Six West Coasters: Legendary Rides - The Million Dollar Highway

The drive from Ouray to Silverton was the first "Legendary Ride" where we were all together. Carol and Brenda didn't get to see Mt. Evans (post coming soon) and so this was their first. We had just picked them up the day before in Denver and driven as far as Salida. This day we left Salida, drove across the Continental Divide at Monarch Pass, and after heading west on 50 for a couple of hours we stopped for our regular two-o'clock brewskie at a bar in Montrose.

Rosie, of course, made some new friends... see previous post about the "Enforcer". To his credit, he was very nice to us and recommended that we take 550 south and see the road from Ouray to Silverton.

It was nearly 3:30 when we left Montrose and we weren't sure how far we'd get or how far Ouray was, but we figured we'd drive it if it wasn't too late or too dark.

The scenery on this trip just kept getting better and better. We headed out of Montrose on 550 south and began to enter a great valley with mountain peaks close by on either side.

The valley had some really nice houses and farms in it and we ogled them thoroughly along the way.

After about 45 minutes we came into Ouray. It was a neat little town and I think we would have stopped there except we had already "beered" and we were on the last leg of the day and it was too early to pack it in, which we would have had we "double-beered".

The downtown was all uphill (hah, hah) and at the end of main street was a switch-back that took us up to where the road cut along the side of the mountain from there to Silverton.

Here's looking back at Ouray from the top of the switchback.

And here's looking forward at the top of the switchback at the left-hand corner that started this Legendary Ride.

Notice the steep drop-off on the right side of the road. It got worse.. Notice the guardrail.. This was the last one we saw. Then it was around the next corner and HOLY SHIT BATMAN! I thought Mount Evans was bad. The difference this time was that I had an extra hundred pounds on the bike and another life in my hands :(

I need to stop here for a second and tell you what I've noticed putting this post together. I have 3 folders of pics and typically I pick several from Rosie's folder 'cause she shoots hundreds of them per mile. To get a sense of how unnerving this ride was, in the twenty-five miles from Ouray to Red Mountain, she shot five.

Anyway, here we go. This is what it typically looked like. The road cut along the side of the mountains the whole way. This is NOT the kind of road on which to make a mistake.

Carol would say "look at that", and "look there", but there was NO FRIGGIN' WAY. I went through the whole ride and only saw the hills out of the corner of my eye. I barely recognize these pics except for the road.

A couple hundred more of these turns...

Then my favourite sign, the "S" curve. It wasn't the lowest speed sign, there was one that said "10mph".

Eventually we exited the canyon and the terrain began to flatten. The sun was beaming across the tops of the hills to the west lighting up the fiery orange iron deposits on the opposite side.

Seemed like the perfect time and place to stop and debrief on that spectacular ride.

(This is technically the end of this Legendary Ride. It was at "Red Mountain"; you can see it in the middle of the map at the beginning of this post. The rest of the way to Silverton was equally nice, but less heart-stopping.)

The girls were certainly impressed with the scenery. Must be nice to have seen some of it :( But we got our rewards anyway. Here's Brenda pinning on our Medals of Valour.

And here's Rosie finishing off Aldo's special reward. I think I'm looking a little envious in this shot. Dave looks like he's either watching or waiting his turn. Maybe both :)