A long weekend in SouthWest Colorado

The drive from Boulder CO to Cortez is mountainous for the most part and needs extra attention when driving in the dark. Cortez is a good base to explore Mesa Verde national park.

We took the Million Dollar Highway from Durango to Silverton. It was as beautiful as expected.

We visited the Silverton gold mine. This is an attraction I would surely skip next time. I wouldn't even recommend it once. Trolley takes you underground and from then its a lot of talk but nothing much to see or appreciate. It's an abandoned mine anyway.

One memorable thing from our visit to Silverton mine is that by some measure of foolishness and misdirection (from mapquest directions - i guess we must have said shortest distance), we did this 4WD drive adventure in a 2WD economy rented car. The scenery was out of the world but the drive had us remembering God like never before. Memorable but neither should be repeated nor is recommended without a jeep.

It's 2 1/4 miles one way to the waterfall with a 1,040-foot elevation gain within this 325-acre mountain canyon. Nice hike with some views and a waterfall at the end. We did this hike due to lack of time to do the Bridal Veil Falls Hike.

Next we took the free gondola ride to Mountain Village with some fun people who had come for the film festival. We enjoyed this trip a lot and the views are gorgeous.

We must have reached the park at around 10.00 and that is way too late for doing all the tours in 1 day. The rangers help you choose your tours and we ended up doing the tour to Cliff palace and balcony house. We enjoyed both immensely and i think I liked Balcony house a little bit more. This took most of the day and we stopped at a few other viewpoints. 2 days at this park would have done better justice to the place. If u are spending just one day, go early to get in all the tours and viewpoints.

We reached here late night and spent the night in a cabin by the lake. beautiful and serene. We took a walk around the lake early morning and in general liked the surroundings and our cabin.

This was a chance discovery for us - a recommendation by the cabin owners and this was the 3rd highlight of the trip after telluride and mesa verde. Spent a relaxing 2-3 hours there. they have pools of different temperatures and also some springs in the creek. So u could soak in steam like water or cool down by the creek.

Overall a nice introductory trip to the area. If we head out there next time, we would concentrate more on hikes in mesa verde and telluride. Maybe also add ouray to the mix and the san juan scenic byway.