Mineral Creek
Mineral Creek was the first trail on our first day of our long weekend in Ouray. We had arrived the day before and enjoyed dinner together.
We aired down at the start of Mineral Creek. And that is where we saw the first Bronco of the day. He was also airing down. We also got to talk to a forest ranger who was going to drive the Alpine Loop to patrol.
The start of Mineral Creek was very bumpy and slow going. Not far along the trail we ran into a group of people hiking to a rock-climbing area. After some time driving, we ran into the forest ranger, and he let us pass on the trail. It was a great day to be out in the mountains. The sun was out and warm, but it was not too warm!
We stopped and looked at the Mickey Breene Mine just for a short time, as we had a lot of trails to cover for this day! When we got to Des Ouray Mine, we stopped at the side so we could look around and take a break. We stopped at the top of the switchback. The view of San Juan Chief Mill is great and got our attention, so we drove down to the area of the mill.
We missed the trail that would have taken us straight to San Juan Chief Mill, and instead ended up on the hill behind the mill. That way we went was a very narrow trail but fun. We did get to the San Juan Chief Mill eventually and walked around for a short time to look at all the old mining equipment. After the short break we finished Mineral Creek and started Engineer Pass.
Reports from Other Days: 2
Use the arrows or dots to flip through the previews of the other reports for Mineral Creek. Click one of them to read more and see all of the photos from that day.
