Colorado winter loop

[pmatusov]

It's been a long while a Grenadier trip was posted, so I'll try to keep it alive.

Our good friend decided to have his birthday party in Copper Mountain, Colorado; we (my brother Nikolay and I) aren't people who fly within a thousand-mile radius, so we packed up the Grenadier and set out.
I also abhor Interstate highways in general and I-15 in particular, so we picked up a path minimizing our exposure to brainless long-distance commute.

Early morning: we're on Interstate 8 making our way towards Anza-Borrego desert. The beautiful part about I-8 is it is nearly empty, 99% of the time.

In a couple of hours or so, we're passing a relic of old days - Space Age Lodge in Gila Bend, Arizona:

Our waypoint for the day: Payson, AZ, and Mogollon Rim. Soon we're through Phoenix/Mesa/Chandler/Gilbert/whatnot, and lumbering uphill along Salt River.

The views along Highway 87 are changing with elevation; organ pipe cacti yield to Joshua trees, then to junipers at 5000 ft, then nearing 7000 feet the pine forest takes over.

30 miles after Payson, the Mogollon Rim looms over:

We take our time for a detour up Mogollon Rim and take photos looking West. The views here are some of the best in Arizona.

By this time, we've been on the road over 8 hours. Our trip is "front-loaded" - the plan for tonight is to sleep in Durango, Colorado. It is a full gas tank, and over five hours, away.
In Durango, everything is already closed. Gas-station sandwiches and a couple of apples work as our dinner, chased down by Sazerac. This picture's colors and composition are pure Flemish.

 

[pmatusov]

The cold morning in Durango brought an unexpected event.
I stopped at a deserted-looking gas station, but with pumps enabled - where we met the slowest gas pump in the universe. It was so slow that it would not shut itself off until gas started flowing out from the filler hole to the ground. I was fully prepared for yet another CEL due to fuel level sensor being out of whack, but - it never happened!

A sensible person driving from Durango to Copper Mountain would take U.S.160 and 285 to Buena Vista. We take U.S.550 North instead.
Soon, we are greeted with a view of nearly-13kft Engineer Mountain:

We pull over to enjoy the scenery and take a rare photo of the Grenadier on the shoulder near Coal Bank Pass (10640 ft).

By the time we reach Silverton, it is still in the shadow of the Kendall Mountain:

... and it is very, bitterly, cold:

By the way, we've learned that the outside temperature sensor is probably the most-trustworthy indicator in the Grenadier. At least, its indications change.
We have a coffee in Silverton, and enjoy the emptiness of town. So unlike summer and fall!

The Silverton-Durango railroad seems to be taking a winter break.

We're definitely looking forward to driving on a 22-mile section of U.S.550 known as "Million Dollar Highway." It was reasonably clean of snow and ice, but with enough small black ice spots to drive under the speed limit (I have to admit to it).

Ouray looks cold and peaceful. The streets are almost empty - but the parking lot near the ice wall is full - people are busy with Ouray's #1 winter sport.

 

[pmatusov]

Ridgway and Montrose are almost snow-less.

In Montrose, we turn onto U.S.50 towards Gunnison. In retrospect, we should have stopped by the Black Canyon of the Gunnison - but didn't, not knowing how long it would take us to drive to Copper Mountain.
The Gunnison Reservoir and river valley are blanketed with snow, and very cold - between 4 and 5F.

The road keeps climbing to Monarch Pass (11312 ft), and then drops to Poncha Springs and to the valley going to Buena Vista. Interesting just how local is the weather in the mountain basins of Colorado - among the towns near 8000 ft elevation, it was 6F in Ouray, 3F in Gunnison, and 40F in Buena Vista, with people strutting around in shorts and t-shirts.
A parking lot fest with an AMC Eagle:

Our desire for a coffee morphs into a full-blown lunch at Crave in Buena Vista; our future roommates request a purchase of eggs since egg shelves in supermarkets near Denver seemed to be empty. We visit the local Family Dollar, and emerge with three 18-packs at $5.59 apiece - far cry from $13/18-pack in our local Vons in San Diego at the time.
U.S.24 takes us to Leadville - already at twilight.

By the time we arrive to Copper Mountain (after yet another mountain pass), it is already dark.
to be continued.

 

[pmatusov]

Too bad this forum won't let me link the video clips hosted on my website... and won't let them to be posted here due to size. Oh well - rant over.

The next four days were merrily spent skiing (cross-country for me) and getting drunk in the evenings.

Copper Mountain resort would sell you tickets to its cross-country tracks, despite the fact they didn't care to make them. Fortunately, Frisco is only 17 miles away on Interstate 70.

One of the day was bitterly, viciously, cold: -27F with wind chill. I was completely unprepared for this; five minutes into the wind, and I returned for a face mask. The only one I found was in the "lost and found" bin, with a bit of an odd odor... But immediately my sunglasses froze over. Took them off, and in ten minutes the eyelashes started freezing together:

That's when I called it a day.

 

[pmatusov]

After four days at Copper Mountain, it was time for us to head back. We had to make a detour to drop my sister-in-law at the airport in Denver, and from there we headed South on U.S.285. Once we climbed up to the mountains, we hit a white-out snowed-in desert.

Every now and then the crosswind raised so much snow that we had to slow down to low-20s. The Grenadier swayed quite a bit sideways - which did not at all affect its steering: it always tracked where we wanted it to.
The snow gradually let off when we were already close to Buena Vista.

Elk and deer grazed in the Arkansas river valley along the highway.

We backtracked a few miles on U.S.24 to have lunch at Crave in Buena Vista; after a meal, we resumed our south-western progress.
A little town of Saguache offered an incredible jeep/military vehicle museum:

We couldn't pass the opportunity to take a photo with a Grand Wagoneer and an FC-170.

The road south of Saguache was clear of snow, sunny, and otherwise easy. We though we were out of the woods, but then we came upon Wolf Creek pass on the U.S.160:

That warning was not without a merit. The entire descent was a 7% slope.

Soon, we rolled into Pagosa Springs. It blows my mind that I have never been there before.

It would have been awesome to chill out (if that's an appropriate term) in hot springs in Pagosa, as we did in Ridgway - Orvis Hot Springs - on the way up. But our plans called for a sleepover in Flagstaff - 370 miles and 6 hours' drive away.

The night was spent at Hyatt Place in Flag, under an accompaniment of freight trains every 20 minutes, within a third of a mile in a direct line of sight from our windows.

 

[pmatusov]

For whatever it's worth, neither parking nor breakfast were free, so we paid close to twice the hotels.com advertised price. It was still on par with half a day's worth of gas, so no biggie.

If you haven't traveled through Flag recently - there are almost no coffee shops or breafast places open early, so hotel breakfast it is. Sunlight makes orange juice look twice as good.

I hoped to catch some of the Grand Canyon Railroad in action for my grandkid, to no success. Just some static display of cars, before we got chased away by an overzealous RR employee.

We returned to Interstate 40 for 17 miles west, and left it going south on AZ SR 89 towards Prescott. We missed a chance to revisit Sycamore Point - it would have meant a 3-hour detour at least, but we made up by having a brunch at Bistro St. Michael in Prescott.

Prescott is always full of fun places and rides.

A reasonable person would then return to Interstate 17, but it is on our hate list as well. So we continued on 89, through the switchbacks between Prescott and Wilhoit.

It is an interesting drive from Wilhoit through Yarnell to Congress - always seeing a Maugham Ranch white steel fence along the road for nearly 30 miles. Rex Maugham is quite a character, if you care to google him.
Soon, we hit U.S.60.

In 36 miles and a few fewer minutes, we learn that AZ DOT created a royal C.F. on I-10 between junction with US 60 and California border. It was so bad that we elected to take a detour using SR 72, Plomosa-Bouse road, and SR 95/US 95. In process, we witnessed the scenery that the movie "Nomad" brought about.

RVs, vans, trailers, for dozens of miles, spaced a few hundred feet apart at most, with only 4 porta-potties we saw along the road. It's got to be good, is it?
In Quartzsite we had a misfortune of driving through town on a day of a major RV Expo. It coincided with a day of major rock and gem show, and whatever else.

I am yet to learn the good side of Quartzsite. Some day...