Ouray Community Bonfire

Crisp and Cold

The last week in November blanketed Ouray in about 8" of snow and brought frigid temperatures. Above: Ouray Livery Barn- the day after the storm.

Seagull - Cayocus, CA

Photographed during last week's visit to Cayocus, CA.

Cayucos, CA

Lone windmill amidst marine layer of fog (Cayucos, CA) photographed during a visit last week.

Whitehouse Mountain

Whitehouse Mountain (13,492 ft.) viewed from near the KURA transmitter site.

Mt. Abrams

Mt. Abrams (left) and its associated ridgeline as viewed from the KURA transmitter site. Hazy storm clouds were approaching.

KURA Antenna Site

My brother Ethan inspects the KURA antenna at the 9,000 ft. "blowout" site. The two-pronged horizontally polarized antenna at the top of the tower is the KURA transmitter antenna and the studio transmitter link is the brass colored antenna near the bottom of the tower. Ouraynet's rectangular antennas are also seen on the tower. All looks well for the winter season. If anything went wrong we'd need snowshoes or skis to get up in winter time.

After October Snow

The big October storm just missed us, but we did get a few inches of snow to play in.

Autumn Evening

It was raining most of the day yesterday, but just before sunset the skies began to clear. The first photo (above) was taken along the Dallas Divide just before sunset.

Autumn Evening (Cont.)

A quick jaunt out toward Last Dollar Ranch yielded a few more gems (e.g. left) before the light faded.

Goldrush Update

Since the time of my last post, colors have reached or surpassed peak depending on the area. This photo was taken from the corkscrew turntable trail (#9 on this pdf map) in Ironton, CO. This trail was the railbed for the Silverton Railroad and includes a covered turntable and switchback (turntable circa 1890).

Autumn Gold Rush

The Autumn gold rush has begun as the aspen trees begin to shed their green. Some groves have turned gold as shown in this photo from Ironton, CO, but there is still a green hue left in many areas.

Day After the Storm

After receiving about 8" of snow yesterday, the sun decided to burn through the fog and our precious mountains reappeared.

First Snow of the Season

The winter of 2005-2006 was moderate as far as snowfall, but the 2006-2007 winter season got an early start this year. On Friday the town of Ouray awoke to about 6 inches of fresh snow and an 8 hr. power outage. Fortunately, Exotic Earth Coffee Roasters was one of the only spots in town that remained open through the power outage (thanks to a stand-by generator), so I met all of the usual suspects there in the morning.

Hiking on Mt. Abrams

Ironton CO and US 550 as viewed from Mt. Abrams

Today I tried to summit Mt. Abrams (right) along with my brother and neighbor Gary. Abrams is the signature mountain of Ouray, framed by the Uncompaghre River valley. The trails proceeding up Abrams are not maintained. Unfortunately, we spent most of our day poking around at lower elevations attempting to find the trail up the west side of the mountain from Ironton. While we didn't reach the summit, we had a spectacular view of Ironton and the first hints of Autumn colors (above).

Introduction

"Purposeless Wandering" is an allusion to the concept of nondoing or wu-wei as expressed in the ancient Chinese wisdom literature, the Tao Te Ching. Just as non-doing does not mean doing nothing, so purposeless wandering does not mean going nowhere.


And so, this log is presented as a simple update on some of the wanderings in my life within the spectacular context of Ouray, Colorado. As you can see in the satellite view , this is some of the wildest and most undevelopped terrain in the U.S.