driving the trail, I could tell he loved this.  Plus, he has wanted to show us places he used to mountain bike ride when he was younger and he was finally getting a chance to do it.

Not much of a ledge on the road

A car/truck that fell off the road

Crossing over the melting snow

Dad loving the trail

Collin running through the cold water

If there is this much snow left in July, how deep is it in the winter?

Yes, I did run after this picture

A Jeep needs to be dirty!

 

At the bottom of the trail, we pulled into Silverton and had a great lunch at High Noon Burgers which was right by the trail depot.  We put the top back on the Jeep because it looked like a bad storm was coming and in the direction we needed to head towards.  Good thing we did, because it did start to pour 10 minutes outside of Silverton.  We rested, got cleaned up and had dinner in Durango.

Ready for another great day tomorrow.