Keystone, Colorado August 12-14
and the Nines Run The Rockies Tour, August 7-12, 1999
A gathering of the faithful from around the globe, in the beautiful rockies!
I joined the tour on the second day out, but still saw some awesome scenery. Here's the 9K at the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, quite simply the most incredible natural wonder I've ever seen.
More of the Black Canyon. Take the Grand Canyon and compress it into a 1/2 mile wide area, and you begin to get the feel. A must see for anyone travelling out there.
The view on Route 62, heading towards Telluride, a nifty ski resort town at the end of a dead-end valley.
The 9K at the foot of Telluride Valley. You can just kinda sorta see the town waaaay back in the distance.
Downtown Telluride. The waterfall in the background provides power to the town through a generating station, accessible via dirt track. A Sonett made it up there!
The view from the cockpit on Route 145 heading towards Cortez. There is a very abrupt change from lush mountain forest to stark red rock desert along this road.
Speaking of cockpit, here's what mine looked like. Laptop with DeLorme EarthMate GPS tucked away in the sunroof, running Street Atlas 6 moving maps; plenty of water for high altitude dehydration; good tunes on the CD player; pillow for quick naps.
The well-stocked trunk, including bigass cooler, tent, stove, sleeping bag, blanket, tool box, bucket of car wash supplies, lawn chair, tarps, axe, frame pack, lantern and of course, CDs for the long drive.
This picture doesn't do it justice, but the front of my beloved 9K was covered top to bottom on bug splatterings a quarter inch thick, the result of three days and almost 3000 miles of non-stop driving. Ewww!
The view from Lizard Head Pass, 10222 feet on Rt. 145. The lizard head is off to the left, but you can't see it from here.
Looking south at Lizard Head Pass. Only 75 miles to Cortez!
Coming down out of the Rockies into Cortez, still about 35 miles away. It flattens out and gets much drier down there, but still beautiful country.
Cortez is only about 40 miles from Four Corners, the only spot where 4 states meet. I've wanted to go there since I was like five, so a small group of us went the night we got into Cortez. And here it is!
Damn! Phil's so fat he takes up four states!!
The loyal steeds at Four Corners. All of us were from Ohio, except David Fielden who was from the UK and was driving a rented 9-3 convertible. From l to r: my 9K, John & Christine Hvalka's 9K, Tom & Christine Kinnaman's 9-3 convertible, Dave's rental, Charles & Mary Ann Parish's 900 ragtop.