IMOGENE PASS 2013

 

On Sept. 17 we took friends Jerry and Jill Wedlake on a day trip over Imogene Pass beginning at Telluride CO. Although they have a cabin in Ridgway, a few miles from pass, they never had been over it. It was our pleasure to introduce them to the pass. I have been over it several times, so it was not new territory to me. (Jerry and I attended elementary school together in Beloit WI in the 1940s!)

Here we have started our climb out of Telluride. Bridal Veil Falls is near the center. The road leading up to it in the lower part of the picture is the famed  Black Bear Road.  The day was partly cloudy with occasional spots of sunlight. Few of the aspens had turned yellow yet. 

Here our road is approaching Savage Basin above the falls.

The basin contained both mines and a mill on this large foundation. Stagecoaches regularly traveled the road at the right in the heyday of the Tomboy mine. A book titled Tomboy Bride tells the story of a newly married  young woman spending the winter in a cabin here with her mining engineer husband.

Debris makes an interesting pattern. The Tomboy mine was closed in 1927.

This is all that remains of a large structure supported by the lines of posts.

Jerry and Jill in the Tomboy Mine area. They have climbed 14,000 ft. peaks in recent years.

Here is the top of the pass at 13,114 ft. Fortunately, there was a brief period of sunlight while we were there.

A short side road at the top took us to an observation area overlooking the Uncompaghre valley in which the Million Dollar Highway is located. It is quite a sight to look down on the Red Mountains.

 

Now we began our descent through Imogene Basin into the Camp Bird mining areas.

 

 

A nice view of our road descending more to the Upper Camp Bird and Camp Bird mine areas. Fortunately we could take a shortcut through the lower Camp Bird mining area to reach the Yankee Boy Road down the Sneffels Creek canyon Ouray without traversing a rough and uninteresting part of the road to reach another bridge over the creek.

Fortunately the rain for the day held off until we were below timber line on the Ouray side. At the end Jill said that she enjoyed the trip over the pass but once was enough for her!