Colorado trail hike

No planned run today, just a hike with Kenny, Dixie, Cracker and Jax (Kenny's friend's dog) along a portion of the Colorado trail. We headed about 15 minutes South of Silverton back down the road towards Durango and hopped off on a road to the right that took us to the trailhead. Last year, we went to the left, which was a little more forested. This portion of the trail has some forested areas, but is pretty much in an open, grassy area, with a lot of bushes and flowers.

We did about 6-7 miles. Cracker was just a hiking machine! She had more energy than all of us put together! For such a little dog, I was amazed at how she still had boundless energy at the end of the hike. I'm such a proud Mom. Who knew my little doggie would fit right in with my outdoor lifestyle? She sure can run - when the weather cools off, I'll take her on some shorter runs in Tucson to see how she does.

We went up, up, up for a while on the trail - lots of switchbacks - and then came back down the same way for about half of that portion of the Colorado trail and then veered off in the end to another trail that brought us out on a gravel road a little down from the trailhead. We ran down (even Kenny ran!) because it looked like the sky was blackening and we could feel a few raindrops. It was a blast running down because it was pretty steep, so we just flew.

The views are unbelievable. Lots of flowers and the mountainscapes look so fake! Little Molas lake was in view for a little bit. We even saw some deer, which was a treat.

Colorado is definitely one of the most amazing places I have ever been. If you haven't been to the San Juan Mountains, you have really missed out.

10 mile hike, Colorado style

Today, Kenny, Dixie and I went on a 10 mile hike near Silverton. Part of it was on the Colorado trail and a lot of it was on the Durango Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad tracks.The train was done running for the day, so we were safe. The section of the Colorado trail that we hiked was mostly downhill, although it was plenty challenging with the elevation and the steepness of the area. The picture of me on the trail with the backdrop of the mountains looks so unreal! It almost looks like I'm in an Olan Mills picture studio! We were still fairly high on the trail heading down to the tracks when the picture was taken, so the view was just incredible. The tracks were very hard to walk on - almost like a step workout! We found lots of old discarded railroad spikes and the valley was gorgeous. Our hike took us a little over 3 hours and we were plenty tired when we were done. We had to park one vehicle at the end of the hike and another we drove up to the trailhead. Crossing some of the railroad bridges was a little scary... looks like from the picture that we were actually 'trespassers'.
Colorado is so unbelievably pretty, don't you think?