Salida, CO - Snow Hiking, St. Elmo & Biking

Salida, Colorado
Boondocking - BLM



We really needed to get new tires on Hoss (the truck).  We use Americas/Discount Tire where we have a warranty program for all of our tires.  That's 10 tires total.  None of the small towns we've traveled through had one.  So we took one day and drove all the way to Colorado Springs.

It was a stormy day and when we got to the top of the pass, it started snowing.

We've been boondocking and in very small towns.  This is the most traffic we've seen in weeks!  I'm sure glad it's in the opposite lanes.  Hopefully by time we return it'll be gone.

Hoss got some new boots!

Fresh coat of paint on the mountains.

 

The Collegiate Peaks: Princeton, Yale and Harvard.  All over 14K elevation.

We headed off one day to hike to Ptarmigan Lake.  Just a 3 mile, high elevation high.  Nice to add to our elevation adjustment.

But once again, DUH, it was covered with very deep snow.  We didn't even get a 1/4 mile in before we knew we couldn't do it without gators and poles.  Even then, it would've been difficult.

 

 

So we dropped down the mountain a bit below the snowline and decided to hike as far as we could handle it up to Yale Peak.  We knew we wouldn't summit, we just wanted to go as far as we were comfortable.

 

Well, we were doing quite well, but once again we got up to the snowline and eventually it was too deep to continue.  We made it to somewhere around 12K.

 

There was also a lot of run-off and we had to cross a few streams.

 

That's Yale Peak in the background.

Tunnels of Aspen.

Hurley had no problems with the snow, but we were sinking up to our knees.  Time to turn around.

After our hike we drove through the Chalk Canyon.  Gorgeous area.  We did a lot of geocaching here during the week.  Today we were heading up to St. Elmo's ghost town.

The most deer we've seen were in this canyon area.

 

 

Friendly chipmunks and hummingbirds.

The town is owned by the very few inhabitants.  They keep it in very good condition.

We wanted to go up to another ghost-mining town, Tincup, but the road was insanely steep, rutted and rocky.  Only a small truck or jeep could get up there.  Certainly not Hoss!

But it was a gorgeous day so we did more geocaching and some fishing.

 

Later in the week we decided to check out the bike trail in Salida which runs along the Arkansas River.  We stopped here and there and tried some fishing.  No good though.

 

This interesting marker came says it was from a survey from the 1821 border between Mexico and the US.  It was in a random area under an overpass.  I wonder what it's all about?

Nice bike trail with some great fishing spots to try out.

We took our bikes up Spiral Drive to the top of Mt. Tenderfoot.  There is a small parking lot from which several bike trails leave.  We biked up to the top to the lookup post.  Insanely windy!
Amazing view from the top.  So much so, that we hid a geocache up here.  The view is incredible at night with all the lights of Salida below.

Hairdo compliments of the crazy wind at the top!

 

The road is a spiral that winds around and around Tenderfoot to the top.  We also found a geocache (R) hidden at this interesting spot where the dead tree was painted green and blue.

Mt. Tenderfoot.