Return To The San Juans, Colorado

I had been planning to earn 7 more state stickers for the map on the side of our RV as we zigzagged across the middle of the country back to NC but Michael just wanted to stay in Colorado. We compromised and stayed until mid-October. Much later there could be snow on the high mountain passes. We should still be able to earn 5 stickers, visiting 2 states for the first time.

Ridgway State Park gave us easy access to the San Juan Mountains in southwest Colorado. There are multiple campgrounds and I was able to get us a full hookup site at Pa-Ca-Chu-Puk on the Uncompaghre River.

Ridgway was a good home base to visit two of our favorite Colorado mountain towns, Telluride and Ouray.

First, was a visit to Telluride. We rode the free gondola back and forth between the town and the ski resort while the aspens were at peak color.

We hiked the ~6-mile Perimeter trail around the entire town of Ouray.

And drove the Million Dollar Highway between Ouray and Silverton, one of our favorite scenic drives.

We also drove the scenic drive along the south rim at Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.

The first big hike we tackled was the Blue Lakes trail in the Mount Sneffles Wilderness just south of Ridgway. The trailhead was on County Rd 7 where we saw this amazing view of Mount Sneffles surrounded by gold aspens.

We ended up hiking Blue Lakes with a guy who told us we should try the Ice Lake trail so we did that the following weekend. The Ice and Island Lakes trail started near Silverton and the lakes were above 12.4K ft which is the highest elevation we’ve hiked according to All Trails. We also found nice boondocking sites nearby that we’ve saved for the future.

After our 2 week stay, the longest of our 3 visits to this area, I think we’re ready to call the San Juans our favorite part of Colorado and it was definitely worth going out of our way to visit again!

Next, we head northeast to I-80 which is a new route across the country for us!