Driving the Million Dollar Highway, part 2

Colorado Travelog #19
Red Mountain, CO - Tuesday, 5 Jul 2022, 3:30pm

As I described in my previous blog, Colorado's "Million Dollar Highway" (US 550) connects from Ouray to Silverton. I ended my previous blog with us barely having left Ouray and stopping at Bear Creek Falls. The road climbs quite significantly from there.



The view above is looking up into the San Juan Mountains from Bear Creek. You can see the road cut crossing from the middle of the picture's left edge to the center. This northern end of the road is very narrow and steep. Once over the Red Mountain Pass, elev. 11,018' (3,358 m) it descends more gently through glaciated valleys to Silverton.



Despite the weather the views were occasionally amazing. We mentally bookmarked the side canyon in the photo above to come back to later in the day. But first we drove all the way to Silverton to visit the town.

Silverton, Ouray, and Telluride are all former mining towns that boomed in the late 19th century with the discovery of silver high in these mountains. People and money flowed into these towns. In the early 1900s the swankest hotel in all of Colorado was in tiny Ouray. It was a status stop for wealthy and important industrialists with business in the area.

Before the end of the 19th century, though, political changes in the US made silver mining less profitable. Business had already started to slow down when that swank hotel was built. Within a few decades it was abandoned.

The towns found new life in the 20th century as skiing and tourist destinations. The first ski lifts opened in the 1940s. It wasn't until the 1980s, though, that the town really started to take off again. Now they're full of overpriced lodges, hotels, and gift shops— and the tourists who think such things are splendid. Ugh. It gives us hives. At least the natural beauty of the San Juans remains.

Speaking of natural beauty, we did go back to that hanging valley.



We could see a long cascade waterfall at the back of the canyon. A dirt and gravel road led into it. "What the heck, we've got a real 4x4 and know how to use it!" we figured. We went for it.

Along the way we passed a charming little side falls. That's the photo above.

In beauty I walk. Even when I mostly drive.

Box Canyon Falls

Colorado Travelog #20
Ouray, CO - Tuesday, 5 Jul 2022, 5:30pm

As we finished our round-trip drive on the Million Dollar Highway (part 1, part 2) we arrived back in Ouray. Despite the still-crummy weather the day was not over, though. We still had two more waterfalls to hike!

The first waterfall in town we visited was Box Canyon Falls. We picked it first because it was just off the main road as we returned to Ouray from Silverton. A big sign even announces it:



A historical plaque in the park explains that this sign dates to c. 1905. Yes, it says "BOX CANON" for Box Canyon. I can only guess the locals 117 years ago either were semi-literate and dropped the Y from canyon or meant the letters to read "Box Cañon", cañon being the Spanish work for canyon, but couldn't find a sign maker who understood what a tilde was.

The sign, like many things in these Colorado mining towns, fell into disrepair by the mid-20th century and was only fixed up in the past 20 or so years. But still no Y or tilde.



Box Canyon is an interesting area. A geological fault created a narrow crevice between rocky bluffs, and a creek flows through it. Except after hours of rain like we've had today, a creak roars through it. The water is brown with sediment, and spray from the engorged flow is everywhere.



As if the metal catwalk into the canyon weren't close enough to the water, a set of metal stairs leads several down to the bare rock near the bottom. We climbed down out of curiosity but found the surging water hard to appreciate from down here. The deadly current certainly wasn't anything we wanted to get closer to than several feet away on the slippery rocks.

We came back out of the chasm and explored other parts of the park. There's a trail that climbs up atop the chasm and crosses it on another catwalk. There's also a nature trail that winds a loop out of the canyon providing views across the valley.



This view across Ouray is interesting for two reasons. One, you can (barely) see the lower tier of Cascade Falls at the base of the far mountain. On a rainy day like today several tiers of Cascade Falls flow, dropping thousands of feet from near the top of the mountain to its foot. We'll hike to that lower tier next.

Two, this picture shows the two types of mountain that are part of the Rocky Mountains. The near mountain shows red rock in horizontal layers. This sedimentary rock is part of the older Rocky Mountains. It's rock that was an ancient seabed and was pushed upwards. The ridges beyond it, in the distance, are examples of the newer Rocky Mountains. Their dark, purple-ish rock is volcanic and is much younger than the sedimentary layers.