Vacation Continued, Pt 4

Alright, so wrapping up our vacation...

We were spending the last mountain leg of our trip in the Telluride area, and as I previously stated, this area was amazing.  Probably my favorite.  The mountains were so different from "our" mountains and the area was much more remote with no major interstate going through.  Since we were robbed of a previous full hiking day we decided that this was our last chance.  There was actually a hiking trail adjacent to our campsite so we decided to start with that.  Well, when you have 0 information on a trail you are most likely going to be dissapointed.  When the trail finally started going through a residential bakyard we decided to turn back and find something else.  We again consulted our hiking books but most of the trails there were extremely long or required camping a night or two to finish.  So, we decided to bank on our close resources and ask our camp host who immediatly responded with "Cross Mountain", and it was just a few miles up the road!

Cross Mountain from afar

This trail was part of a larger trail system so there wasn't much info at the trail head regarding elevation gain, length, etc, but it looked to be 2-3 miles one way.  So we gave it a go.

This trail was hard.  I mean, HARD.  I don't know if it was the starting elevation of 10,000 ft or so, the fact that I had been "roughing" it the past few days, maybe I'm super out of shape and didn't realize it, or was "hangry", but I was not a pleasant hiking companion.  And to my husband, I apologize.  I would classify this hike as difficult to strenuous.  It was just straight up.  No meandering curves to give you a break, no meadows to frolic through, just straight up.  There were many a time I just wanted to turn around but I knew Eric wanted to try and finish and that I was being highly dramatic when I demanded to take the escalator.  We pressed on, even if I did have to stop every 10 minutes to give the dog a dirty look.  But when she collapsed in the shade at one of my many stops I didn't feel so bad about being tired myself

There weren't any good views during this torture either, it was just mountain forest.  Oh, wait, then there were views (as tends to happen with hiking trails).  And they were pretty spectacular.

As you can see, Eric forgave me for being such a crab-ass. And here's Cross Mountain up close

What's that you say?  It looks like a giant, what?  Yeah, heh-heh, we thought so too

I always appreciate a good phallic rock

Here are some more non-phallic mountain shots

Interesting terrain here, almost looks like lava

Ok, so the torture to see these views was kinda worth it.  I sure was happy to be at the bottom again!

That evening we took a much appreciated shower and decided to have dinner in Telluride and check out the little town.  It was adorable!  Not a single stop light and obviously a ski town.  Apparently the gondola to the top of the slopes is considered part of public transportation so can be ridden at no cost year round!  Since we had the dogbert we didn't get to go on it, but I thought it was neat.  And then there was this random guy set up in the middle of the street painting!

 We ate a local pizza shop and bakery that had lots of local flair and was delicious.  Then we, of course, located a brew-pub and sampled their wares

Tasters at Smuggler Joe's

Telluride was a lovely town nestled between giant mountains.  We hope to spend more time here in the future, maybe finally make it out for their famed Telluride Bluegrass Festival. 

That night we headed back to our campsite with bellies full and legs aching.  We had the last campfire of our trip and then turned in early to face a long day of driving as the next day we started to head for  home.