Headed out on Tuesday July 2nd late in the evening after a quick lower radiator hose replacement on the Yellow Jeep. Luckily the hose spring a leak the day we were leaving while in town, so it only caused some minor stress trying to leave town, it could have been bad if it sprung a leak hours later, while trying to drive up I70 or even worse 24 hours later when we were off-roading.

We checked out a few mines via short hikes in and a few other new things while we were in the area, I attempted to use a mapping program on the iPad to document and make a trail map of some areas, hopefully I can continue to improve on it each time I go to the area until I have my own complete set of 4WD roads and hiking trails, complete with my own POIs.

First off, the Panorama's:






Bullion King Lake:




Thats it for the Panoramas, I always wish I had taken more because they are so neat to look at later, and if you have a device with a built in gyroscope(like the iPad or iPhone) they are really cool to look at.

We did a quick .75 mile 500 ft elevation hike up to a mine on the 4th, it turned out to be pretty easy and the mine at the top was worthwhile to checkout.

Next we checked out a small ghost town in the Ironton Park:

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=21 ... 3,0.013336

Next up we tooled around and checked out the Ironton Park/Idarado Mine Basin area, there is quite a bit of little stuff to explore and the roads are an extensive labyrinth.

<Google Earth Link>

Next we checked out the Bullion King Mine/Lake area, this road can be accessed off of black bear pass and highway 550. For my loop I started from black bear, and cut over to the main Bullion King Mine road. The road is fairly rough towards the top with minimal passing and turn arounds. The road ends a little past the mine at a parking area, a short walk up along the old road from the parking area leads to the Bullion King lake, the area is pretty scenic and worth the short hike from the parking area to check out the lake. The lake seems to be stocked with fish for those with more Zen than myself.

<google earth link>



View across towards red mountain and Corkscrew gultch/California pass area:



Just a passerby:


Bullion King mine:


My dog found a 2x4 to fetch:







Bullion king lake:








From a gutted fish:


My dog found some snow:


He started running to the top and sliding down:



The walk back down to the parking area:





Ye old faithful Jeep:


My new desktop:

Some misc stuff, on the drive in just outside of ridgeway:


Up to our campsite, letting the Jeep cool off, I had just replaced a lower radiator hose that sprung a leak so the system wasn't fully bled and the jeep got a little hot on the short mile drive up to the campsite from the main road.


Our campsite in the amphitheater:








It was fairly hot, in the mid 80's, so we headed up a little ways to the creek access where engineer me got to work making a swimming hole:


My roommate is working in Grand Junction for the summer, so she came down and hung out with us for a couple of nights before we all had to head back on sunday:



So many dogs!

We also checked out a couple of breweries, first was Ouray brewery, the main brewing building is not in the old downtown but a little north past the hot springs. Their taproom/restaurant is in the old downtown and has three levels with the highest being the rooftop you can sit on. Overall I was quite pleased with the place, good beers and some good, albeit pricey food.

Ouray brewery, I did a poor job of taking some pics of the place:



Oural brewery had a tiny little tasting room, which while it had a cool atmosphere didn't really appeal to me, I got a taster and none were big favorites of mine:



On the way back from ouray we stopped in palisade to check out some more breweries. First we went to a meadery, then headed over to Peach Street Distillery and Palisade Brewery on a tip from my roommate. The distillery was cool, had some free tasters of spirits, and had a pretty nice bar selection of drinks. They had a large outdoor seating area and overall it was a cool atmosphere. If it hadn't of been so damm hot(about 98) I would have stuck around longer.

Winery between the distillery and the brewery:














They had a delicious rootbeer:


And some delicious food:





Overall I was really impressed with the brewery, I was really pleased with all the beers to the point where I even bought a six pack of dirty hippy and a growler of their IPA. And that says something that I was willing to buy yet another useless growler that will adorn my shelf at home. The beer was good, the food was good, the guy playing music in the corner was actually good and knew how to play at a reasonable volume(11). I think I have found a new place to stop by whenever I am passing through on my way to Ouray or Moab.

And last but not least, the full album can be found here:
http://colorado4wheel.com/images/ouray/ ... uly4_2013/

I am working on publishing the trail routes and data via google maps/earth, I hope to add those soon once I figure out how to do it properly.