Desert to Mountains

After leaving Mesa Verde National Park we headed northeast into the San Juan Mountains for a change of scenery. The weather was beautiful so we weren’t the only ones with this idea. The drive from Durango to Ouray was spectacular.

San Juan Scenery

Avalanches are a common occurrence with the mountains so close to the road. The Department of Transporation must have gotten sick of dealing with the snow pilling up on this portion of the road and came up with a creative solution to deal with the problem. It seemed to work rather well.

Avalanche Area

From Ouray, we doubled back south and headed to Penetente Canyon. One of dave’s coworkers circles it on our Colorado map and mentioned there was great rock climbing there. We thought it would be worth a stop. It was an amazing climbing area with cheap camping. Perfect! We don’t carry too much climbing gear so our choices were limited but it was still fun.

dave Climbing in Penentente Canyon

Penetnente Canyon Scenery