Pre-Season San Juan Trip

[IntrepidXJ]

Saturday & Sunday, June 7-8, 2008

Amanda and I took off for the San Juan Mountains this weekend to do a little pre-season exploring. There was still plenty of snow on the ground and a bunch of trails were still closed, but there was more than enough to keep us occupied all weekend.

We started out by heading up to Animas Forks from Silverton.

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Plenty of snow on the way there...

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The well known Duncan Residence.

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View from inside

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Then we headed up Cinnamon Pass

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A lot of snow up there, too.

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At Cinnamon Pass

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We didn't want to go all the way to Lake City just to have to turn around and come back th same way again, so we headed back down to Animas Forks for lunch. We will return to do the complete Alpine Loop as soon as it all opens up for the year.

After lunch we decided to head up Minnie Gulch to see how far we could get

Remains of the Caledonia Mill next to Minnie Creek

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The Caledonia Mill boarding house

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Then we were stopped by a large drift, with many more following it

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[IntrepidXJ]

After heading back down, we decided to give Maggie Gulch a try, too

On the trail

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But again, we were stopped by a drift on a section of shelf road....so we headed back to Silverton, but took a few side roads along the way.

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On Sunday morning we started off in Silverton for a little breakfast and stopped by the Miner's Shrine

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...where we also got a good view over Silverton with Kendall Mountain in the background

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After breakfast, we made our way back towards Ouray and then headed up to check out Yankee Boy Basin

Looks like there was an avalanche here

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Twin Falls

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We went a little further before turning around....still a lot of snow here, too

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