There's a relatively well-known spot in the mountains called Crystal Mill. Contrary to my brother's guess, it is not the factory outlet mall for crystal meth - it's an 1893 sawmill on the Crystal River that's great for photos. If you Google it there are about a million of them. I've been wanting to get up there for years, and I finally pulled it off this year. Huzzah!
I did get some good photos, although in retrospect I'm actually a bit disappointed. I really wish I had taken a wider lens. For some reason I thought I'd be a ways away from the mill - it's actually only 50 yards or so, and there's a lot of cool stuff in the area. I didn't even manage to get the river into most of the shots. Oh well. I may go back some year, but it's not a priority anymore.
Getting there requires either a fairly gnarly 4WD road, or a 4.5 mile hike. It's really not a bad hike, except that the road was
extremely busy. There were cars almost constantly, which really detracted from what would've otherwise been a very nice hike.
I was accompanied by Dr. Bill, a fellow photographer. But he left to hike down about a half hour earlier than I did, so I was walking down alone. Not long into the hike, a bright yellow truck pulled up next to me and the driver offered my a ride. The passenger footwell was full of rock samples, but I didn't want to keep Bill waiting, so I took the ride. The driver turned out to be Richard, a man of
some degree of fame. Along the way he told me all about his machine, a 1971 Bronco that he bought in 1982, replaced the engine, made an assortment of other changes, and repainted twice. Most recently to Ferrari Yellow, if I recall correctly, and obviously with a sweet flame job.
Most people were driving the road at maybe 5 mph. On the way up I was actually walking neck-and-neck with a Jeep for the better part of a mile. Not Richard - he was going a good 10-15 mph, just bombing over huge rocks and ruts.
We stopped along the way to chat with some 4-wheelers who had a blown shock. Richard told them about dropping the steering box out of the car on a trail once, then sticking it back on with baling wire and tension from the winch to get home. His back tire was so patched that two different people asked if it was blown. "No, it's fine, I just have it deflated to 12 psi!" was the response. Richard's a real character!
Eventually we caught up with Bill, so I jumped out to finish the hike with him while Richard drove off into the deepening twilight.
After a very nice night in the Bogan Flats campground, with our tents just a few yards from the Crystal River, we got up to continue leaf peeping. We drove over to Aspen, up Castle Creek Road. Short of the Ashcroft Ghost Town is the trailhead for the American Lakes trail. It worth heading up there just for the drive - the leaves in the area were looking great.
The hike itself was quite challenging in the beginning, with a very steep first 1.5 miles. But it rewards the effort with broad views of the valley full of aspens. I took a few photos, but not nearly as many as Bill.
Eventually the trail levels out and turns quite abruptly from a bright and open aspen forest to a very dark and quiet evergreen forest. Still quite a nice hike, though I took no photos there so here are some more aspens instead. :)
On the way back I drove over a very crowded, but pretty, Independence Pass. Then I took a wrong turn and drove to Minturn instead of Copper Mountain, which lengthened my drive home. Oh well, it was a nice drive, even if I did almost get into a crash when people slammed to a stop due to some people who had gotten into an accident.
