Oklahoma to Ouray and back in 6 days

S

Scott C

Adventurist
Day 1
We started out at 5am last Saturday August 2nd and got back on Friday the 8th at 1am. We covered 2004 miles total. Our first stop for the night was Alamosa. It is a forgettable town, not a whole lot going on. We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant downtown that had good reviews on trip advisor. I was not impressed at all, FYI the place was called Cavallo's. On Sunday morning we woke up and headed toward Durango. We walked down their main street and stopped in at an Irish pub for lunch and I had a glass of Dale's Pale Ale, evidently real popular in Colorado. It was a good beer that I will drink again. After lunch we loaded up for our next stop at Silverton. Driving into Silverton is like driving straight into a old Western movie. Its kind of a dusty dirty town with lots of history. It was full of buildings from the 1800's and 1 block of main street was full of saloons, and whore houses in the old days. Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson spent time there dealing cards after the OK corral incident. After looking around we headed down hwy 550, toward Ouray. The million dollar highway is truly a spectacular drive. We stopped at a mountain pass either right before or after Silverton, cant remember, to take pictures at the overlook. I struck up a conversation with a guy as I was admiring his BMW motorcycle. After noticing his strong accent I inquired where he was from. The guy was from Australia. He flew into San Diego 2 weeks ago and bought the bike brand new. He was riding all the way to British Columbia with his "mates" and then storing the bike there. He was planning on flying back next year to continue his journey. His mate was admiring my FJ and noticed the Oklahoma tags. Turns out we grew up in the same city. Its a small world! Oh and I found out I should knock before opening restroom doors. I guess an old man went in to take a dump and wasn't smart enough to lock the door. I still have that stuck in my mind! We loaded up and headed to Ouray. We rolled into town and checked into a condo we rented, called the Alpenglow.

To be continued...
 
Patiently waiting for more! I was just in ouray for the fj summit. First time. I learned I had a greater fear of heights than originally thought. 550 kinda freaked me out. Only did Yankee basin, Imogene and Ophir passes. Didn't have the huevos for black bear or Poughkeepsie.
Absolutely beautiful country though! I do want to go back.


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Evening Day 2
After we checked into the condo we just walked around the town of Ouray. For those that have not been, the scenery is amazing. In every direction all you see is canyon walls, the small town is completely surrounded by them. Main street is full of buildings from the late 1800's. Markers on the sidewalk show the original tenants and how the buildings looked new. Its amazing how unchanged these buildings are. That night we had dinner at Ouray Brewery Co. The food was typical freeze and fry pub food, but the beer was pretty good. I enjoyed their campbird blonde ale, although it was a little mild. Evening was finished up with lounging around and resting up from a long two days on the road.

To be continued...
 
Why the whirlwind tour? (Coming from the guy that has knocked out the Dusy Ershim Trail end to end in 9.5 hours and the Rubicon from Rubicon Springs to sitting at the bar in Do-Robs in 5 hours)
 
Day 3

We started out the morning with a top shelf breakfast consisting of cereal bars and water. After breakfast we headed to the local grocery, called Duckett's Market. Its a small store and everything is 25% higher than it would be at your typical big box store, but it is worth because its the only game in town. We picked up some peanut butter and jelly and headed off toward engineer pass. We stopped at the trailhead on hwy 550 to air down the tires. I took them down to 20 from 40. Off we went as it began to rain making the rock pretty slick. Its a 8 mile trail, with the first half being really rough. Anything faster than 5mph will rattle your teeth and vehicle to pieces. We stopped half way so my wife could take a bathroom break. I opened the door and had her hid pretty good from any uphill traffic. As soon as she dropped her pants and downhill motorcycle turned the switchback and was staring right at my wife's butt. She was quite embarrassed, but I told her you will never see these people again anyways. Soon after the bathroom break a tube chassis rock buggy came by and stopped for conversation. It had what appeared to be 40" swampers, a few Tacoma fenders, and an Ivan Stewart graphic scheme. First thing he said was, "its nice to finally see another Toyota out here amongst all these jeeps". I asked what he had for power and it was a GM 4.3 crate motor. Thought it was kind of funny since his machine was virtually nothing Toyota. We carried on uphill stopping at some of the various mine sites for pictures along the way. We stopped at the top for pb&j sandwiches and then headed back down to the bottom. The only trail damage I had was I rubbed the metal protective ring on the rear diff drain plug pretty good on the way up. At the bottom I finally had the chance to test my new 12vcompressor. It is the Pittsburgh model from Harbor Freight. I don't have the model # handy, but it was their top unit with a 150psi rating. Overall it did the job, but it seemed to take about 5 minutes per tire to get them back to 40, and the built in gauge is off by about 5 psi according to my handheld digital gauge. The unit was way too hot to put it back in its bag when done, so I let it cool off in the back for a while.

Dinner that night was at the Western Hotel built in 1891. This building appears to be mostly unchanged since it was built. It has 14 rooms on 2 floors with each floor sharing a communal restroom, and 2 private suites with their own restrooms. Dinner was fair, and they had a pretty good beer selection. I had a 90 schillings from O'dell brewery, I would drink it again. We finished the evening walking around the shops on Main street.
 
Pics?
I Feel for your wife. I know mine would be the same and girls definitely don't have many options on those trails.
As for the compressor taking 5 minutes...that doesn't surprise me. I installed the VIAIR dual compressor with tank setup that is meant for 37" tires. When I aired back up at camp in ouray it took nearly 5 minutes per tire as well! I figured I had wasted $3xx on something again. A friend pointed out that the higher elevation would affect its performance. Have not checked it since returning to Tucson.




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