A Winter Wonderland

It was another bluebird day in this stunning part of the world. We set out this morning to find a few geocaches around Durango and to track down a hill that the kids could toboggan on. The geocaching mission didn’t get off the ground as all our batteries were flat. Battery life is not what we are used to in this frozen land! We failed to find a good tobogganing spot in Durango as well. The fresh snow from the weekend has melted quite a bit and the popular tobogganing spots are pretty bare as they have been well used.

We decided to head north on the road to the ski resort in search of a suitable slope. There were lots of spots that had potential but were either on private land or were such deep powder that they were not suitable. Walking up a slope and sinking in past your knees with each step is quite exhausting.

We knew there was a good tobogganing hill at Kendall Mountain in Silverton, the next town to the north. It’s about 50 miles from Durango and we hadn’t planned to travel that far today, but we changed our plan. It turned out to be a great decision as the road was incredibly beautiful. It climbed over two mountain passes, the highest being the Molas Pass at nearly 11,000 feet. The kids had some toboggan runs there on a very steep fast slope, but the walk back up was a killer.

We carried on to the town of Silverton and enjoyed lunch at the Brown Bear Cafe. Silverton has some really gorgeous buildings and was covered in snow as it’s at a much higher elevation than Durango. Even the streets in the town were covered in hard packed snow. It also has a small ski field right in town called Kendall Mountain. There was a great tobogganing run there so the kids had a few more runs – it would have been a lot more if they hadn’t had to walk back up each time.

The drive back to Durango was another hour of stunning scenery. The trees were all covered with snow and there was snow piled up on both sides of the road. The road itself was pretty clear apart from the occasional icy patch.

We were determined to find our first geocache today so headed out before dinner with fresh batteries loaded. Had a lovely walk along the river and through some streets with lots of houses decorated for Christmas. Found a couple of caches as well. It’s really different being able to head out at 5pm to look at Christmas lights rather than having to wait until late for it to get dark. We are not finding it cold here as long as you dress appropriately. The temperature only gets just above freezing in the day time, but it doesn’t feel that cold as it’s so dry and there is very little wind. It has been good to have a slower day today as we are planning to hit the slopes again tomorrow.