Silver Jack and Courthouse Trail No.

Thursday while in Montrose shopping, I had visited the local quilt shop to see what there was to buy. In conversation with the owner, she said had we visited Silver Jack?  Told me how to get there, what there was to see, and kept stressing - don't tell people about it - we want it all to ourselves!  Silver Jack area which encompasses a reservoir and is part of the Uncompahgre National Forest, is truly a beautiful area.  This is what I would call the 'mountain man' environment - raw nature, of course bears and elk and moose, rivers flowing through the valley, ginormous cliffs with hoo-doos, spires, rock formations towering over you.  Rivers flowing by, just beautiful!

9 Jeeps on their way back to Route 50, we are heading where they were

Large ranches tucked into mountain 

Almost there

We drove on a hard dirt packed road for 21 miles going due south of the South Rim of the Black Canyon.  About 15 miles into the drive there were some very expensive enormous lodges and ranches on both sides of the road.  Wow-ee!  Continued on until we got to Silver Jack Campground inside the forest boundary.  Not sure what to do next, I had read that there was a hike around the reservoir.  We continued on and stopped to talk with Forest Service folks who were mending a fence.  Got instructions to go to Courthouse Trailhead and off we went.

Beaver Pond Area

Stopped to talk with these folks who gave us directions to Courthouse Trail 

Cows grazing everywhere we looked

Or out for a stroll 

We saw them a couple of times during the day

Trail was exactly where it should have been, changed into hiking gear and off we went.  Only we were heading straight up.  We talked briefly with 2 guys who had just come down from the top, said it took them 2 hours to get to the top of Courthouse Rock where the views were astounding, the last mile was pretty steep and you had to scramble across rocks.  But they said you did not need to go all the way up, there were plenty of spots to just look around and see the valley and breathtaking views.

Courthouse Rock - if we can make it to the top, yeah!

Very used trail, no problem finding the pathway

Rut-roh - that's rain in the distance

Up we climbed.  We started at 10,300 feet knowing we had to go up another1800 feet to the top.  After about 20 minutes we heard thunder in the distance, started raining and we huddled under pine trees until it stopped. Continued on up.  But then, more thunder and it was getting blacker.  We had only made it 750 feet up, couple of times we had to stop to get our breath, but we continued on.  The thunder was getting much closer, don't want to be caught in he mountains in lightning, so we decided to head back down. Obviously going down was much quicker, harder on the knees, but made it back in time to change and get into car and it started to pour.

Hello - there are a lot of you guys 

They kept coming

A number of bulls in the crowd 

The cowboy on left, yellow slicker, is the 99 year old man, owner of the cattle

Stopped and asked this guy on horseback what we we just experienced

We felt bad we did not go farther, but on the other hand, we walked in the Uncompahgre Forest, saw beautiful nature, experienced the wonders of being outdoors.  Terrific!

Beautiful area

Driving back down the mountain we came across cattle - a lot of them - hogging the road.  We had seen cattle grazing everywhere on the way up, but this was something else.  We waited - hundreds of them - coming at us.  Eventually we saw mounted horseback riders and their herding dogs and a large pickup truck which was herding the cattle along the road.  It was pouring, but we were dry - felt bad for the riders.  Dave and I discussed how many heads of cattle and eventually we got our answer.

Silver Jack Reservoir - very low

Farther down the road we came across a horseman, his dog and ahead was a horse trailer/truck.  We stopped and asked him about what we just saw.  He said there were over 110 pairs (mom and calf) which is 220 plus a number of bulls, which we also saw in the huge gathering.  He also explained he was on his way in the truck/trailer to get the man who owned the cattle - he is 99 years old and has been in the saddle for the last 5 1/2 hours - time to get him off the horse!  He said it was a shame, the man's son had passed away, there is no one to inherit the large herd.  The folks we saw were all 'helping' the elderly man out.  They were taking the herd farther up the mountain, they had grazed off all the area below.  Wow.  99 years old and still rustling cattle!

We also passed Jackson Forest Ranger Station, you can rent out the cabin for maximum of 4 nights, but - no electricity, no water.  Has propane for kitchen cooking and woodturning fireplace.  Open all year.  And an outhouse for you business.  Okay.

Raining hard where we just were

We had rain for most of the trip back, got the car absolutely filthy, but by the time we got back, no rain.  Great day!