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This is the total route for the day. It's called the San Juan Scenic Skyway (San Juan) with a side trip through Mesa Verde National Park. This route is arguably the most scenic ride in the state.
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This is an expanded look at the lower half of the route. Although we had been to Mesa Verde before, we decided we would go again.
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This is an expanded look at the northern half. This includes a slight detour to Telluride where we ate lunch.
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I got up early to walk around a little. This is the front of the Holiday Inn where we stayed.
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This is looking south along Hwy. 550 in front of the Holiday Inn.
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This is the Animas River which runs immediately behind the motel.
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This is another shot of the Animas River looking the opposite way from the one above.
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The entrance to Mesa Verde NP. Since we had been before, I wish we had skipped it this time. There was a lot of road construction so it took two hours just to ride in and back out without a lot of stopping and looking around.
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The bikes at the entrance. Notice that we didn't have to carry the extra luggage since we are returning to Durango for the night. They handle a little better without the extra luggage which is nice for the roads we are about to ride.
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Looking north from one of the construction stops we had.
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This is looking east from the same point as above. It gets fairly flat going that direction.
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This is the Visitor Center which is about half-way through the park.
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One of the smaller cliff dwellings.
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This is one of the larger ones.
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A zoomed in look at the the above.
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The dwellings are about 3/4 way up these canyon walls. I don't know how they got to them, especially if they had to carry anything with them.
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Another construction stop just before entering a tunnel.
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Finally out of the park and a rest stop in Delores.
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The old train station in Delores.
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The road between Delores and Telluride is great. Sweeper after sweeper. It was great.
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The San Juan mountains in the distance.
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I zoomed in for a closer look. This is a really pretty mountain range.
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This is looking across the road in the opposite direction from the photos above.
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Downtown Telluride where we stopped for lunch.
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The bikes parked a couple of doors down the street from where we had lunch.
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This is called the Dallas Divide which is between Telluride and Ridgway.
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I zoomed in for a closer look.
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The bikes at the Dallas Divide.
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Stopped for gas in Ridgway. This is where a number of western movies have been filmed including John Wayne in True Grit.
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Since we had ridden this loop several times and Ouray is so close to Ridgway, we didn't stop in town. This was taken after passing through Ouray and climbing up a few switchbacks.
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This is what they call a snow tunnel. Apparently snow slides would cover the road if this weren't there. This was the last picture of the day. We'll get going again in the morning.
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