Day 4 - A Juxtaposition of Communities

What can I say about today, other than I am glad I am alive! But more of that later...(suspense should be building)

Today started off driving to Silverton, an old mining town south of Ouray. Adam has memories of the town that don't exactly mesh with what we saw today. Me personally, think it's his old age playing tricks on him...or it could be that his memories are different because he was but a wee lad and experienced it with his grandma for the first time. I really don't have much to say about Silverton, other than (in my opinion) it is a dirty little town with not a whole lot to offer...sorry, Silverton, but you're a s***hole.


Telluride and Telluride Mountain Village on the other hand are two amazingly pretty towns...a bit pretentious, but pretty nonetheless. To get to to these two lovelies, we took Ophir Trail (more to come...can you taste the anticipation of my story??? We parked at Mountain Village, because it's free and we're trying to do this trip on the cheap. From MV we took the free gondola ride to Telluride, now talk about some crazy views...and crazy homes. Some of the homes we saw dwarf many Mission Hills homes, both in cost and size! The second part of the ride was a descent into Telluride valley at a rate of 1000 feet/minute.


But, enough of the boring stuff...for what you all have been waiting for...my brush with death and the white-knuckle ride that I may have breathed twice during!

Ophir (actually pronounced "O-fir" but that I have come to call it "O-FEAR") Trail/Ophir Pass.

Personally, I think pictures are quite enough to tell this story, but to let you in on my inner monologue and thought process, I will include some text.
Hey, this isn't bad. I can totally do this!
Ooh, pretty...uh...this is not what I was expecting.
Wow! This is amazing.
Oh, damn; oh, S**t; oh, F**K...what the hell did Adam get me in to, he better not f***king kill me.
And they call that Moderate??? Thank you, God...and Adam...I'm alive. Wow, that was freaking awesome!!! Let's never do that again.

After Telluride, we headed to Cortez for the last leg of our vacation. Once we got here and got settled in we headed out to do some more 4x4-ing...this time on flat land with no mountain edges to be seen. Adam had a really great time today, he was just giddy (I think from all the adrenaline)...it was nice to see him so excited. The forest 4x4 experience was more my speed, but I would be willing to consider something more ballsy again.
SHRUBBERTREE!!!!!