Colorado Adventure, Part 5

Okay, look, the last time I went four-wheeling I was in Geology school at Colorado State University, and I hung my Ford Maverick in the middle of a stream while I was on the way to check out an old mine. "Wait a minute," you protest, "the Ford Maverick wasn't a 4WD vehicle!" Right. I suppose that could have something to do with why it hung up in the stream.

Anyway, Doris has heard the Maverick story. Wonder if that was why she was a little nervous when I announced we were going to head for Kite Lake via Weston Pass? Let's just say the road ain't paved, and leave it at that. Speaking of leaving, I was concerned that I might be leaving my oil pan or differential on this little drive, but last time I looked under the car, they were still there. You want a high-clearance vehicle for this little trek.

The pictures don't do it justice--it's a very steep grade. And no, Doris isn't walking because she's afraid to ride with me--she's just shooting a few pix.

There were multiple places where it was so deeply rutted with large rocks sticking up in inconvenient places, I didn't think we'd make it. It wasn't until I was crawling carefully through a boulder field masquerading as a road that I realized, "There's no cellphone service up here. If I get this baby stuck, I can't just call AAA. Nobody will find us until June!"

Kinda sharpens the concentration, ya know?

I reckon this fella got his wagon stuck, and decided he'd just go ahead and stay, build himself a home.

The colors, the clouds, the sky up here are just knock-your-socks-off beautiful. The glory of God on display.

Just shy of the pass I took this panorama,  probably about 180 degrees. Click it to enlarge.

Finally, after passing through much fear and many deep valleys we finally gained the pass. Okay, they were really just deep ruts.

Temp was in the low 40's, and it was very windy. Flat out cold.

After many difficult  roads that tried the soul, the AWD, and the clearance (my Vue has 8"), at long last we arrived at Fairplay, from whence we traveled straight to Alma, our sights set on Kite Lake. Kite Lake would be our final stop on the Henry Marshall Tour portion of our trip.

Actually, we stopped first at the District Ranger Office in Fairplay where we were once again informed that the Kite Lake road was really more of a high-clearance-vehicle road. Oh, joy.

The road started off pretty tame, the scenery beautiful.

There's some active mining going on near the lake. The red is iron, there's a lot of yellow coloration as well, probably some sulphur minerals. I found some samples of iron pyrite in the area (an iron sulfide also known as fool's gold).

 The road didn't stay tame. We actually had to abandon the Vue several hundred yards shy of the lake--the ruts were too deep, the rocks too big.

It. was. COLD!!!! The wind was blowing hard, the temp in the 30's. Brrrr! Click to enlarge the image. Kite Lake appears in The Candidate, in a little episode Henry Marshall had there. It was fun to visit in person something I'd only visited in Google Earth up to this point.

On the way home we took Highways 285 and 24. Did not want to try Weston Pass in the dusk--no, thank you!

My next update will involve some Colorado ghost towns we've been haunting the last couple of days.

Tomorrow we are going to attempt Mt. Elbert, using the easiest walk-up of all the routes (the South Elbert Trail). We're going to get as far as we can, but neither of us are expecting to summit the peak--we just aren't in good enough shape. But we'll have fun no matter how far we get!