Tuesday, September 17, 2024

Rainy Days after a Glorious Sunday Afternoon of Fall Colors near Silverton

Sunday developed into a mostly cloudy day here near Silverton, CO after a morning of cold rain.

So I rode out with Yagi, my TW200, to check out conditions on County Road 23 which I'd seen on the maps.  It seemed to provide access to the forested mountainsides to the east of Silverton.

Purely by luck, I happened to arrive in time to position myself for the impending departure of the 2:30 PM train from Silverton!  It was actually closer to 2:45 PM but the weather was OK.

After the train's departure, I found CR23 and started riding up.  I would end up turning around pretty quickly though, the rocky conditions being worse than what I'd seen on the Alpine Loop!

Here's shots of Silverton from CR 23 where I stopped after turning around:

Can you see the train yard on the closest side of town?



Noting the cluster of Fall Colors in the above picture, I decide to head there to see what I could see.

First stop was the road that leads to the Miners Shrine.  I spotted a walking path near the highway where I had posed Yagi for shot of colors:

I found the spot of color across the highway eye-catching

I walked up the semi-rough path until I could see the above path of color through the Aspen that bordered the edge of the hill the path traverses:




After this path's offerings, I decided to try and find a way into that group of Aspens across the road.  You can access it after leaving town and going up Hwy 550 a tiny bit.  I parked Yagi and wandered into the woods:

I had to wait, due to cloudy conditions, for the sun to peek through every now and then to highlight the yellow leaves on the Aspen.










Eventually, I made my way back to Yagi.  Here's the entrance to the private property bordering the above section of forest.



Too soon, the clouds moved in again and rain threatened once more.  I left and made it back to camp without getting rained on.  

It rained frequently all day yesterday, Monday.  Not much got done but some reorganizing of stuff in the VRRV and such.  I had an audio book going most of the day.  I've got this portion of the camping area to myself due to it being a weekday and the weather being cold and rainy.

4 comments:

CCjon said...

What a gift, thank you. I could smell the wet aspen leaves in your photos.

redlegsrides said...

Thanks CCjon, You're welcome.

Oz said...

It is looking awesome. The colors are great. I love the train video.

redlegsrides said...

Thanks Oz, glad you liked it.