“To Animas Forks Mining Town and Beyond” via Dualsport

We can’t stay away from Animas Forks. It’s probably the most beautiful restored mining town in the country, with an especially interesting journey to get there. It lies at 11,200 feet, high in the Rocky Mountains, just before the trees begin to thin out due to the elevation. There are 9 buildings left standing in this 133 year old town. As a reward for making the trip, you can walk around inside each building, even upstairs in the largest of the homes. The hillside on which the buildings lie is covered in alpine grasses and gorgeous wild flowers all spring, summer and fall, in the winter, it’s all but inaccessible, even on foot.

We’ve made several trips up to this amazing place and plan to make more before the snow falls. We visited a few times in the truck when we stayed outside Durango a couple years back, and most recently, we took Blair to see it before he left back to the UK. A couple weeks after that we met up with an RVing/dualsporting couple we met online, and our last weekend in Durango, we went again on our own bikes. This time we went a few miles beyond the town into Picayune Gulch. We expected to go the distance and make it all the way up to Engineer Pass, but after Picayune Gulch, we decided we need some more (athletic) training for a ride that intense.

Animas Forks, Trip 1, 2015: Blair via Truck

Blair had only a few days left of his 2 month stay and we had shown him parts of New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, so he couldn’t leave without seeing Colorado. Durango was the closest to where we were in Moab so we brought him here without much time left, but enough time for Animas Forks and Silverton. Like many of the days we’ve been up that way, it was overcast, drizzly and cloudy, weather that Blair expressed was his ideal. We drove up the rough, narrow and rocky road to Animas Forks, stopping at each waterfall and point of interest that we could along the way. We spend a good while just walking around exploring the buildings, reading the info on each one despite having read them before and I took tons of photos, as usual. We had dinner at Handlebars Food and Saloon in downtown Silverton.

pics coming!

Trip 2, 2015: RV Outlaws via Bikes and Truck

We met The RV Outlawz online through our social networks and kept finding ourselves in the same places, or close by, on the same day, yet still missing each other. Eventually we all ended up in Durango, Colorado at the same time and found a weekend to meetup and ride out to Animas Forks! (we try and make sure everyone we meet sees it haha). We met up one sunny afternoon, the first sunny day we’ve ever been up there, and had an awesome ride. On the way back down I branched off on a climbing switchback road up to an awesome view and back down again before I got in too deep, never ride alone! Ross took the truck along a river road all the way into Silverton and we all met up for a burger and beers at Handlebars (best place in Silverton!).

Trip 3, 2015: Ross and Kat via Bikes to Picayune Gulch:

We had a weekend where we were finally both in town, and had a free NICE day to get out before we left the area for Page, AZ for a few weeks. Ross didn’t get to ride it when we went with the RV Outlaws due to his carburetor being a jerk, so he definitely wanted to go again. This time, we got to Animas Forks and were curious about going farther. There are several directions you can go, most of them seemingly ending up in Ouray, but we mostly knew nothing about the actual terrain of the passes themselves. We decided to go to Picayune Gulch, a great little road that winds through a small valley before winding up and over the mountains to Ouray (we think..couldn’t find a good map). It was a rocky road, but only got truly challenging when we decided to check out an abandoned mine. The road was full of loose rock, nothing bad, but when there’s a steep hill on one side you pay extra attention. On the way there we were nervous, but after we realized it was no big deal, we were fine on the way back. I tried to avoid a large rock, larger than my bike typically rolls on over, and by doing so slipped and dropped my bike, pointing down the hill none the less.. we drug it back up the slope and propped it up. It was mostly fine except for my already damaged brake lever snapping half off. I only brake with a couple fingers anyway so it doesn’t bother me.

We had a little picnic with an awesome view and arrive back at our loading area unscathed. Of course, we then went to Handlebars, as is out tradition.