Colorado Western Slope and FJ Summit Vacation (20100716-25)

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Saturday, July 24th, 2010 - Imogene Pass on Day 4 of the 2010 FJ Summit in Ouray, Colorado









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Today the main attraction was leading a group of Summiteers over Imogene Pass from Ouray over to Telluride.

If you want ALL of my photos from this day, click ---> here <---  (VERY LARGE ZIP FILE)

Here are the ones I'm adding to Sandi's site...



This day started out kinda sad for us  :(   .....we reserved too late, and didn't have a room at the hotel for the last night of the Event.
We ended up staying at a friend's place in the area though. So, that was nice.
This was the morning scene on the hotel dresser (good bye for now, Dale. See you next time)...






We met up with the group for the trail run across the street from 'Headquarters'
I got out the form that I got from headquarters the night before, met everyone, shook hands,
got their names and colors matched up, found out spouse/partner names, etc, and wrote it all down,
but then here's where I'm (ya, once again) an idiot....

The whole reason for doing that was to help my self remember names and have things to associate folks with, etc,
and then, at the end of the day, I handed in the form at headquarters to let them know we were finished
(and for them to have a record of who went out with us and who returned, etc).

Needless to say, since that form contained the list which I was going to use
to identify everyone later when looking through photos, etc, I'm a bit lost now.

So, if you were on this run and are willing, please contact me via e-mail (Checkpoint6 -AT- SandstormVillage -dot- com)
or PM on the forum (OCR14a), and give me some help (your name, screen name, FJC color, and/or whatever else).
I will add identifiers to this page (not real names; just screen names) whenever I get them.






Here we are under the over-hang on our way up Camp Bird Rd.





I know....so many photos of FJ Cruisers altogether....but hey, that's what the day was really all about.
So, HA!    :-) 
If you ever don't like any of my photos, you're free to just keep scrollin on by  :)





On the road up to Imogene Pass, there are a few places every once in a while that have semi-challenging, optional obstacles that
can be fun if you decide to hit them. In our case, we decided to take the harder (though not the hardest) routes on occasion.

This was one of them. Of course, the real challenge on this rock descent is further to the left, but I figured it would be fun to take
the medium route and give everyone that wanted to a chance to see a little bit of what their rig could do.

It was always an option to skip this and go to the right in this scene where there's really no 'obstacle' at all,
but everyone chose to go down the middle of the slanty area.

This isn't everyone, but I got some pics of some of us doing it in this animated gif....






So it wasn't anything crazy, but it's still enough to want to hold on sometimes  :P





I just had to see what FJAdmin's rig would look like in this garb
I think it's a sweet lookin ride, but maybe that's just me  ;)





This was another one of those [kinda] fun little drops




and another animated gif





Here we are at the start of the ascent; just past where the Camp Bird shortcut connects





I always like playing around on this one.





Just after I was there with Sandi, the sun came out, and I had to snap a shot of this one too










This is usually one of the main stops along the way;
the old mining area just before heading up the long skree slope ascent to the summit





One of the FJers called our attention to the mine entrance




So, we walked over to check it out.
Inside we could see snow and ice still piled up from last winter




waterfall through the wildflowers     :)





pretty, pretty, pretty      oh my 










Here I was trying to get a good shot of the rock glacier coming down that mountainside into the valley





The lighter colored flowers here are Columbines (Colorado's state flower)




over the radio, I heard someone mention that there were deer on the slope below
So, I snapped this shot. You can see them if you look close...





blown up









































We stopped briefly at the overlook spot near Lake Ptarmigan




looking ~South




looking ~East/Southeast





tightening up a loose fitting on an air intake




JammerGirl making a phone call




This is looking West, over at the actual, named summit area on the top of Imogene Pass




Here is our group at Imogene Pass Summit




 

One more cropped shot of that scene...




 

Looking back down toward Ouray, you can see a couple other FJ Cruisers making their way up here.
(In this view, you can see a little place we hiked to on the north end of Ouray earlier in the week --> LINK)





Gotta get another shot of Sandi from up there





JammerGirl did her annual 'hike down from Imogene Pass' routine again.
She didn't make it all that far this time, but it was nice to get out and enjoy the surroundings on foot for a bit.
You can spot here on her way down; little light colored spot on the road over on the left.





Now we're headed down to Telluride










Imogene Pass Alpine Slide
I always wish I could get in some kind of sled/craft and slide all the way down this thing.














Here's another one of those fun little drop spots. This one definitely got many of us a little tippy.
I usually go this way anyway when we come along here with others on a trail run, and just go off and do our own thing.
This time, I invited others to try it if they wanted, and everyone did (though I don't think I got everyone in these pics).









Again, not anything extreme, but it's just enough to have a little fun




 

potty stop in an old mining area
I know... QuicksilverFJ would probably have names for the town site, each of the buildings, and street names,
but he's not here, so you just get 'old mining area'   :)








Just down the street from our last stop, we (and another FJ Summit group - lead by KansasLawDog) all pulled off
to let Shane4x4 go by; he was recording video and wanted to keep moving a little faster than how we were progressing.

Here you can see how the Expedition One Geri (plastic external fuel container) expanded on this trip.
It was odd; we'd never seen it do that before, even though we've used it in exactly the same way at least a few times before.





Here's Shane4x4 (from FJC Magazine; the one that puts together the FJ Summit official 'Event Guide') going by
....waiting for a few motorcycles to pass










Looking across the valley to Black Bear on the other side
You can actually see soe other vehicles (probably FJ Cruisers) if you look close at the switchbacks













In light of the weather, and after taking an interest poll regarding whether or not to go over Ophir Pass,
after lunch in Telluride (most of us ate together at the Brown Dog), we headed back to Ouray via Last Dollar.


It was raining. So, most of the shots I took were all about 'how can I take some photos that will still look cool in the rain?'


























Thanks a lot to everyone for joining us on this run today. We had a blast.
It's always fun to just get out there and see the beauty,
and it was an extra special treat that everyone else also wanted to play a little along the way.


I think next year, perhaps we should have one trail run, somewhere in the area, that's just dedicated to doing that....
we go out and look for all of the craziest things we can get our rigs over and take photos of each other doing it.
I don't know....maybe that's just silly, but het, it's vacation.   :)


About the photos... as I mentioned near the top of this page, the ones I posted here on this page are only a portion of what I took that day.
If you want all of them (and full res), click ---> here <---  (VERY LARGE ZIP FILE)

Also, as I also mentioned above, if you were on this run and are willing,
please contact me via e-mail (Checkpoint6 -AT- SandstormVillage -dot- com) or PM on the forum (OCR14a),
and give me some help (your name, screen name, FJC color, and/or whatever else).
I will add identifiers to this page (not real names; just screen names) whenever I get them.

Well, thanks again, and I hope you enjoyed your time in Paradise.








At the raffle that night, I won a set of two wheel spacers (from All-Pro).










Later that night, I noticed how the lights from town and the moon kinda looked cool in the sky.
So, I snapped a shot; just before laying down my little head on our last night in town.






Click ---> here <--- to see our last day on this trip.



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