My day in Tincup

A pic is not a pic, until the pic is clicked.

leaving the town of Buena Vista and heading for the mountains

 Do to my severe shortage of Internet yesterday when it took hours to upload two pictures, today the pictures you see are from yesterday when I was driving to Tincup, and the blog post is from today when I was running around Tincup. Hopefully I can get this all straightened out in a day or so because I find it extremely confusing.

I crawled out of bed this morning after a peaceful and chilly night's rest. And after eating some breakfast, headed the five miles to Tincup.

I parked near Frenchy's restaurant, the only restaurant in town, and walked around downtown Tincup for a ways. Tincup looks the same as it always did, sort of half ghost town and half summer tourist town. Some of the houses are remodeled and perfectly livable, and some look like a stiff breeze would blow them over, and I'm pretty sure there are plenty of stiff breezes around in the winter, so the fact that they are still here after over 100 years is pretty amazing.

This was a gold mining town and was fairly prosperous until the ore played out, and they closed the mill that was used for crushing the ore, and as usual, most folks packed up and left Tincup searching for a new strike somewhere in these wondrous, mineral-rich mountains.

Some towns can survive the closing of the mines if they have found something that will bring folks back to the town, which is often tourism. But the old mining towns way off the beaten track usually have problems getting tourists to drive long distances over twisty mountain roads to buy a T-shirt or a rubber tomahawk. And Tincup had that very problem.

But oddly enough, the hobby of off-road driving, sometimes for sport or just for fun, has kept Tincup and a few surrounding businesses alive. If you don't have your own "all-terrain vehicle," you can rent one at the country store just down the road from here, but most people bring their own.

And to support those folks with all of those ATVs, the country store sells gas, expensive gas, but it is gas. There are RV parks, but it seems like most folks with ATVs boondock in the National Forest. There are also cabins you can rent. But the major point of coming to Tincup is the endless dirt roads and trails which wind through the National Forest and is perfectly legal to ride your ATV or dirt bike anywhere you want to go, and you can ride until your wheels fall off, or the snow gets too deep.

But for all the good things about Tincup, large crowds of people tend to ruin it for me. Of course, I could come here during the off-season and be the only person here. But this place gets pretty chilly even in the summer; last night, it got down to 38, and the highest temperature I saw all day was 73°, so the off-season such as late Fall,  might be pretty hard to deal with.

after taking a few pictures of Tincup, and the Tincup Cemetery, I moseyed down the road and found a different boondocking area that actually had pretty decent Internet, which is why you're seeing more than two pictures in this blog post, and the pictures match up with what went on yesterday and not today. But despite my complaints I'll still return to Tincup every once in a while just for old times' sake, knowing it won't be the same... But nothing ever is.

theboondork

A horseshoe bend in the road coming up Cottonwood pass.

it was a beautiful sunrise at the top of 12,000 foot Cottonwood pass. And yes that little pond is frozen.

it's not exactly a thinking-bench, but sitting there would probably give you a lot of things to think about....Mostly thinking you should've brought your coat.

The sunrise peeking over the mountains.

A gaggle of ATVs heading for the hills on a cloudy afternoon.

The Tincup area is a paradise for boondocker's.

Even though there's plenty of room for everybody to spread out as much as they want, I'm amazed at how many people want to cluster together right next to each other....Perhaps they feel safer that way. It could be that there really, really, good friends. Or maybe RV parks have trained them well .

This guy pulled his rig up a 12,000 foot pass, and somehow made it to Tincup. I wonder how his transmission is doing at the moment?

And now the proper rig to drag your ATVs up the pass.