Return to Silverton

8/12/00
Last night I didn't get much sleep in Moab, because of heat and wind. A ferocious wind came through and blew dust on everything, and I had a hard time seeing or breathing. I slept in the upstairs bed, with the windows unzipped for maximum ventilation. It was over 95 degrees in the evening, and I couldn't even stand to have a sheet on top of me, it was so hot. My van's refrigerator is normally silent in operation, but when the temperature of the outside coils exceeds 100 degrees, a fan comes on. Well, last night the fan kept going until at least 2:00 am. The wind shook the van and blew the canvas top around so much that, at around 1:00 am, I decided to retreat to the bottom bunk and close the top down. It was much quieter this way, but hotter. Finally, at about 5:00 am the wind stopped, and since it was still too hot in the bottom bunk, I opened the top up again and go back "upstairs". When I woke up around dawn, the thermometer read 78 degrees, which was the overnight low.

After breakfast, I go visit Arches National Park for a whirlwind tour. It's not very satisfying. Since they don't allow dogs on the trails in the park, all I can do is drive around and take pictures, staying close to my van. They're also very strict about making you park only in approved overlook parking areas, since they have a real traffic and parking problem. I can feel the ghost of Edward Abbey cursing me, and I'm not enjoying myself much, anyway. There's not much point in going to each viewpoint and collecting the same photo that everyone else is taking. I cut the tour short and leave with only a few photos.

Considering the unrelenting heat, I decide to take the advice of Escalante and Dominguez, the Spanish missionaries who were the first Europeans to visit the area. They wrote on this part of the map "Sal si Puedes", which means "Get out if you can!"

I decide to get some altitude, so I drive to Silverton, Colorado where it's cooler. I hadn't been to Silverton since I was about 10 or 12 years old, during family summer vacations. Amazingly, it hasn't changed much. Here's a view of the town on the way in.

It rains in Silverton. I drive to South Mineral Campground, just north of town, where we used to camp when I was a kid. I'm very disappointed to find the campground is closed for construction. It's still pretty, though. Pepper and I walk through it, and find the sites where we used to camp. I rememeber once finding "gold" (it turned out to be iron pyrite) in the creek. I look for more, but with no luck.

Since the official campground is closed, I camp at a "designated camping" area along a tributary to South Mineral Creek.

After I'm settled in, a very noisy group of Texans comes in, in a van, truck, and trailer. There are a bunch of kids about 8 to 10 years old practicing yodelling. I'm very tired, because of my previous night's poor sleep in the furnace of Moab. Mercifully, after setting up camp, they drive back into Silverton for awhile. I snooze, and don't even hear them return.

8/13/00
I sleep in a bit today, and drive the short distance to South Mineral Campground. There's a trail there to Ice Lake, which Pepper and I attempt. It's a long steep, high-altitude trail, and we don't make it to the lake at the end. We hike up for about two and a half hours, taking breaks for water and photography.

Pepper starts out extremely enthustiastically, sniffing everything and running around like a puppy. After about an hour, she's trudging along, just keeping up with me. Then, she begins heading down the mountain every time we re-start after a photo or water break. You can see she's dragging a bit in the photos. I have to say, "No, we're going this way" as I redirect her up the trail. She does OK for a 12-year-old dog. After almost three hours, I decide Pepper's right. I start hearing thunder, and feeling a drop or two of rain, and I'm without raingear for myself or my camera. People I meet say the trail gets steeper and more exposed before reaching the lakes, and that doesn't sound like a good place to be during a mountain thunderstorm. Suddenly I can't stop humming REO Speedwagon's Ridin' the Storm Out, especially the part where they talk about the Rocky Mountain Winter. So we head back down. It takes us 45 minutes to go down the same trail that took 180 minutes to go up.

Pepper and I are both tired. It starts to rain hard after we get back to the van, but we only caught a few drops while on the trail. I go into Silverton for a nice Mexican dinner, and then return to the designated camping spot on South Mineral Creek, after first exploring the road toward Eureka and Sunnyside Mine. I make sure and park far from the yodelling Texan family, and I don't hear them or anyone else all night.