the big three-oh tour
The date: July 3, 1976. The place: Northwest Community Hospital in Rolling Meadows, IL. The event: r-dub's entrance to this world of ours. Flashing forward thirty years, we find r-dub wandering yet again, enjoying not only his birthday but a rare day off from work as well. He's heading to the southwest part of the state, heretofor unconquered by him. Let's tag along, shall we?
A little rain never stopped anybody
Yeah, we're getting wet and stuck under some mad cloud cover right now. Big deal! The pics are viewable, the roads aren't icy at all, and the traffic is moving at as good of a clip as you can imagine on a holiday weekend. Onwards and upwards!
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Older style retaining wall greets us at the switchback advertised at the bottom of the last page.
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The southbound side of the pass even gets its own runaway truck ramp. This is a major truck route connecting Grand Junction with Durango and points south.
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Looks like this runaway truck ramp advisory sign used to be on a overhead gantry. Wonder why it was moved to the side?
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Our next pass we encounter is Coal Bank Pass.
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A cutoff point for when 550 gets closed. These gates see a lot of use in the winter.
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Still climbing. Interesting that we're not seeing that much traffic.
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Oops. Spoke too soon.
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r-dub's definition of Suck. Definition 3.
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These rock cuts have been here a while. There's not even any falling rock signs posted here.
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More mesa sightings.
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When I first went to doctor this picture, I rotated it to compensate for my lousy photography skillz. When I did that, I realized I couldn't crop it just right to keep the entire mesa in the pic. So I put it back and complimented myself on knowing I had to keep the camera tilted to capture the entire mesa.
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Approaching the summit of Coal Bank Pass. This is where Mr. RV was kind enough to pull over and let us speedier drivers pass.
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Afraid of heights? This is not the road for you.
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Don't get too used to the guardrails. They become an endangered species on this road.
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Damn clouds.
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Curvin' around.
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Steadily descending Coal Bank Pass.
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The truck in front of me kept annoying me. He'd speed up on these straightaways so I couldn't pass him then slow down dramatically when I couldn't.
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Blanked construction sign. Rock mitigation work started two days after I took this trip.
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Looking across the valley to a rock cut. I'm betting we'll be there pretty shortly.
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Another shot of the path we're about to take.
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A quick speedup before we start to ascend the next pass. Mr. truck from earlier is far ahead of us now since I pulled off to get the last picture.
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US 550 reassuarance shield.
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This road needed some extensive rock cuts.
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Looking up the valley at another engineering masterpiece.
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Starting our major climb towards the summit of Molas Pass.
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First up is a switchback. As you can see, we're pretty late to the parade.
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Starting to climb.
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Hang on, tight curve ahead!
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Remember those shots from a few back that showed the road climbing up the pass? Here we are on that road looking back at where we took those pictures from. I love this pic.
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In order to mitigate your rocks, you have to be able to get to them.
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A wider part of the pass allows for a passing lane. Interestingly enough, not a lot of passing was done here.
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That passing lane lasts less than a mile.
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Barrels and pylons await the start of the rock mitigation work.
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The end of the soon-to-be construction site. Those orange stickers on the backs of those signs really confused me from a distance. It just looks odd having an orange bite in the white.
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About this time, I was reminded that I really needed to take a break. I've been drinking too much Dr. Pepper. As I was walking back to my car after taking care of business, this is the site that greeted me. That's the opposite side of Engineer Mountain there.
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So did I pull off to the side of the road and use the nearest tree? Nope. How 'bout this for convenience?
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This road takes its own sweet time ascending passes.
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Nothing like a high meadow lake for recreation!
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We're still doging clouds, raindrops, and tourists.
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We've finally crested Molas Pass.
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Let's exit 550 for just a bit to have a look around.
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Here's the look off to the northeast from the summit of Molas Pass. This view even has subliminal advertising for my favorite beverage.
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The summit sign for Molas Pass. It's time to head down towards Silverton.
- Where to next?
- Page 7
- This trip's Index
- Page 9
Section Links
- Trip Index
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with any of the orginizations listed within this site. I'm just a bored roadgeek with way too much time on his hands. All of the picts in this page are mine and mine alone unless otherwise noted. Remember, kids: stealing is bad, mmmm-k? I get quite pissy if things are taken without telling me. I don't like to be pissy. You won't like it either. If you want to link to this page, that's fine. Please shoot me an email beforehand so I can link to your page as well. K? Thanks. --Ryan
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