“USA 🇺🇸 ~Colorado From Montrose -Ridgway-Blue Mesa Reservoir-Rainbow Lake, and Gunnison All in One Day! Marvelous!!”

• August 14, 2022
• By Pen
• 0 Comment

With another, mostly sunny day on our side, but with a pending storm due later, we hustled out the door, early, again!

I like to say, if Colorado had beaches, it could top even California’s beauty! 

On this day, to start out, we drove the same way towards Telluride, for me to get some re-shoots on some mountain scenes, which came out blurry the first time that away. Mission accomplished, but same photos still had similar issues, leading me to fully understand; as much as I love my Fujifilm Mirrorless camera, I miss the reach I had for landscape photos with my Nikon D7000 and 18-200 lens. (my D7000 was completely worn out….which led me to my Fujifilm) Soooo the big guy is searching for another Nikon camera for me, so I can have the best of both worlds. He’s good at bidding and selling on used equipment and scoring big! 
Anyhoooo, after I took my re-shoots, from which I realized the lack of sharpness wasn’t all on me, we turned around and headed the direction of Ridgway, where that community was having an Art Festival in the Park, and the Fire Department was putting on a pancake feed. (don’t mind if we do….so we did). Yummy, but couldn’t stay long, as we were burning daylight.

Ridgway
The Town of Ridgway is the most populous municipality in Ouray County.
The town is on the Uncompahgre River, in the northern San Juan Mountains. A quiet western town with charismatic energy, Ridgway was founded in 1890, as the headquarters of the world famous Rio Grande Southern narrow gauge railroad, serving the area’s rich silver and gold mines, ranches and farms.                                                 Today, local museums and events preserve the history of the now defunct railroad and the heritage of traditional ranching lifestyles. The remaining pastures, surrounded by public lands and wilderness, provide picturesque habitat for an amazing wildlife presence, from the elk and deer, to the diverse birds and bald eagles. 

Ha! So Colorado! ⬆️

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Onward for the rest of our big day!

Blue Mesa Reservoir and the Curecanti National Recreation Area ⬇️

Yes Please!

Located near the town of Gunnison, on Highway 50, is Colorado’s largest body of water, and it is a must-see destination. Blue Mesa Reservoir spans 20 miles and boasts over 96 miles of shoreline. Blue Mesa Reservoir is part of the Curecanti National Recreation Area. Th‍‍‍e surrounding Gunnison County offers the best of Colorado with truly outstanding and spectacular scenic areas, gold medal and wild trout waters, and great recreation.

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Rainbow Lake
In order to get to this Lake, it required us to leave the pavement. The road, for an off-road was only rough in a few places, where the recent logging activity created the bad spots, so we took our time, and it was a breathtaking drive!
The mountain lake was well worth the side trip, as it was so pretty! 

As you can see, by this time of the day, the darker clouds have rolled in, making for some great dramatic affects, but the lake just doesn’t look as blue

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With our sunshine getting cloud-covered, and since the storm was beginning to brew, we headed to our furthest point of the day, of Gunnison.
You may recall, if you are following us, not far from Montrose, where we made our home base for this summer and parked “The Whale,” Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park is only about a 20-minute drive. We visited the Park after first arriving in Colorado. What I did not understand at the time of our visit to this National Park, was why the name Gunnison was associated with this Park; other than the name of the Gunnison River which runs through it… the actual town is much further away, than Montrose. Well, we were both surprised to find the other half of this gigantic National Park on our road trip, today! You see, while we easily found the South Rim of the Black Canyon, close to Montrose, we were perplexed on that day, where the North Rim access was. We searched for signage. No luck. I’m sure an internet search would have made sense of it all, and at the time we couldn’t be bothered 😂 Ha! Anywayzzz, we found the North Rim, near the Blue Mesa Reservoir, today; nowhere near Montrose!
While we were most excited to explore the rest of the Park, and while we had daylight, the storm was upon us. So, we’ve decided, to return on our next sunny day, and do the North Rim of the Black Canyon! We also learned there are a few ghost towns near Gunnison.
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Gunnison
is centrally located in the State of Colorado, 200 miles from Denver and 180 miles from Colorado Springs, the major metropolitan areas of the state. The city is approximately 30 miles west of the Continental Divide at the confluence of the Gunnison and Tomichi Rivers. Crested Butte and Monarch ski areas are 28 miles north and 42 miles east, respectively. Gunnison’s elevation is 7,703 feet.

Gunison doesn’t have that small, old western town feel, but it is a college town for Western University of Colorado  

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Montrose
Upon our return to home base, we ventured to a place in town where a guy does chainsaw art.
While up at Rainbow Lake, we got very inspired to come home with a “chunk of tree,” so Daryl can carve a bear out of it. Only thing is, we don’t have a chain saw. (nor do we want one) So, we are looking into (buying) getting a “starter kit” of sorts, where the big guy can use his wood carvings tools to do the finer work, after the chain saw cuts.

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Next stop, NORTH Rim of Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and any ghost towns, we can find!