Sheep Day

Today, a local rancher brought a herd of sheep up to near the summit at Engineer.  They brought over 2300 sheep and were there with their herd dogs and their guard dog.  The guard dog was quite entertaining!  When a Jeep or ATV came down the road, the guard dog would run along side barking all the way.

This first picture is of Toni petting one of the five border collie herd dogs at the site.  The dogs loved the attention.

The next are self-explanatory.  Hundreds of sheep!!

 

 



 The next two are pictures of the herders sheep wagon.  The rancher said they normally bring supplies to the herder about once a week and the wagon is moved to a new location about every two weeks. 



This is a picture of the rancher's personal herd dog that doesn't stay on this location.  She is a border collie as well.  All the rest of the border collies were black and white.

 



 

 

The rancher set up this tent and put a table and hot plate inside.  They brought cooked mutton and served everyone small sandwiches.  They also brought bottles of water for the folks in attendance.  I wish I had taken pictures of the group that came but I got distracted while watching the guard dog run after the vehicles on the road. 

The Forest Service Ranger and BLM Range Management were also there to answer questions.

It was a very educational event.   And a good time was had by all.

Trip to Matterhorn

This post will mostly be pictures.  The first one is of the lake just over the Hurricane Pass on California Gulch.  The trail on the other side of the lake is the beginning of Poughkeepsie Gulch.

All the rest were taken on the Matterhorn Trail, which intersects with Engineer Pass, near Capital City.

I got up early in order to finish loading the pictures from the Matterhorn Trail.

Look closely at the next picture for the marmot.  They are numerous in the mountains.  They eat all they can during the spring and summer months so they can hibernate in the winter.  We are sort of following their lead, which is why we like them.  But...............we haven't figured out how to hibernate.

Today is August 2nd, which is "Sheep Day" in the mountains.  There are numerous herds of sheep that are brought in for summer grazing.  The sheep herders bring in a large herd to a specific area and demonstrate their herd dogs, their guard dogs, and generally educate the public.  This year, they will be near the summit of Engineer Pass.

We have happened onto different herds on the trails from time to time.  We main thing to know is to not tarry, don't chase the sheep, and don't try to pet the dogs.  The dogs really don't want you around.  If we aren't too lazy and the weather looks good, we plan to go observe.  (We are getting pickier every day concerning hitting the trails.)

July 23rd - Testing Toni's Recovery

Toni decided that she wanted to see how she was doing as a result of her shoulder joint therapy and wanted to take a ride on the trails.  So.....................we headed out with the idea that it would be a short trip to see how it felt.  As it turned out, it felt fine to her and we ended out at the Engineer Pass summit.

Toni felt so good that she wanted to go on Silverton for lunch but I had forgotten my billfold.  We headed back to town to eat lunch and decide what was next.  Here are several pictures we took on the trip.

If you look closely at the next picture, you can see a line of Toyota FJ40s at the summit.  This was their annual rally and 350 of them were running trails out of Ouray.  Pain in the behind when you meet these folks.  They have very little mountain pass consideration for other units.

So down the pass we went.  We were hungry and needed a rest room so I drove as fast as Toni could stand but we still paused to take some more pictures.

(below) This is a nice house way up with the only apparent way to get to it is by a foot bridge.  Go figure!

(below picture) It is hard to get a feel for the distances here.  Way down over the edge of the trail is a stream.

We made it back to Lake City and ate lunch at the Packer Saloon.  Toni decided she wasn't ready to go back to the motor home so we did another test run, this time up Cinnamon Pass.

It was downright chilly up there!!

We made it to the top. 

 

 

We went on back down after this picture.  Drove a total of 88 miles this day and Toni did just fine!  We got back around 5:30, just before it started to rain!

Bad Trail Choices - July 14th

There was one area that we have never ridden so I decided today to check it out.  Not a good decision.  I drove the Maverick over Engineer Pass and at the bottom on the other side, the trail forked to the right and the sign pointed towards Ouray.   I previously had looked at the maps and knew that the trail was actually Mineral Creek but I figured our bullet proof Maverick could do it just fine.  And, after all, I had a spare tire!

Thee following are a few pictures of the early part of the trip.

The next pictures were taken from the beginning part of Mineral Creek trail.  Didn't look bad at all about here!

Really beautiful scenery along here and I was still happy as a bug in a rug about my choice.  This is part of the Mineral Creek Trail.

Then, suddenly, the trail turned to the picture below!!  I didn't take very many pictures from about here until I got out of Poughkeepsie Gulch since I was so busy attempting to not tear my rig up or fall off the side of the mountain.  I am really surprised that I didn't ruin some tires on the 50 jillion sharp rocks I had to drive over!

On the way back to camp, I was able to get a couple of pictures of some mountain goats.

 

I must say that I was blessed to make it through the trip without serious incident.  Mineral Creek and Poughkeepsie Trails are both ones that the rental companies prohibit their equipment from traversing.  And..................I will never go back on them and don't recommend them to anyone!!