Day 5 - Lake City to Bradfield Campground

We started the day at 8:00 am in Lake City. Our route today will cross three high mountain passes, the highest of which will be 13,500 feet. The trailhead to Engineer Pass started just three blocks from our camp site. The climb to the pass was beautiful. We rode through a steep canyon with a large river cascading down through it. The scenery was spectacular. Once above the tree line, the scenery turned to soft green mountains, snow packs and waterfalls. At the top, we had 360 degree views of the surrounding peaks and valleys. This area was a hotbed of mining activity in the early 1900’s and there still remain numerous relics and open mine shafts from that era.

From Engineer Pass we descended into the town of Ouray (little Switzerland). We rode through town, saw the hot springs recreation center (with 25 yard lap pool) and saw an awesome narrow/steep ravine where folks practice ice climbing in the winter.

From Ouray, we climbed to Imogene Pass (13,500’). Imogene was equally as spectacular as Engineer Pass and had an equally spectacular view from the top. We descended Imogene into Telluride. The ascent and descent of both passes was littered with Jeeps and ATVs and Razors all enjoying the off road trails.

From the top of Imogene, we could hear the thunder from a distant storm near Telluride. We met the storm as we descended the mountain and experienced heavy rain for most of the ride to Telluride.

Telluride is a neat little mountain ski town with the look and feel of Breckenridge or Steamboat  Springs. The rain subsided as we came into town and we stopped for a nice burger at Steamies Burger Bar.

From Telluride, we had about 90 miles of road to our destination of Bradfield Campground, just outside of Delores, CO. The ride consisted of 20 miles of asphalt and lots of graded gravel road.

There was a stark contrast between the terrain of Lake City (dense forests of Pine) to Delores (high desert of scrub brush and low trees).

We rode by Ground Hog Reservoir, a large reservoir out in the middle of no-where. There is an RV Park there and seemed to be pretty full with fisherman and families.

We arrived camp at 4:15, just as Paul had arrived and was setting up camp.

Tomorrow will be a much anticipated ride to Moab, UT and a quick tour of some well know trails there.

The following are pictures and video from the day: