People who don’t have wanderlust can’t seem to understand it. They say that Daniel Boone had it. Or was it Davy Crockett? I don’t remember; it was in a schoolbook.
My brother used to ask me all the time, “What are you running away from?” I finally told him, “what makes you think I’m running from anything? Maybe I’m looking for something.” He made a soft “ah…” and never asked again.
Like Boone or Crockett (or maybe both of them), I’ve always wanted to see what is beyond the next ridge… over the next mountain… down the next valley. On my Great Dinosaur Trip with my Little Guy, chronicled here:
— we had driven part of the historic Oregon Trail in my little 4WD. I could see the Wind River Range, and felt a longing to go there. Which I did, decades later, that story to be told in a future Substack post.
When I see mountains, I want to go there. And a year earlier, I had glimpsed the mountains (the Elk Mountains) beyond Crested Butte, Colorado. I had the itch. I had to go.
I took the usual two days getting to Gunnison, stopping for a night at the Middle Fork RV Park in Fairplay to add to my little collection of placer gold, and arrived at the Tall Texan RV Park in Gunnison. It was even more beautiful than the year before:
Here’s a phone shot of my motorhome in its space.
I just love those big, old, mature Cottonwood trees. Except for when they’re shedding.
The next morning, I went up above the source of the Gunnison1 to visit an old friend: Taylor Park, which I’ve written about previously here:
It was just as quiet, serene, and awesome as before.
That is the Collegiate Range in the distance, which is also the Continental Divide.
Here are some cliffs that you see beside the Taylor River on the way back down to Gunnison:
I have explained earlier that the geology of this area is complex. So, what are these cliffs? Tuff from the San Juan volcanic field? Breccia from the Elk Mountains? Or some of the Proterozoic basement rock that underlies all of Colorado? You tell me.
I arrived at the mouth of the Taylor River, where it joins the East River to become the Gunnison, and hurried up the East River, just in time to catch the sunset on Crested Butte (the mountain, not the town):
Paid subscribers received a large, suitable-for-printing-and-framing copy of this image about a month ago.
The next day, I ventured up into those mountains on the other side of Crested Butte and went down the deadliest 4WD road in Colorado. If you subscribe to this Substack (free or paid), you’ll be sure not to miss it.
The Gunnison River does not begin high in the mountains, as most rivers do. The Gunnison begins a few miles north of the town of Gunnison where the Taylor River and the East River (which is west of the Taylor) flow together.