Lake City - #2

Saturday morning came WAY too early as I woke up about 4:30 with a headache and had trouble going back to sleep!! But the thought of riding through all those beautiful colors had me up and going before too long!!

Glenn cooked breakfast while I donned my long underwear and packed the ATV for the day - we left about 8:45am and returned at 5:00pm - ONE LONG DAY!!

Because my jeans wouldn't fit over the long underwear, I had brought a pair of sweat pants to put over them - I figured they would be nice and comfy all day long - and comfy they were - but I hadn't thought about the slipping and sliding on the seat!! Sweat pants JUST don't work I discovered and before next year I'll be heading to the store to buy a pair of jeans a size or two larger than I normally wear - they SURE stick to the seat better!!

It was cold out but not near as cold as last year and the sun was shining so it was perfect weather and it got warmer and warmer during the day!! Most of the aspens we saw were gold but there were a few that were orange and the picture below shows a few tucked away on our way to the pass.

The first part of the journey is my favorite - in fact, I probably stopped at the exact same places on this route and took the same pictures I did last year but you just can't help but wanting to snap pictures constantly!!

We sat for awhile on the TOP so Glenn could use the binoculars to look for wildlife - it's way above treeline and pretty in its' own way!!

Traveling through streams is always part of the fun riding the ATV - here's one of the streams we went through! This year though, the BIG stream was just a trickle - that didn't hurt my feelings at all!!

The sun was shining so brightly that it was hard to capture this old footpath bridge but it was in sad shape and even if it would have been intact, I can't say I would have crossed over the deep canyon!

I love this picture that captures the blue sky, the mountain with snow on it and the gold aspen trees - course the guy in the picture is pretty special too!!!

I took this picture only so you could guess why the fence posts have another fence post tied to it to make it tall - any guesses??? These are placed at intervals along the passes and in fact, we went by the truck with a couple of guys that were replacing ones that had fallen down or were gone! The TALL fence posts are used when the snow gets SO deep, the snowmobile riders can tell where the road is!! Cool, huh?

This picture shows a little bit of some of the trails we encounter - only some are MUCH worse!! A lot of times you are on a small narrow trail with the mountain on the upper side and the canyon on the opposite side so there is NO place to pull off if you meet someone!! That's when somebody has to back up - not an easy thing to do either!!

We had a great day - lots of riding - lots of stops at old mines with equipment lying around - lots of good food - and lots of enjoying the beautiful outdoors!! And yes, if you recall from last year's blog - We Ran Out Of Gas On Cinnamon Pass - the same thing happened this year on the SAME part of the road!! Only this time we didn't have to coast as we had our extra gallon tied on the front of the ATV!!

Two tired people finally pulled into the cabin late afternoon and the rest of the evening was spent grilling hamburgers and watching a couple of movies!! Too bad Sunday came so fast and it was homeward bound time - but there's always next year to look forward to!!