Headwaters of the Rio Grande

Day 2 of Jeep rental - we had planned to go back and see the sites along the Alpine Loop but had had enough.  Instead, we headed south, over the Slumgullion Pass (that is a piece of cake now after traveling the Alpine Loop) to the headwaters of the Rio Grande River.

View of Browns Lakes from Route 149

The Rio Grande is the third longest river in the US, Mississippi and Missouri are respective 1 and 2.  We had packed a lunch hoping to find a nice place to look out over the river, with morning rain until 8am, we waited until 9:30 to take off.

Lots of beautiful homes 

First spotted Rio Grande

Found the Forest Service road and began our back country trek.  Very pretty scenery.  Passed a number of small lakes, campgrounds, and then when we crossed over a small bridge and turned more north, bam - there was the river below us in a canyon.

A Jeep Willie!  Neat!

Continental Divide runs along the top of that mountain ridge

Lots of ATVs moving further into forest

Followed the road for quite a distance and came to the Rio Grande Reservoir, water was quite low.  We found out later that day that the Corp of Engineers is letting the water drain down because they needed to do repairs to the earth dam.

Saw people fishing, some small boats, lots of ATVers heading further into the Rio Grande Forest and the Weminuche Wilderness area which is the largest wilderness area of Colorado.

Storm came up quickly, headed to a campground to hunker down

Took the road until it became very narrow, was more for OHVers, so turned around and headed back.  A huge storm had just come up and we stopped at Ute Creek Campground to see about hiking trails and had to wait for the heavy rain and hail to pass.

Browns Lakes 

Our lunch spot - Black Mountain Lake 

Back out on Route 149 headed north, stopped and took another Forest Service road to the Brown Lakes area, and decided to follow some more roads.  Saw a huge logging operation going on, of course they were idle on a Saturday, but the piles of logs was eye-opening.

Found Black Mountain Lake, actually was a campground, had our lunch there, then returned back to the RV in time to empty our stuff out of the Jeep and returned it by 5:30. When we were returning back to the campground, coming through town, there were so many ATVers/OHVers/bikers sitting by the roadside - we thought - glad we just finished dinner, the restaurants would be jammed.  And glad we were not on the Alpine Loop that day - would have really tested our nerves!

Beautiful Colorado!  So many vista views, raw nature, so picturesque.