Ouray, pronounced oooo-ray, was named after Chief Ouray, who was a Native American chief of the Uncompahgre band of the Ute tribe, then located in western Colorado. The town likes to bill itself as "The Switzerland of America". Sort of....only because it's nestled right in the tall, tall mountains surrounding it. Other than that, it's more of a mining western town.


The drive from Grand Junction, about 90 miles was very scenic as the San Juan Mountains came closer and closer.

Ouray has a population of about a 1,000 souls. It relies on tourism, the hot springs and outdoor activity folks to get by.

We ate at a terrific deli where Kim had "one of the best burgers I ever ate" and I had the steak salad, which was cooked to perfection...medium-rare. A bit pricey but worth it.

After lunch, we headed up into the mountains a bit and found some waterfalls...or snow melt runoff, some tilted earth and scary mountain roads. Look at the first vertical waterfall. If you look to the left of the waterfall, you'll see some horizontal edges made in the rock. Those were caused by water running vertically over the surface for centuries and then the earth titled thus making them horizontal now!


Great day-trip up there. We would've liked to head up into the mountains more, but decided to head home instead.

Steve and Kim

If you like old old photos...this is a great site to see what Ouray used to look like.
http://www.narrowgauge.org/ncmap/excursion7_ouray_tkc.html

here's a few...


and it's history....

http://www.narrowgauge.org/ncmap/excursion7_ouray.html