Yesterday, Dana and I took advantage of one of the few days off that we have together. We packed up the cooler, grabbed the cameras and took off for places unknown. Well, really we had a place in mind but we didnt make it all the way there because the road ended. Kind of.
We were headed for a ghost town about 12 mi north of Grand Junction. It was built in the late 1800's as a town for mine employees and it prospered to the point of having a railroad built leading into town, then the founder died, and the mine closed and the town just fell down.
This is the road that we traveled on to get to where we had to stop.
I dont know if you can tell, but the ruts are about 3' deep in some places. We have some guys here who jack their trucks up about 6' off of the ground and then they put HUGE ass tires on them and then they go slide around in the mud.
This is what they have done here. Why they chose to slide around on a road that was passable before they ruined it, I dont know. There is 100 of acres of off road area that is just as good to slide around on, but oh well...
So anyway, this is the road ahead. Unpassable because of the deep ruts made by the aforementioned morons. We decided that the road can only safely be traveled by horseback, or dirt bike/ATV OR... my brother in laws Argo. hmmmmm
Anyway, this is where we want to go. Roughly 4-5 miles ahead up to the base of the mountain.
Anyway, we stopped, did some hiking and took the cameras and metal detector and looked around.
This is our valley from the north, Mt Garfield looks totally different at this angle.
The ground was covered with green grass and wildflowers. There are all kinds of rocks covered with lichen, many of them with nature-made holes in them..
Can you find the lizard in this picture??
This is an arroyo that can get filled with water when it rains very hard. I can imagine the ancient Ute Indians on horseback look out over this valley from here.
We also spent some time in Rabbit Valley in the afternoon, I will post about it later. enjoy!
Saturday, May 2, 2009
A day off !!
Posted by Tonjia at 4:10 PM
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4 comments:
ummm show me the lizard i could not find him... beautiful places you get to play in and I love mudding as much as anyone but HATE when people tear up the roads... there are places made for muddin!
Ahh...colorful lichen. I knew that stuff before menopause :)
Can I come play with you guys? I love this sort of stuff!!
what a blast!
~AM
Looks like a great time and a wonderful place for a hike. I think I spotted the lizard in the scrub in the middle of the picture? We have a lots of places near us that look like this, perhaps a bit more desert-like. I love exploring.
By the way, I have a contest on my blog if you wish to check it out! :)
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