Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Cheri June-27-12
10:39 PM | 
Posted by
Sharp's Travels
Today we began exploring the Gunnison and surrounding area.
We are in a park about 12 miles out of Gunnison. Our first order of business is to find a rain suit for me. Gay already has one and just about every day we will be here, they are calling for rain. We were in luck and found one in Wal-Mart at Gunnison. We wanted to be prepared just in case we were out and about when it rained.
We headed north out of Gunnison on HWY 135 to Almont. In Almont we picked up CTY Rd 742 towards Taylor Canyon. They were working on that road and at one point we had to follow a lead car through part of the construction area.
The scenery was nice but the road was hard packed dirt and very rough. We ran into light rain so decided to put our rain jackets on. We stopped at Taylor Reservoir, took a few pictures and were on our way. We had about 8 miles to go to the tiny town of Tin Cup. They have 4 residents that live there full time and in the summer they have around 200 residents. The only way in or out of there in the winter, is by snowmobile or snowshoes. It is not a place I would like to live!
Our guide book told us we should eat at Frenchy’s Restaurant. We had no more than got inside when we got a down pour, even a little hail mixed in. It was a quaint little place and the food was good. They were very busy. This was obviously a popular stop for all the 4-wheelers in the area. Before leaving we decided to put on our full rain suit, it was a good thing we did, before we got out of town the rain came down again.
The roads from then on were very narrow and rocky with lots of ruts. We had to make a stop and put on our sweatshirts and jackets under the rain suits because we were getting cold.
We climbed 7 miles to the top of Cumberland Pass, an altitude of 12,015 above sea level. The views were spectacular and the wild flowers along the road were beautiful.
The rain had stopped and we even saw a little sun! We had 10 miles to go down the other side of the mountain to the little town of Pitken. The roads were winding, step, narrow and full of large rocks. Gay turned off the engine and we coasted about half way down. We passed a number of 4 wheelers headed for Cumberland Pass. It was the perfect road for them.
We saw several ruins of old mine camps and cabins that were built back in the 1800’s.
We stopped at the General Store in Pitkin as soon as we arrived in town. We took a few pictures and were on our way again.
We were finally back to asphalt highway heading south on HWY 76 through Ohio city and back to HWY 50.We stopped in Gunnison to fuel up and headed back to the 5th wheel.
It was an adventure and a half today. We sure don’t want to go back on those roads with a motorcycle again!
The ride was 113 miles.
To see pictures of the day click on this link https://picasaweb.google.com/sharpstravels then click on album: Tin Cup Ride.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments: