Sleeping in the car, while honestly isn’t horrible for me, leave quite a bit to be desired. I often wake up multiple time throughout the night and can hardly sleep past 6:30am. Despite that the sun had yet to crest the horizon. Given I still had a some 10 hours of driving to reach Santa Fe today, and that wasn’t including any stops, I promptly rearranged the car for driving and headed out.
It had been raining since last night with no signs that it would be stopping anytime soon. The whole weather cell appeared to cover the north west of Colorado. The Drive from Parachute to Ouray was an uneventful 3 hour drive under a gray wet sky. Weather is always hit and miss on a road trip, and even with all kind of various weather apps you can only outrun the weather so much. This was also the first really rainy day, eleven days into my trip, so I wasn’t too upset. Besides the weather in Santa Fe was looking promising.
I finally arrived at Ouray, which sits on the northern side of the 45 miles mountain pass stretch of U.S. Highway 550. I purposely took a ridiculous detour heading to Santa Fe as I wanted to drive 550 just one last time before I left the state. Now Red Mountain Pass is the first of three passes you summit driving south, and also the tallest. While Ouray sits at around 7,800 feet, Red Mountain Pass sits at 11,000 feet, a hefty 3,000 foot climb over 13 miles. At this point I was beginning to wonder if this was a good idea.
What started as rain turned into freezing rain, then sleet, then snow…
There was a group of cyclist descending the mountain into Ouray that day as well. I think I'll stick to my car when it comes to winter conditions.
Ride on you crazy Coloradoan
Mmmmm snow
I’m from texas driving a sports car on summer tires, which can be dangerous to drive on in winter conditions. The last thing I expected to see was snow in June yet here I was driving through a snowstorm. Thankfully the road was warm enough that nothing was sticking to the ground, and the previous three hours of driving had adequately warmed up the tires so that traction was not an issue. Although I stuck to a grandma pace through the pass and would often test the brakes a couple of times before going around each corner. Under steering off the mountain was quite the concern, and something I wish to never experience. The downhill only made my fears worse, as the snow dissipated and became sleet again, however this time the sleet wasn’t melting on the road. I opted to take my ever so sweet time coming down from Red Mountain Pass. Compared to about a week earlier where I was passing people on this road, I was now the car everyone was passing.
Thankfully by the time I got to Silverton the sleet and snow had resumed to just being rain again and I was able to drive the southern part of 550 without seeing winter weather conditions again.
Molas Lake Park & Campground, quite a different view compared to when I had stopped here for sunset.
After my eventful drive through the mountains I stopped in Durango for some R&R. Ended up taking a shower at the gym I belong to and eating lunch off of highway 160. From there I headed east towards Pagosa Springs to take US highway 84 into New Mexico. While in Pagosa Springs I stopped for supplies as well as I was now familiar with the area having spent the day here at the beginning of my trip. As I was loading my car up I once again found myself unable to escape the the rain as it started pouring on me in the middle of my packing up. Not wanting to get soaked I threw the rest of my stuff in my cooler and hastily closed up the car. I try to keep the car organized as my space is quite limited but I don’t mind making an exception if it prevents my supplies and myself from getting drenched.
A field of cows grazing, just east of Pagosa Springs
From there is was more butt time in the driver seat, the only dislike of my trip are the days where you just drive. I was finding my lackluster collection of CD to be getting old and my leg muscle growing tired of holding the accelerator down, my car lacks any kind of cruise control being a base model.
Finally made it to the Santa Fe National Forest, right at sunset. When I had first pulled up the campgrounds I thought about setting up camp and eating dinner but found the light to be far too good to pass up. I drove further up the mountains and came across a beautiful scenic overlook of the Santa Fe area.
The cost of getting that shot was setting up camp and eating dinner in the dark, a small inconvenience to pay for such a breathtaking view.