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Silverton vs Lake City access to San Juan trails

Koda

Koda

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I spoke with someone that said the county road dept hopes to have it open by the end of Aug.

We will be in Lake City Sept. 2. Hopefully it Will be open by then. Would like to go to Kite lake again but that is a long day trip Via California pass from Lake city.


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wrwtexan

wrwtexan

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I spoke with someone that said the county road dept hopes to have it open by the end of Aug.
Wow! That late and it won't be worth the effort. We left Silverton 6-26 of '18 and they had snow within 2 weeks.

I have looked at going to Pole Creek and beyond if possible the past 2 trips but opted not to for the distance. Is it worth the long one way trip for what you see? We've been on every trail east of 550 and up to Yankee Boy and started up Imogene and want to run some we haven't traveled before.
 
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100Acre

100Acre

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Looking for opinions on access to the San Juan trails from Lake City. We have stayed in Silverton the last three summers and are planning this year to stay at a lodging between Lake City and Lake Cristobal for a change of scenery and nearly a hundred less miles of road travel. I am looking at trailering my P1K-5 from the cabin up to a trail head at the start of Cinnamon to cut a few miles off. Has anyone stayed on both sides and is the daily commute to Animas worth it? Lake City seems interesting and see some fun things to do. We made the Alpine Loop last year so another question would be: go Engineer or Cinnamon for quicker access in last week of August?
Went to Silverton yesterday. Seemed like lots of trail traffic coming from there. The valleys above Silverton and btw there and Animas Forks are heavily crowded. Not as much traffic coming from Lake City by comparison. I’d prefer the LC side. Silverton is waaaay too touristy to me.
 
100Acre

100Acre

Samsquinch the Terrible Magic Bean Manipulator
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Went to Silverton yesterday. Seemed like lots of trail traffic coming from there. The valleys above Silverton and btw there and Animas Forks are heavily crowded. Not as much traffic coming from Lake City by comparison. I’d prefer the LC side. Silverton is waaaay too touristy to me.
Would I live there though? Heck yeah!
 
wrwtexan

wrwtexan

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Year 4 is in pictures for us now and we will be staying in Silverton again next year as the commute from Lake City to just Animas Forks is 18 miles. We made around 330 miles in 4 days and 3 trips over to Silverton. The last was to pull a brand new CanAm rig like a razor up from American Basin turnoff, up over Cinnamon, and all the way into Silverton for them to get a tow back to Ironton. No way could we have made it over California and Corkscrew and back down to 550. They had chucked a pistonless rod smooth out of the block.
 
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bjniceguy

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we road Silverton to Lake City loop on Friday Morning. Left early (just after daylight) and it was 25 degrees but dry. It warmed up nicely as day went on. I suggest if you do the loop thru engineer pass, that you go clockwise on map so inside on last 2 miles on pass route (that little section should be one way in my opinion). That is only section that seemed real hard to have met someone (can't visualize meeting a crew cab pickup going around there). Only snow was the avalanche area below Animos Forks and it will still be there next year LOL. We met a lot of Jeeps / pickups that were coming from Lake City to Engineer Pass as that part was the easiest section of loop (in my opinion) By the time we finished the loop, there were 3 groups of Jeeps starting out from Silverton. Glad we were clear of them as it would have really slowed us up. We liked the area very much and agree that the views are great (even the 23 mile car drive from Ueray to Silverton). Lot of avalanche damage on the whole loop. Must have taken them forever to clear it this spring.
 
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bjniceguy

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