The Weminuche Continued.

And here is the rest of the video footage of our seven-day journey into the vast Weminuche Wilderness Area of Colorado. So far it's been a learning experience to edit and develop the video and to combine them with animated photos. I'll get better at it as I proceed, I'm sure.

I'll never forget the scenery and sense of solitude we experienced.

As the trip progressed I became concerned with battery power and disk memory and shot briefer bursts of video.

The last days on the trail were fantastic. Finally I had acclimated to the altitude. It took all of the trip for me to do so, and when I weighed myself on my return home I found I'd lost twenty pounds. Basically over the course of the seven days in the Weminuche Wilderness.

Last Hike in Colorado

For about two weeks I was either hiking or backpacking in Colorado late in September 2012. It took me almost that long to acclimate to altitude over 11,000 feet. So I spent a lot of that time feeling awful whenever I'd crack the 11K-foot mark.

Finally, by the time the main part of the trip was done, I was over my altitude sickness. On our way back to Denver to catch our flight, we stopped one last place to climb a mountain. I've forgotten the name of the mountain, but it's just outside of Durango.

Because I had lost about twenty pounds and that my lungs and innards were finally accustomed to thin air, I pretty much flew up that mountain. We'd gone there to see what we'd been told were epic stands of aspen trees. And, true to the claims, we found the aspens in large numbers, great health, high tops, and spinning gold in the sunlight.

I want to go back to Colorado some time and do more hiking. And next time I'll make sure that I acclimate more effectively to the high altitude.

I don't care what anyone tells me. There's something about the skies out west that makes the colors more vibrant.

The last mountain we climbed. Just outside Durango.

Summit area seen from an adjacent ridge.

Older pines along the trail.

The reason we climbed the peak--vast groves of aspens.

I hear that there is a grove of quaking aspens in the Dolly Sods Wilderness in West Virginia. Which would make it the southeasternmost grove of those tress in North America. I need to go back there to find it. I tried once, but failed to spot them.

Durango & Silverton Train.

Just about the best way to access trail heads into the back country of the Weminuche Wilderness is to use the Durango & Silverton train. The train will drop you off on a scheduled day and pick you up another scheduled day. In our case we hiked a horseshoe-shaped route in which we were dropped off at a northerly trail and picked up later at a southern trail terminus.

Here, then, are photos and video I took of the Durango & Silverton train ride.

Andy Kunkle carrying his pack to the station.

The station.

Overhead racks.

The little details: Kerosene lamps.

 

Looking back!

Old cars going to ruin.

The car that took us in was much more comfortable than the one that picked us up.

Taking on water for the boilers.

 

They dump us off at Elk Creek.

 

Train prepares to leave.

The train leaves us at the trailhead.

After eight days we cross the footbridge to the Needleton trail head where the train will pick us up.

We picked Bob Johnson to signal the train to stop for us. Andy and I took photos and pictures.

When they picked us up, the conductor politely suggested to us that we might want to ride in the open air car! We had been eight days without a bath wearing pretty much the same filthy clothes. You can imagine his concern for our fellow passengers.

I have no doubt he could smell us across the aisle.

 

You want soap and water? We got soap and water.

 

I took this photo blind by holding the camera behind my back. Priceless. This is Bob Johnson, one of the trio that included me and Andy Kunkle. We stank. We had bought and consumed alcoholic beverages from the concession car. We were foul-smelling and laughing and loud. As you can see, the entire group of passengers had moved to the other side of the car. One guy even has his head out the window (apparently for fresh air, or maybe to vomit). Much hilarity, indeed. (For what it's worth, this trip convinced me that if there was a zombie apocalypse, the human race would not survive.)

 

We arrive back in Durango. The other passengers seemed somehow eager to exit the train.

We say goodbye to the engine.