ATVing in the San Juan Mountains

Laura Domela — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 18:56:33 +0000

Airstream in the early morning light

We got up early this morning and headed downtown to meet up with our ATVs and our guide, Larry, at San Juan Backcountry. We highly recommend this place. The owners (Jessica and Larry) are awesome and we had SUCH a great time. Definitely will be doing this again next time we're in town (and probably sooner, in another town!). We had some breakfast next door at the Brown Bear Cafe, then went back to get outfitted with helmets, goggles, and gloves. We headed out from the staging area near the campground where we're staying. Streams, mountains, mines, alpine lakes, a couple of marmots, and here are a whole bunch of shots from along the way:

Here's the GPS track of our ride:

The stats (which aren't quite accurate, because Kevin started the GPS after about 9 miles in…so we went more like 27 miles total). Look at that max altitude!

And here's a link to the interactive map.

I think we should do MUCH MUCH more of this. It was such a blast. (But first, my throttle thumb muscles need to get a little stronger.)

San Juan Mountain – Riveted

ATVing in the San Juan Mountains