July 4th in Silverton, Colorado

[BroncoMama]

Well, I did it. I went camping and not only did I survive, I had a hoot!! :tara: I'm not a camper by any means, I love hotels! Plus, the bottom line is, I'm just prissy. Now the reasoning behind this brave decision was the company we were to keep for the weekend. We coerced Greg and Catherine, the CarlPlus family, Cody, Dominic, and Reba (a mutual friend of ours and Cody) to meet us in Silverton for the 4th and some good mountain wheeling and I didn't want to miss a minute of our time together! We headed into town on Thursday with Reba and got camp all set up in a beautiful grassy spot by the river. Thankfully, we were able to go up the weekend before and "reserve" a spot because town and the surrounding wilds were crazy! Carl and family pulled into camp right about dinner time with the 4Runner in tow and were quickly settled in as well. After a yummy campfire dinner and tucking the kids into bed, we all sat up and waited for Cody and Dom to arrive. About 11:30 we heard the sultry V8 rumble of a ZJ and our party was mostly complete!

The wickedly cool camp kitchen!


Friday dawned beautiful and sunny so we took off downtown to watch the end of the parade and the water fight between the fire departments. The Silverton FD and Durango FD have a water fight on main street with fire trucks! It was really fun to watch, but we all got a bit wet. Greg and Catherine were due to arrive later in the afternoon so we took off up Arrastra Gulch for a quick afternoon jaunt. We stopped at the Little Giant mine and enjoyed the sunshine, sights, and the snow.


A flying Reba

Cody......notice Carl in the background with a snowball?

Carl finally decided to come down after failing to hit his wife and I with said snowballs.

Stopped by an avalanche!

The lake at the end of Arrastra

Dominic and Reba

An actual family portrait that doesn't have Lemon Joy in it!

Cody taking the crazy way back to the vehicles.

 

[Meat_]

 

[Bodine]

X2 on the. Looks like a blast.

 

[Dominic]

 

[BroncoMama]

Heading back into camp later that afternoon, we found Greg and Catherine all set up and ready to head up Hurricane Pass.


Carl playing in the snow

A poser shot!

Dom, Catherine, Greg, and Chris

Hurricane just got plowed last week!

Even with our late start and Greg puncturing a tire, we still got back to camp at a decent hour. Had some dinner and headed out to watch the fireworks. Silverton's fireworks show is simply amazing. We laid on a hill and watched them ka-splode with the mountains in the background.

Saturday was our big day and watching the looming black clouds we headed over Red Mountain Pass. Despite the rain that came our way, we took the scenic route down the Random Red Mountain Road by the National Belle, stopped for lunch in Ironton, and then braved the rain to drive down to Engineer Pass. Near the top, we stopped at the stamp mill at Mineral Point.


The Carl's

Cody explaining how he is the awesomest guy at the stamp mill, no battle

Miss Addison, a very brave explorer

 

[BroncoMama]

Thankfully, the rain had cleared up by that point and it was getting later in the day. Greg and Catherine had turned back earlier to get home for Greg's work and the rest of us were getting tired. Suddenly, we hear Carl yelling at us to stop. So, we pull over and Dom and Cody come flying out of the ZJ with plastic garbage bags and head up the hill. Time for some redneck sledding!


Dominic

Cody

Carl and Carson

Chris and Alyssa

After the sledding, which was freakin' hilarious, we continued down the valley. After exploring Animas Forks, we headed into town and took the tired way out and had dinner at Handlebars. Yummy.


As usual, the weekend went way too fast and Sunday was here before we knew it. Carl and family loaded up early Sunday morning and began their trek back to SLC. Cody and Dominic were game for a quick run up Picayne Gulch before heading out. It was a beautiful drive and we stopped at a cool mine site with a nifty mill.

Cody was careful to not whip his head around so he wouldn't harm the mill's structural integrity.

Reba and the mill

Looking back towards Silverton

After a quick stop at the Sound Democrat which I didn't get pictures of, we raced the storm back to town and said our goodbyes. And that was our 4th of July!

 

[Cody]

Nice write up mama. Good times for shizzle.

 

[Badbuggy]

Great write up, good job on fun having!

 

[XJEEPER]

Spent 3 days in the area in late July 99......need to go back with the whole family. Great shots, brings back mucho memories

 

[Bart]

Great write up and pics. Looks like fun was had by all. The camp kitchen was over the top, nice. Carl, I can't believe how big your kids have gotten.

 

[Catherine]

I wish we could have stayed longer. It was a great weekend! Alyssa said to me at Ironton, "Don't you just love Silverton?" I thought, yup, that pretty much sums it up.

 

[Spork]

Looks cool :greg:

 

[Brett]

Looks like I missed out.....sorry I didn't join you guys!

 

[Jeeptj98]

Nice pics. We went to Durango on our Honeymoon and spent most of our time exploring out in Silverton I want to go back bad.

 

[I Lean]

What an awesome place! Here's a few of my pics to add, I won't bother with much text cuz Broncomama did such a good job.

Notice the flying snowball.....

 

[I Lean]

 

[Tacoma]

Those are awesome pictures!

I need to visit CO I think.

 

[turbosniper1]

I thought you all looked familiar! I was there at the intersection of Engineer and Poughkepsie (spelled wrong) as you were coming up. I was in the tan CJ-7 with my wife and my brother was in the black CJ-5 behind us. Noticed the RME stickers, but I guess you all didn't see the RME shirt I had on? Oh well.. looks like you all had a good time! Glad to see you out there!
Matt
(yes... this actually is the road... good run-off this year caused the stream to flood over the road about 18" deep at the deepest! Good times!)

 

[BroncoMama]

First of all, I love the picture of Dom and Addie! Very cute. I'm glad to see others got pics of the scenery. I was just so excited to see friends in our neck of the woods, I forgot about scenery shots in favor of people and rigs.

I thought you all looked familiar! I was there at the intersection of Engineer and Poughkepsie (spelled wrong) as you were coming up. I was in the tan CJ-7 with my wife and my brother was in the black CJ-5 behind us. Noticed the RME stickers, but I guess you all didn't see the RME shirt I had on? Oh well.. looks like you all had a good time! Glad to see you out there!
Matt
(yes... this actually is the road... good run-off this year caused the stream to flood over the road about 18" deep at the deepest! Good times!)

That's hilarious! Did you try Poughkeepsie? It doesn't get plowed and I was told there was still ton of snow up there.

 

[turbosniper1]

That's hilarious! Did you try Poughkeepsie? It doesn't get plowed and I was told there was still ton of snow up there.

We got up past the rubble hill and found a group of people trying to blast through a snow drift... looked like a good avalanche caused it! You are right though about it not being plowed! We will have to go back in a few weeks and see if it is open then.. and maybe bring this instead....

If I had my truck there I would have tried harder and pushed the snow... those 42s are great instead of the little 35s I had on the jeep! Had a great day though!
Matt