We came to this valley overlook a little ways south of South Fork Colorado, it's not hard to understand why folks fall in love with Colorado.

This is a view of the road from Silverton Colorado to Ouray Colorado.  It is very winding and scenic.

The structure in the distance is the remains of the Yankee Girl mine, south of Ouray Colorado, at one time one of the richest silver mines in the country.

We left Colorado and went to Moab Utah.  Moab is likely one of the most popular destinations for folks who like to Jeep or bicycle on slickrock, a form of sandstone.  We went there to rent a Jeep and do some trail driving and slickrock driving. The photo above is Navajo sandstone which is found in great abundance in the Moab area as well as in Zion National Park, a few hours away.  This particular stretch is along the highway that runs along the Colorado river just west of Moab.

This particular piece of Navajo sandstone in the same general area is named Jug Handle Arch.

After we got off the highway and onto the trail, literally two dirt tire tracks with lots of rocks and dust, we came across this piece of sandstone that had interesting patterns sculpted into it, no doubt caused by erosion from wind and rain over the years.  We thought it somewhat resembled a fish.

This view of the Colorado river is from an overlook a little farther along the trail.  The trail runs along the river for several miles and then moves up the valley away from the river and through a series of switchbacks, works it's way up the cliff to Canyonlands National Park.

This is the Jeep we rented.  It is a stock Rubicon model with 4 cylinder engine and automatic transmission.  It also had front and rear axle lockers for use later on the really steep portions of slickrock.

This photo shows some of the valley trail.  We traveled about 14 miles on this trail, most of the time at less than 10 mph. We did encounter other vehicles including a few bicycles going both directions, so sometimes we had to pull over or back up and pull over so they could get by.

This is a view of some of the early part of the slickrock trail. The black area you see is the tire track of previous visitors and helps you know where to go, there are also white dots painted on the rock from time to time to help you stay on the trail.  They also give you a piece of paper with a small sketch of the area and a few notes about things to avoid.  As you can see the area in the immediate foreground disappears over the edge.  This is one of the reasons that slickrock is so much fun, so exciting, so scary, so interesting, so challenging or whatever you prefer to call it.  You start down something like this and until the front wheels get over the edge and down a little ways, you can't see where you are going, woo-hoo!

Here is another picture which shows the rapid changes in elevation quite clearly. 

This is a good example of why a 4 wheel drive vehicle with lots of ground clearance is the only way to get through this course.  When I hit this one straight on the suspension hung me up, I had to get a little bit sideways to get the rear wheels over this one.

This picture gives you a very good idea why sometimes it was a little scary.  Jane said there were a couple of places she closed her eyes because she was scared, this was one of them, after she took the picture.  The folks at the bottom were from Des Moines Iowa and they had 'prepared' Jeeps which handled much better than our stock rental.  The gentleman in the center of the picture was the senior person and he gave me hand signals to get me lined up, once I had the front wheels over the edge and the nose pointed down so I could see him.  Needless to say we made it!  This trail was about 8 miles long and it took us about 4 hours to complete. By the end of the day we were pretty well worn out, but next time I think we will spend more time and do more slickrock and less dirt trails.

This picture and the two following were taken at Lizard Head Pass, just south of Telluride Colorado.  After we left Moab, we went back into Colorado, to Telluride and then down to Cortez and into New Mexico, more on that next time.  

I don't think there is any such thing as too many pretty mountain pictures.