Alpine Loop @en
now browsing by tag
Alpine Loop (2)
I slept in Animas Fork. This is an old mining town founded in 1880 and which was abandoned around 1920 when the fall of the metal rate during the great depression made their extraction unprofitable. The village hosted up to 450 people during the summer of 1887.
1. The village transformed into a Ghost Town but an association keeps the remains in a state close to the original.
2. The “mill” that served to separate ore by block sizes collapsed.
3. Well preserved house that housed two families (one per floor).
4. VivaLaVida heading to another pass over 13,000 feet : Engineer Pass.
5. Small alpine lake…
6. The track rises in the tundra. It doesn’t seem but some sections are quite steep.
7. Reaching the pass.
8. Grandiose panorama…
9. VivaLaVida looks small up there!
10. Tundra and Snowy rocks.
11. Touch of vegetal color…
12. Facing to the North…
13. … there is a “Matterhorn Peak”! Funny Americans! 😉
14. Descent into the aspens I so love and who, on this slope, began to take their fall colors, such intense orange yellow !
15. A small lake made by Mr. Beaver!
16. Dam builder.
17. Capitol City.
18. Indicator of past industrial activity, an arch dam built around 1890 or what is left…
19. Beautiful house in the picturesque small mining town of Lake City.
20. 2nd street…
21. Cinnamon Valley in late afternoon.
22. Aspens.
23. last sunrays on the road.
24. Cheers from my camp along the Lake Fork Gunnison River.
It continues with some other places of Colorado in a few days. Thank you for your loyalty to follow this blog! 😀
Alpine loop…
Imogene Pass is by far not the only track traced in these mountains. I went through Ouray buy some fresh food before traveling part of the Alpine Loop, a track that some Jeep enthusiasts love to discover.
1. In Ouray even more than in Telluride, we believe to be a century ago!
2. The opera building.
3. Red Mountains which are aptly named, since my camp.
4. The next day, VivaLaVida begins by Gray Copper Gulch roa, amid the Red Mountains.
5. It’s color of the iron oxide which obviously gave their name to these mountains.
6. Colors are awesome!
7. While on the nearby mountains, the iron ore concentration is not as important.
8. At the first pass (12,400 feet), a small lake…
9. A little further, another cad and peaks powdered with snow of the night.
10. Lake Como, the larger of the area.
11. VLV cashes altitude unflinchingly.
12. Snow shower at 12,700 feet, over California Pass.
13. Downhill on the other side while the shower goes away.
14. I left VLV a few hours to walk to a swampy area.
15. Altitude bogs…
16. Everywhere, mining relics leave their trace. Here, a typical mine with tongue extracts waste.
17. entrance of Silver Queen Mine…
18. All were closed to prevent accident.
19. Nice surprise: I could finally capture the portrait of an adorable pika, so lively that it’s almost impossible to photograph.
20. It lives in screes and it sneaks in full speed.
21. New snow shower.
22. Small alpine lake.
23. Downhill into the next valley. I only saw two Jeeps that day…
nbsp;
24. For my brother and just as testimony because the picture is very bad: a golden eagle.
25. Another raptor that I have not positively identified.
26. There is plenty of marmots..!
27. Alpine biotope.
28. Within minutes, the track is covered with hail…
Well, following the Alpine Loop in the next update, hoping not to bore you with all these alpine tundra images…