Before The Storm

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After nearly a week of beautiful weather the weather gods found out we were in southern Colorado and decided we had had enough sunshine, warm breezes and generally fair weather so this morning instead of the usual sunrise we had the first of many of our snowstorms.

Durango was our host last night as today was the day we were to visit Silverton and Ouray. Both of these places are up at the nosebleed elevations so if we were having rain down here you could bet that it was near blizzard conditions up there. Even as I pondered whether I would attempt it the rain began to turn to sleet then full-fledged snow.

Since going north into the higher country then east through more high country to get home was not only fool-hardy but ill advised I turned our tail to the east and ran before the storm like a sissy, I mean a well seasoned traveler, retracing our path hoping to get to Wolf Creek pass before the storm could catch up to us.

Luckily we made it but just barely, as you can see by the picture above. Wolf Creek pass is over 10,800′ high and is one of the more treacherous passes to cross in the winter, but is the only way back home unless you want to go to Kansas and turn left, so I only stopped at the overlook long enough to grab this image with my trusty iPad. I needed to get over the summit before the storm really arrived because I had neglected to pack the snow chains for the Bokeh Maru and you do not want to drive Wolf Creek in the snow without your chains on. The bones of those vehicles that have tried in the past are still visible, slowly rusting away at the bottom of the cliff.

Tomorrow I should be back broadcasting live from the Directors tower at The Institute bringing you new images and perhaps a story or two, so stay tuned. There’s film, I mean pixels at eleven.