Friday, September 6, 2024
Today we went on another jeep trip to Crested Butte and Paradise Divide in Colorado. We left the campground around 10:00 a.m.
We drove through a grove of Aspen trees.
We're now at Pittsburg, Colorado. Pittsburg is a former mining town from the late 19th century located about 9 miles north of Crested Butte, Colorado. While Pittsburg is sometimes considered a ghost town, none of the original structures still exist. The only cabins that still exist in the area were built after 1973 and are strictly summer vacation homes, as the area is inaccessible by cars during the winter.
Pittsburg was named in honor of the industrial heritage of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A nearby mountain summit is named Schuylkill Mountain in honor of the Schuylkill River in Pennsylvania.
Pittsburg originally served several mining operations in the late 19th century, including the nearby Pittsburg Mine and the much larger and more well known Augusta Mine.
What a beautiful view and then the steep uphill climb begins.
We continue to climb upward.
We meet a bicyclist on her way up.
The scenery on the way up is just gorgeous.
We have now arrived at Paradise Divide with an elevation of 11,250 feet.
Above is one of the campsites at Paradise Divide.
Above and below are views of the ponds at Paradise Divide.
We follow the windy trail downward.
We drive through a puddle of water that has collected on the road from a recent rain.
After we leave Paradise Divide, we run into some razor traffic, etc. We decided to turn and go in the direction to Schofield Park toward Schofield Pass.
We're now passing the West Maroon trailhead. There are numerous cars and other vehicles here -- must be a popular hiking spot.
Schofield was a small town at the top of the main pass from the Gunnison/Crested Butte area over to the Crystal/Marble/Redstone area. There is nothing left of the town.
The yellow sign says, "Slow down you are entering the historic townsite of Schofield. Please respect the residents. Slow down and reduce noise and dust. Thank you."
Up ahead is the nortoriously famed very, very dangerous Schofield Pass road. Only accessible to 4WD vehicles, Schofield Pass is an extremely treacherous 15-mile mountain road that connects the communities of Marble and Crested Butte. Formerly known as the “S.O.B” trail for being so difficult to traverse, Schofield Pass is the site of multiple serious accidents every year, and the road has taken more than a dozen lives over the decades.
Shown above are the 2 big yellow warning signs about the Schofield Pass road. We chose not to venture in our jeep along it, but many that do say it is a beautiful scenic trail through spectacular mountain country. Maybe next time we might check it out.
We parked the jeep and Mel looked at his phone to see what he could find out about the Schofield Pass road ahead.
When Mel got back from his walk, we ate lunch at the end of the road here.
There were beautiful wild flowers.
And what a beautiful stream!
We then left and headed back. Above is a pretty meadow just before we arrived at Emerald Lake.
Once again we found some brave bicyclists.
The road has now turned pretty rutty.
We are catching up to another couple bicyclists as we get close to Gothic.
Some of the Aspens are just beginning to turn colors.
We are almost back to Crested Butte.
We stopped at the Public House in Crested Butte around 3:30 p.m. for Mel to air up the jeep tires and get a craft beer.
While we were there we saw that they are going to have a Steely Dead concert tomorrow night (Saturday) at the Public House.
We decided to buy tickets online to go to the Steely Dead concert at the Public House on Saturday night.
Saturday, September 7, 2024
We drove back to Crested Butte for dinner and to go to the Steely Dead concert at the Public House. We had pizza once again at The Secret Stash as it was so good last time we had it.
We again had the Texas Biggin' pizza, but this time just ordered the medium size.
As it was a little chilly, they turned on the electric heater for me.
Shown above is the streets of Crested Butte by night.
At around 8:00 p.m. we headed downstairs in the Public House to get a spot to sit for the concert.
Shown above and below are a couple of the posters on the wall.
The concert didn't get started until around 9:30 p.m.
Steely Dead is a musical infusion of the Grateful Dead and Steely Dan.
Sunday, September 8, 2024
Today following several rain showers, we saw a beautiful rainbow at around 5:30 p.m. We were on our way back to Blue Mesa Thousand Trails Campground in Gunnison, CO from a trip into town.
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