WEST ELK LOOP TOUR

On Sept. 19 we drove the 170 mile West Elk Loop, following an excellent brochure. We did it counter-clockwise, beginning at Gunniso CO, then north to Crested Butte, west to the Paonia area, south through Crawford and east along the north side of the Gunnison river. The roads were either paved or excellent wide  gravel, traversed by all sorts of vehicles including small cars and trucks. The loop circles the West Elk Wilderness area. The brochure tells us that the West Elk mountains were formed by igneous intrusions, volcanoes, massive uplifting, glaciations and river cutting. The aspens were in the early stages of turning yellow or orangeish. Below are less than half of the pictures I took in the Canon A1100IS 12 mp camera.

 

 

The gravel road descended from Kebler Pass along a branch of the Gunnison River through changing aspens and rugged mountains.

 

Note the varying shades of turning aspens.

 

We next entered  a huge stand of aspen trees, probably five miles long on both sides of the road. All of the trees in a grove of aspens shares one root system.

 

 

These are in the Ragged Wilderness area.

Here we just exited the giant grove of aspens and found this scenic lunch spot a few yards off the road.

Next we dropped down the the valley of the north Fork of the Gunnison River through the coal mining areas at Bowie and Paonia. The three underground mines there have been in recent production, but two now are plagued with fires in the coal seam and are not now working.

Beyond Paonia the road swings south through an agricultural area and then climbs the side of the mesas along the Gunnison River. At Pioneer Point a short walk takes one to an overlook of the Curecanti Needle in the deep canyon of the Gunnison River

 

Here is the Needle over Lake Morrow created by a dam for a power generation station.

The view upstream is toward the dam creating the Blue Mesa Reservoir.