Maintou Riverhouse Ii Telluride

This weekend Allison and I hiked to Ice Lake near Silverton, Colorado, for her birthday weekend extravaganza. I had read about the hike to Ice Lake a while back, and then I heard some co-workers raving about it this week. So at the last minute, we decided to go. We left for Durango early Saturday morning, and after a quick stop at the Durango Farmers Market for some coffee and snacks, we secured a campsite at our favorite ...

... of hiking and sight seeing throughout the town, and ate and drank the way a group our size and age would be expected to.

Sorry I don't have more pics of the group, I was mesmerized by the scenery!

Maybe when I get together with them next I'll have some to add.

Hope all are well!

Durango – Ouray – Montrose –
Gunnison

By far mums favourite day on the road.
As we drove north through the San Juan National Forest we saw some of
the prettiest scenery ever. Huge mountais surrounded us as we drove
over narrow passes to be greeted by more beautiful scenes. We then
found Ouray (pronounced you-ray). It is a town named after Native
American (Indian) Chief Ouray who was a peacemaker. It is also the
site of ...

... around the midway area so we ended up getting to the demolition derby really early. But it ended up working out good because once the line started forming, it just continued to get longer and longer and they even held off on starting for about 25 minutes until they were able to get most of the people through the line.
It was a pretty good demolition derby- I think there were 15 cars, so they did two main heats, then a heat for anyone ...

... view of mountains in 3 directions. Ethan, Connie and Wade drove up to Yankee Boy Basin (4 wheel drive mountain pass) while Antoinette and Amanda relaxed at the hotel. Nice side trip. Would love to go back and check out some of the other mine sites and tunnels. More pics to come later.

... right away- instead we thought that it might be a good time to go to some of the shops.  After we did a little bit of shopping we made our way down to the park and immediately saw a HUGE line for food.  We really didn't want to wait in line and Silas had been wanting to go to one of his old favorite restaurants in town anyway- Shanghai Palace- so we decided to go there.  
  After lunch we went for a little hike up to a waterfall near town. (I don't know the name of it ...

... bolt or come back the next day. We planned on coming back the next day, but didn’t make it. We chose to sleep in our car again as the ground was pretty muddy and we thought it might rain again. This time sleeping in the car was miserable. Neither one of us slept well at all. Darren ended up driving at 4:30am. We decided to head back to Firestone where Darren’s parents live.

... were low clouds shrouding the mountains, and most of the time we followed a swollen and swiftly flowing river through the mountains to the old mining town of Silverton. The mine just closed down in 1991, and since then the town has become a tourist destination. There are some beautiful old buildings in Silverton, and lots of craft and souveneir stores. It finally stopped ...

... peaks we've yet seen on this trip (up to 14,000 ft.). We stopped in Silverton for a quick lunch, but did spend an hour or two walking and window shopping along the old, Main St, which boasted tourist activity despite many shops being closed for the off-season. Ouray, known for its hot springs, ice climbing, and other ...

... There are river walks as well. Close to the Station Telluride is a bicycle rental. You can get good mountain bikes for a steal. There are places around Telluride that people visit. Ourey is one of them. It has a distinct European flavor. We spent 5 days here. I could have spent another 2 weeks without missing Phoenix. My pictures are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/Sumant.Shan kar/Telluride