Our last weekend in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains 😭⛰: Exploring Telluride + Blue Lakes Trail

After a jam-packed day at the south and north rims of Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, including an intense climb up and down the Gunnison route, we've headed back to the San Juan Mountains for one last weekend. The San Juan Mountains have completely stolen our hearts with their epic mountain views, cool mining towns, off-roading trails, and history. And for our final adventure in the San Juan Mountains, we're going to explore a little bit of Telluride and hike one of the top trails on our Colorado hiking bucket list. We originally didn't have time to come to Telluride, so we weren't planning on visiting, but it came highly recommended to us from many of you guys. So after a change of plans and moving some stuff around, we had some time to visit, so we decided to come and check it out. Telluride is located in the San Juan Mountains and is tucked into a box canyon surrounded by 13,000 and 14,000 foot peaks. Similar to Ouray, Telluride was a summer destination for Ute Native Americans who called the area Valley of Hanging Waterfalls. By the mid-1870s, fortune seekers began flooding the San Juan Mountains looking for gold and silver, and the area was called Columbia before changing its name to Telluride in 1878. In 1890, the railroad came to the area and the town started to flourish and the population grew to around 5,000. But between the silver prices collapsing in 1893 and World War I after that, many people left the town and the population dwindled to the hundreds. Telluride reinvented itself in the 1970s with another legendary powder as the focal point, white powder snow. The Telluride Ski Resort opened in 1972 and the character of the town began to change. Today, Telluride is one of five communities in Colorado to be listed as a National Historic Landmark District, and the town is known for music and film festivals, including the Bluegrass Festival happening this weekend, cultural events, and tons of outdoor recreation year-round. It is an absolutely beautiful town and we love it here so much and we're already really sad that we don't have more time to spend here compared to the other mining towns we visited like Silverton and Ouray. Telluride definitely feels a lot larger and it feels more upscale and trendier and has a lot more amenities, but it still just has a ton of charm. We just made a quick coffee run to a super neat coffee shop called Ghost Town. It's tucked in between two buildings. It's like part coffee shop, part cafe, part grocer, and everything they make is either made in-house or sourced locally. And another cool thing is all the ingredients they use for their food items they also sell. It's one of the coolest coffee shops we've been to in a while. We got a caramel latte and a maple latte. Both are delicious and we're taking them to go. We're walking to what we think is one of the most shocking things that Telluride offers, especially being kind of a touristy ski town. A free gondola! The gondola connects Telluride with Mountain Village and it's the first and only gondola offering free public transportation in the United States. It's been open since December 20th, 1996 and instead of an 8 mile 20 minute drive to Mountain Village is a 3 mile 13 minute ride up to the top. Carries an average of 900 riders per hour or 2.8 million per year. It was originally created to improve the air quality in town and it would take 20-50 passenger buses to be able to replace the amount of people that the gondola can get up the mountain in an hour. And the gondola is dog friendly so you can bring your furry friends with you but unfortunately we weren't sure how busy it would be and Kona doesn't do well in confined spaces with strangers so she's sitting this one out. Whoa! Whoa! Smells like a speed bumble! Jeez! Wow! Oh man this takes me back to Europe man and uh... So the first stop you can get off at is San Sofia Station. It's up on top of the hill here overlooking Telluride. Supposed to have some gorgeous views of Telluride looking down and a little bit of a... looks like we're on a little walking trail here so we're just going to walk around and check it out. Just like Jura was nicknamed the Switzerland of America this area is giving me these European vibes too with the the gondola right up here and then you've got trails on top up here that you can walk around and all the ski lifts and everything and amazing mountain and valley views. From the San Sofia Station we took the next leg of the free gondola ride to the Mountain Village area and there's actually another leg you can take to the other side of Mountain Village but it looked a little more happening here so we're going to check it out and end our ride here. We are getting major flashbacks to our time at Whistler. It just it's definitely more of a resort vibe up here. It has a different vibe than down in Telluride but it's so just crazy to me that you could stay in one or the other and then just gondola back and forth and I can tell you right now we are a thousand percent coming back here. Maybe when we learn to ski or mountain bike or something because this just feels like the ultimate vacation spot. And back down we go. Zoom! It takes off so fast. We made it back to town and next up we're going to hike to the tallest free-falling waterfall in Colorado at 365 feet, Bridal Veil Falls. We're pulling up to the Bridal Veil Falls parking and just as our fears our fears are confirmed it is fully booked. The parking lot's full and there's some parking on the side of the road here that I think we're going to try to snag. It doesn't say no parking so we're just going to hope that we don't come back to a ticket. So there are two different ways to do this hike. You can either take the trail to the falls or take Black Bear Pass road which is a 4x4 road so you will be sharing it with vehicles. We hear that going the road is the easier way but we're going to do the trail there and then I think take the road back. The trail is a beautiful trail. You're just winding through the woods here up and down but don't get me wrong it is not a leisurely stroll. It's rocky, hilly, lots of climbs, one little water crossing. Loads of fun though. We just about made it to the base of Bridal Veil Falls. We can already tell it's going to be a really misty one. This waterfall is insane. It's like a huge cloud of mist. You can barely even see the waterfall. It's so misty and the light's hitting it. It's gorgeous. Wow. It was impossible to keep anything dry even so many feet from that waterfall. That was probably the most misty waterfall we've ever been to. I'm still completely soaked. If you're a photographer or doing stuff like us maybe bring a little towel. A few videos back when we were on the Million Dollar Highway we stopped at the Red Mountain Pass and there's the Idarato Mine that goes from there to Telluride. Pretty sure this is where you come out. That is just nuts. At the top of the falls there is a hydroelectric plant that was built in 1904 that would take water from Blue Lake and from the waterfall here and use it for the smuggler Union Mine down below. There was also an aerial tramway build which you can see some of the cabling here and you can see a lot of it on the trail up here that would take workers and a lot of supplies back and forth up up here to the mines. We are headed back down to the van and like we said at the beginning of the hike there's two ways to go. You can go the trail or you can take the road. We suggest going both ways so that you can see different scenery each way. So our plan was to get lunch at a spot called Tacos del Nar in Telluride but with the festival going on it's just a bit crazy busy down there and parking this huge van would be a little bit of a struggle. So unfortunately we are leaving Telluride which we're so sad about because I think we both agree it's our favorite place we've been to in Colorado. It is just gorgeous here so we're 1000% coming back. But lucky for us Tacos del Nar has another location in a town called Ridgeway which is about 50 minutes northeast of here and it's close to where we're hiking tomorrow so it works out perfectly. So we did something we never do. We both got one, I said it, one taco each. Who are we? I don't even know who I am but anyways it's a good one. I got a pork belly taco. I think it's grilled pork belly and then there's all kinds of veggies on here. Tomato, heirloom tomatoes, onions, there's some rocket lettuce under there. My mouth is watering, I'm sorry. There's a balsamic redux and a mustard aioli sprinkled all through there. Oh this taco is bursting, absolutely bursting with flavor man. It is so good. They have some very unique combinations in there. Some stuff I've never even heard of. I think that's kind of what they're known for is unique combinations and this one is not a letdown on that. That pork belly is so smoky, so much grill flavor in there and then the two sauces that are in it. Oh man they're just kind of tangy and sweet and they go perfectly with the smoke and the veggies are so fresh. I'm bummed I only got one but this is what happened but it is so dang, I'm gonna savor this taco. And I got a taco called the Drippy Mitch which is very very messy looking but it looks so good. So it's chorizo, tater tots, I love tater tots, queso, some cabbage. I'm not really sure what else. I got it on corn tortillas. They gave me three which is probably good to hold it all together but oh my goodness. There's no, there's no ladylike polite way to eat this so I'm just gonna go for it. Yeah, that's pretty gnarly. It is, like Adam said, bursting with flavor. The chorizo is seasoned so well and then you get that creaminess of the queso and then just like that nice kind of softness of the tater tots. Oh yeah, this place. It kind of reminds us a little bit of Torchy's Tacos in Texas. I guess they have those in Denver and other places now too with just like really unique combinations and it's fun to try something that you've never had before but I love chorizo, I love tater tots, and I love queso and this taco, it was made for me. Tacos have been demolished and I'm with Adam. I so wish we had gotten more than one taco but there's this darn thing called a budget that ruined all the fun but we're actually gonna hang out here in Ridgeway for the rest of the day and just get some work done and then tomorrow we're gonna do probably the number one hike we wanted to do while here in Colorado and the whole reason we came back to the San Juan Mountains, Blue Lakes. Blue Lakes is probably one of the most popular hikes here in the San Juan Mountains. It's a trail that takes you to three gorgeous lakes, one of which is Gatorade Blue. It's about 8.6 miles round trip, 2,500 feet of elevation gain. I'm already feeling it. I think we're starting at like 9,000 feet. We were supposed to do this hike last weekend but there was still a good amount of snow and you couldn't really make it to the upper lakes. So we're hoping that we can make it all the way this time but if not we'll just go as far as we can go. We're about a mile in and we just made it up the first big elevation but looks like we got a lot more coming up. Not gonna lie, this is pretty hard. I think we're getting really close to the lake. I'm starting to see like the mountains that backdrop the, you know, behind the first lake that I've seen in the pictures but man the hike has been tough but gorgeous. You just keep climbing and climbing and as you look back you can see the layers of the mountains and the land behind you. It's been pretty beautiful. We made it to the first lake. This is the one that's supposed to be Gatorade Blue but because the sun hasn't come up yet it doesn't have that color yet but it will by the time we do all the other lakes and come back we promise. Well we might hang out here and have a little bite and by the time we're done who knows the sun might be here because it's just going to come over the over this peak just to the side of us here. With still epic backdrop. Oh my goodness. These mountains are ridiculous. We could sit here all day just have a nice little picnic and enjoy the views but we're going to head up to the other two lakes now. We hear that the best view of the hike is actually on the way to lake number two looking down onto this lake right here. It's a little tricky to get to the rest of the trail. You got to cross the drainage from this uh the blue lake I guess and there's no easy way to get it you just got to go for it and it is dang cold. Ice cold and the way you're supposed to go was just too rushing and we didn't feel comfortable crossing it so we went closer to the lake and kind of went through where some people are camping and it was definitely easier but yeah ice cold. Is this place even real? This is just crazy. We always say that Glacier is the most beautiful place we've been to in the U.S. but this is rivalry. You know what I mean. This is just unreal. We made it to lake number three the final lake on this hike and while the first lake has more that milky blue color I would say lake number three has the best mountain views. The mountains are so jagged. This is for sure the number one hike we've done since being back on the road in March 2021. That was the perfect end to our time here in the San Juan Mountains. We cannot put into words how much we love it here. I've never looked at real estate and land that we could build our tiny house on so much there's just something about this place it's just magical and breathtakingly gorgeous and we're so sad to leave so sad to leave but there are other parts of Colorado we want to explore. But we're now going to head four hours northeast to the town of Leadville. We're going to rest up get ready get acclimated because we are going to conquer Mount Elbert which is not only a 14-er our first 14-er but the highest point in Colorado. Oh god. It is tucked into a box canyon surrounded by 13,000 and 14,000 foot peaks. I forgot that you'll hear me laughing if I put that in. Okay ready? We just made a quick coffee run to a super vibe. You can't say it with a straight face. That was embarrassing. What happened? I like stood up and hit my head. Oh you hit your head. Yeah. Yeah that did not feel good. I'm obsessed with every single house here. They're all so beautiful. If someone would like to give us like I don't know like five million dollars maybe let us know. We'll let you visit.