Tuesday, August 29, 2000
Cimarron, CO - Aug 29
We had a wonderful time in Buena Vista. Our incredible "timing" caused our visit to coincide with several enjoyable events. The first was a quilt show in Salida (about 25 miles south of BV). We enjoyed the show and enjoyed just looking around at the historic part of the town. We also found quilt shops in both BV and Salida. We managed to only look at both places.We took a scenic drive to Vicksburg and Winfield, two mining ghost towns between BV and Leadville. It is amazing how active these parts of CO were so many years ago. Some of them are so remote. There are historic restorations of cabins and buildings at both sites which were interesting to see. Also, coincidentally, on the day we visited, the parking area at Winfield was taken over by the Leadville 100. This is a 100-mile foot race along the Colorado Trail. The runners had started at 4 am, and we got to see the leaders pass through between 12 and 1 pm. There were 500 runners entered. They had friends at Winfield (the halfway point) to cheer them on. Some people called "pacers" were planning to run back the 50 miles with their friends. I guess they were to "wimpy" to run the whole 100 miles!!
We hiked several places near BV also. One day we drove up to Cottonwood Pass, which is over 12000 feet, and hiked near the Continental Divide for a while, enjoying the breathtaking views. We also hiked to a waterfall near Mt Princeton. This was supposed to be a 1/2 mile hike, but it took 1 1/2 hours round trip. Hmm. Are we that wimpy?
We have seen a few more interesting birds. In BV we saw Pine Siskin, Black-Headed Grossbeak, Stellar's Jay, Pinyon Jay, Gray Jay, Clark's Nutcracker, Black-Billed Magpie. Near here at the Curecanti NRA we saw Yellow Warbler and Black-Capped Chickadee. Plus various unidentified flycatchers (the bane of birdwatchers -- according to one of our bird books!).
We have spent a lot of time at the Curecanti NRA. We took a boat tour on Morrow Point Lake one afternoon. This also involved a 1-mile hike along a beautiful trail to get to the boat dock. It was really the dammed up Gunnison River so it was quite spectacular. We also viewed the Morrow Dam and the Blue Mesa Dam and hiked several other trails in the area. The longest trail we did was a four-mile hike from the rim to the bottom of the canyon and back up. There were waterfalls along the way, and it was a beautiful hike. The National Rec Area goes most of the way from Gunnison to Cimarron, with pullouts and visitor centers and hiking trails along the way. We have enjoyed talking with the rangers at the various programs.
Tomorrow we move to a campground in Montrose. We will be a little closer to the Black Canyon there, so we plan to spend several days hiking in that park.
The cats seem to have settled down and accepted this lifestyle. There are still some disagreements over who has dominance, but they usually seem quite content.
# posted by Doug and Willie @ 6:27 PM 
