Our Ouray Adventure

It's been a few months since we visited Ouray and backpacked/camped, but I thought I'd take a second and write about it... Ouray is about a 6 hour drive from where we are located here in Colorado Springs. After driving for a couple hours, we stopped in Gunnison (a beautiful little town) and had some breakfast at a quaint little restaurant that served us a delicious meal. We continued on and made it to Ouray a few hours later. Ouray is much smaller than we thought it'd be, but absolutely gorgeous. The mountains there are a different "breed" than the ones here int he front range. They are so much more jagged and rugged - they call it the Switzerland of America and I can sure see why. We drove on the Million Dollar Highway (which was a bit scary and it wasn't even bad weather!). Waterfalls galore surround this pretty place! We drove on to our "base camp" site a little out of town and when we parked, I heard a funny hissing noise coming from under the hood of my beloved little car (whom I affectionately have named "April"). We popped the hood and saw steam immediately. That's not good! Upon further investigation, we determined that my radiator was cracked and would need fluid and a quick fix. Ugh... it was about 5:00 and all the little shops around would be closing soon. This was not good! Fortunately, we were able to drive a few miles away and into another town that was close. We picked up some coolant and epoxy (thank you Dad for being available to offer your wisdom over the phone when we called!). We returned to our "base camp" site and made camp that night - trying to put away our fears and disappointments about my car having a mishap!

We woke the next morning and broke camp after some small breakfast. Having let April's engine cool off overnight, it was time to put some epoxy on the crack. Brian took care of the epoxy while I tore down camp and soon we were off into the mountains.

Wow, what an incredible hike! It was steep - but VERY pretty. Waterfalls here and there along the way made the walk more enjoyable and I couldn't believe how GREEN everything was. It was so beautiful. After some tricky river crossings where the water was just above freezing (it was pure snowmelt!), we decided to make camp at the base of the most beautiful waterfall we had ever seen in our entire lives. I think that's what heaven must be like - the place where we camped was surreal. (The picture of the waterfall with the rainbow was taken on a hill just above our campsite.)

The next day, we hiked all the way up to Ice Lake and beyond - we found an old abandoned building that appears to have been a research station of some sort a decade (or three!) ago. It was really neat to wander around inside and see all the broken down and rusted beds and other equipment.

The trip down was a little easier since we were no longer climbing UP, but the river crossings were even more tricky! This time, we gave up on trying to keep our feet dry and we just waded across the river with our boots on. It was sure nice to get a clean pair of socks and shoes on when we got back to the car!!

Here are some pictures from our adventure. Enjoy!