Day 38 - Montrose

San Juan Mountains
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Today I left Cortez and travelled north through the San Juan Mountains to Montrose. I thought I was going to have a bit of a boring day to be honest as there was not much I wanted to see on the way, but it transpired to be quite interesting in the end. The journey through the mountains was really beautiful and I ended up travelling along the ‘Million Dollar Highway’ – so named because the road is built on valuable ores. If only I had brought my pneumatic drill then I would be rich and would not have to rely on the lottery any longer to sort me out! There was a large silver mining boom here back in the 19th century and there were lots of abandoned mine buildings and tiny towns along the way that were quite interesting. I also got to see lots of racoons along the road, both as roadkill and as happily wandering along too! They are really cute. The road went up really high – up to 11,000 feet in places, and I stopped at some summits to take some photos and have some lunch. As I was munching away I saw at least two cars that had overheated on the long climbs up to the top – there was lots of steam everywhere. I was glad that Thelma did not decide to have a turn today – as long as she holds out til Sunday I will be happy! This afternoon I visited my last national park – I’m sure a lot of you will breathe a sigh of relief that you don’t have to hear about any more of them! I’ve visited 14 parks in total so I think that my $50 investment of a National Parks Pass which lets you in all of the parks as many times as you want for a year was a good one as each park varies in cost between $10 to $25. Bargain! Today’s park was the Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP which is a big canyon which is 2,000 feet deep but only 140 feet wide at the base. It sounded cool, but actually was pretty dull to be honest. Once you’ve seen the canyon that’s about it. Colorado’s canyons can’t compare to Utah’s unfortunately! I only stayed about an hour (it’s not a very big park anyway) before finding my motel in Montrose instead. Tomorrow I continue east to Leadville which is in the middle of the Rockies so should be pretty. Couldn’t afford to stay in Aspen or Vail, although that would have been cool.

Red Mountain - the red is ore.
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Distance travelled today – 184 miles.

Distance travelled today - 184 miles

Bearwatch – 0.