Riding Soap Creek on the way to Gunnison, Colorado

Colorado is really a beautiful state and we always enjoy visiting here.

This morning we left Montrose and headed to Gunnison.  Along the way, we stopped at the Soap Creek Horse Campground to ride in the West Elk Wilderness part of the Gunnison National Forest.

https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/gmug/recarea/?recid=33534

There are four horse corrals available for campers.  Frankly, they were all filthy and I wouldn't have put my horse in any of them.  There was a set of pit toilets, but no water that I could see and no picnic tables.  There were fire rings at most of the campsites.

I had considered booking this campsite, but Ari wanted to stay at hotels as much as possible, so we are only tent camping in areas where I couldn't find an alternative.

I'm glad I listened to Ari because this would have been a pretty miserable place to camp.  Although we probably would have opted to use our portable corral.

We rode the Coal Mesa trail through the West Elk Wilderness.  The trail was mostly hard pack and not too rocky or steep.  There were sections that were so narrow, I thought we would have been better off with mules.

Getting the horses ready to ride.  The one advantage of starting at a horse campsite is that there is plenty of space for a horse trailer.

To get to the trail head, you ride down the road towards the non-horse camp. Check out the rock formations on the right.  You take a bridge over Soap Creek to enter into the wilderness area.

We had several water crossings on Soap Creek.  The water was flowing really high and fast with the snow melt.  Lennox was a bit nervous crossing the water, but Mercutio took it like a trooper.  A few times, he stuck his nose in the water to check how deep it really was and when he realized it wasn't that deep, he was fine.

Here's Ari and Lennox approaching another water crossing.  We are riding through Ponderosa pines and wild flowers.

Driving to Gunnison, we passed Blue Mesa Dam.  It was really quite breath-taking.

Tonight the horses are guests of the Lost Miner horse motel. They are getting good grass hay and plenty of space to move around.

https://www.lostminerranch.com/

Ari and I had a nice dinner at The Gunny Sack in downtown Gunnison and then walked around the downtown - where the shops close at 5 pm.

There was a lot of public art, but you really had to look hard to locate it

This statue is called "My Dear, My Deer" and had a price tag on it of $4375.  This is the first public art I have seen with the price listed.

This statue is called "Friends" and is a little girl hugging a kitten with another kitten close by.

Tomorrow we head to the South T-Bar Ranch, where we own our parcel.  We are staying with a neighbor. We are looking forward to experiencing what it is like to live at South T-Bar.

It will help us decide whether or not we want to build on the property.