The Alpine Loop Scenic Byway
County Road 2 to US 550

Several times I had to stop and get out and make a plan as to how I was going to cross something in the road (this is where a spotter comes in handy).

There were old mine sites and broken down cabins. Now and then I came to a road going off somewhere else and had to guess at which way I wanted to go (signage was almost non-existant). But slowly I made my way down, and down, and down, past switchback and turn, and switchback and turn, until I came to the spot in the photo right below this.

In the photo, there's a river down below on the left. There's the road in the center with a small stream running down it. On the right is a granite overhang that makes you feel like you're in a tunnel in spots, and pieces of the "roof" are going to fall off any second (there's some large chunks of rock in the "ditch" to lend credence to this idea). This is not where you want to have a height problem, or not know where your wheels are on the road, or run into a group of tourists coming up. And right after I got through here, guess what? Tourists, in herds, coming up the hill like they were the only folks on the road. And while a couple of them knew how to pull over and stop to let me by, none of them got the concept of "reverse." I pulled over more than a few times, and backed up several times, too. Then there was the guy in the Texas Hummer who stopped in a narrow part of the road and motioned for me to drive by, directly over a particularly large, sharp boulder sticking up...

My timing wasn't too bad: I emerged at the edge of pavement just as half-a-dozen bright yellow rental jeeps started rushing in... and there was a line of people off-loading ATV's and dirt bikes in the parking area. I flipped the switch on the 4WD, lined up the stick with the "D" and headed for Ouray to get breakfast. Think I'll wait until the next time I'm in Lake City before I try driving the Cinnamon Pass route... it's a lot easier going down a San Juan County road than going up one.