After enjoying our mine tour and breakfast at the Bachelor-Syracuse Mine we headed toward Silverton but made a detour near the Red Mountain Pass on a bypass at the Ghost Town of Ironton to explore the standing old buildings. Settled in 1883, within three weeks three hundred buildings were being built. Ironton was a major transportation junction between Red Mountain and Ouray in addition to having some of its own mines. Ironton had a peak population of over 1000 and had two trains arriving daily from Silverton. There were many chain stores from the nearby cities of Ouray and Silverton. The town lived into the first part of this century and has slowly faded since then (Ghosttowns.com).
And some great scenery around the area.
As we continue to explore we drove by some of the old mines in the area with great views of the area.
We stopped at Yankee Girl mine that was one of the richest silver producers in the area where they hit a natural column of silver ore so pure that it didn't have to go to the mill and went straight to the smelting room for melting into ingots.
Then after lunch in Silverton, we headed up the road to Animas Fork and the start of Engineer Pass.
We saw some of the local wildlife in a bunch of the Marmots running across the road ahead of us.
And this male grouse that was strutting his stuff for a hen sitting in the bushes next to him beside the road and they didn't react to us driving by...
As we made our way up Engineer Pass we noticed we had the road to ourselves which gave us time to stop and enjoy the area and take photos.
Once we took some photos along this tall snow drift we then continued down the other side and into Lake City and back to the house in Montrose.
We had a great day out exploring the back roads even thou none of it was 'rough' four wheeling !
More to come as the summer goes on.... Enjoy your travels !
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