Day 17. Riding the San Juan Skyway to Durango, CO.

Monday, Sept 7th. We said farewell to Gunnison, a place which treated us well. Today we headed South and West towards the San Juan Mountains. In short order we were riding the San Juan Skyway - truly impressive. These are large mountains, apparently the entire state of Vermont would fit within the footprint of this mountain range. Once again I found myself looking worriedly skyward towards the peaks and sure enough we encountered switchbacks and steep ascents and descents as we carved around the mountains.

We took the short detour to visit Telluride as we were so close. What a cool ski town this is. We had a great cup of coffee and scanned the pedestrians for movie star sightings as the Telluride Film Festival was in full swing. Needless to say no famous people were seen.

Then it was back to the Skyway where we continued to snake our way through the mountains. We were pleasantly surprised by the lack of traffic given that today was a holiday.

 Crossing the Lizard Head Pass, 10,222 ft!

After an amazing day of riding we rolled into Durango another lovely Colorado town. We spent a day here last year and regretted not staying in town - so this time we did!