Road Trip: Million Dollar Highway

We woke up in the morning and headed south from Montrose towards the incredibly beautiful San Juan Mountains. Our first stop was Ouray, which bills itself as the "Switzerland of America." It is a quaint little place, which was established as a mining town in the 1870s. They did some filming for the 1968 version of True Grit in Ouray, the town's courthouse was used as a stand-in for the courthouse in Fort Smith.



We stopped and did the short trail to Box Canyon Falls, which as the name suggests is a powerful waterfall hidden away inside a steep box canyon. The trail here runs along a metal catwalk that extends out over the creek. The creek was running high and muddy, and it was hard to get pictures of the actual waterfall. It was throwing off so much spray that the lens was immediately covered with water.



There are some slippery metal steps that lead down to the creek, just before it flows out from the canyon.



There is also a little nature trail here, which provided this view of a wooden sign promoting the canyon.



Just south of Ouray is an overlook with a great view of the very scenic but hard to spell Uncompahgre Gorge. The overlook was full of people taking pictures of the view, which included a thin but tall waterfall tumbling down the side of the mountain.



But wait, there's more! There's another waterfall here - Bear Creek Falls. It runs down the mountain, under a bridge and then falls for 70 feet into the gorge. I didn't hate that this waterfall was right on the side of the road and didn't require a five mile hike to see.



The road south from Ouray is called The Million Dollar Highway, and it's been named one of the most scenic drives in the country. And it's also been called one of the most dangerous. The Million Dollar Highway can be narrow, and have sharp hairpin curves as it snakes its way up and down the mountains. It runs alongside high cliffs, which sometimes don't have any guardrails to keep any wayward cars from plunging off into the abyss. But wow, it was breathtaking.



We made another stop at an overlook near the Red Mountain Pass (elevation 11,018). At the overlook there was a great view of the aptly-named Red Mountain.



At the mountain's base is the Red Mountain Mining District, a historic area that was once the site of several massive gold and silver mines. One of the mines here produced 400,000 tons of ore a day and was in operation all the way until the 1970s.



You can see several old mining buildings here, including this one for the Yankee Girl Mine that was built in the 1890s.



And there was also a small collection of houses. I bet it must have been hard to have been a miner here, but wow at least they had a good view!





It was nearing lunch time and I had a hungry family in the car, so we got back on the road. Next post will have some photos from the incredible little mountain town of Silverton...