We were up extra early with the truck packed up and ready to go. We went over to the hotel office where breakfast is served about 10 minutes early. We met the night manager who was so happy to see other humans that he invited us to help ourselves even though it wasn’t time.
After that, we hopped in the FJ, made our way to I25 and headed north to Walsenburg, CO where we turned west on to 160. We stopped in town for gas, gasping at the price, and then on to La Veta where we found our turn for the trail. The gravel roads were wide and fast and we were making good time. You can easily run 45 mph on these roads, but I like to drive about 30 so I can take in the scenery.
We saw a few mule deer but not too much of anything else. We did see some hunters glassing the terrain for elk, I’d guess. We made our way past many of the local ranches. They are all heavily posted and warned not to trespass, hunt, fish, trap or breathe on their land. Can’t say I blame them seeing what people will do these days. Some of the ranches claimed to have video surveillance!
The terrain changed often and we found ourselves climbing to well over 10,000 feet. There were a few others out on the roads and we saw quite a few people camped along the road in the National Forest.
Our goal was to get past Salida and over Marshall Pass to Sargents where we could take hwy 50 into Gunnison for the night, but by the time we arrived in Salida, we were ready to stop. As we came around a curve in the road prior to reaching Salida, we were rewarded with our first view of the Rocky Mountains. I’ve been coming here since I was a kid and I always get a thrill when I am back here.
The Verizon signal isn’t very good here so we went to a Walmart and used their wifi to log into Trivago app to find a hotel. Sharon had mentioned the Silver Ridge Hotel had vacancies so we booked a room there. We were about an hour early for check in so we went downtown and walked around a bit. It was hot so we went back and they let us check in 10 minutes early.
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