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Tuesday morning we left our beautiful campsite at Pallisade and finished the last few miles of the Silver Thread Highway and then headed west across Hwy 160.

We had more clouds on the way and had a couple more mountain passes to go through, but not as high or steep as some of our earlier ones.

Along Hwy 160 we passed this unique rock formation. We may take a side trip later to check it out!

Arriving in Durango, we headed to what was to be our campground for the next couple of nights. It was at the fairgrounds so I went into the office to check in. This is where the ‘oops’ came in. My reservation wasn’t to start until the next night! I hadn’t checked our schedule and I was a day ahead! The 6 sites there were all full for the night. I was really upset with myself since we had left such a beautiful campground.

Checking a few area campsites didn’t make me any happier – $80 – 100 a night, even if only for one night, wasn’t encouraging. We decided to take a gamble and drove about 8 km out of town, partly on gravel, to a National Forest Campground. The reservation system showed all sites reserved but I hoped there might be a couple of ‘first come, first served’ sites still left since it was early afternoon. We got lucky and the campground host showed us to a non-electric site that we could fit into and we had a great evening!

Monday morning we left Lake City and headed south on hwy 149. Our plan was a shorter drive with hopes of dropping the trailer and then heading out for a scenic drive. We ended up finding a National Forest campgrounds called Pallisade. We found a nice site by the Rio Grande River and dropped the trailer off.

After making a lunch, we headed back north to the town of Creede where we began the historic Bachelor Loop.

The 17 mile route took us through the historic mining area of Creede. In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, silver ore was found in the area and mines were built. Various methods of haulage were used, from mules and burros with wagons to carts on tracks and even some by rail for processing. Some mines had up to 1000 men working at their peak. There are still remnants of some of the mines but they are privately owned and we weren’t allowed in.

Near the end of the loop was the site of the town of Bachelor. At an elevation of 10,500’, this area was home to 1200 people with 100 homes and commercial buildings on site by 1892. With the silver crash of 1893, followed soon after by the depression, this community only had about 150 people remaining by 1910.

We left our campsite the next morning and headed down hwy 149 and across 160 to Durango. Our next post will give some of the highlights.