Durango Mountain Resort and Silverton, CO

Today Mike and I drove out to the Durango Mountain Resort (Purgatory ski area)to check out the summer activities. We went down the Alpine Slide, which was a lot of fun. By the time we got there, the afternoon thunderstorms were starting to form and we could only take one run on the slide before they suspended the chair lift. We may go back later and try riding their "original mountain scooter" called a Diggler. It looks like a heavy duty scooter with shocks. They have one trail for it and it's all downhill. Yeah!



After the alpine slide, we headed over to Silverton, CO. A very cute little tourist town. A local I met told me the population year round is about 450. The Durango-Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad runs to and from here so there are a lot of tourists. We also saw a lot of jeep/off-roading enthusiasts. By the time we left, the clouds were turning dark, the wind picked up, and we noticed some thunder and lightning. The temp was 58 degrees according to the jeep. On the way back, explored a dirt road so Mike could get his little piece of off-roading. As for wildlife, we saw a marmot who lived under the alpine slide, a young elk, and a lot of little ground-squirrels.