Meet Dave C.

Dave...........a colorful, crusty character who can keep you entertained with stories of these mountains and the local lore.  He is a professional jeep driver and takes visitors on tours of many jeep trails above Ouray, Telluride and Silverton, complete with narration.  Take a trip into the mountains with Dave and you'll come back with Colorado stories that you'll remember and smile about for years.  And you'll also be glad you were with a professional driver when you see some of the white-knuckle dropoffs that exist along the jeep trails.

I first met Dave when he was the driver on a tour I took that went up Engineer Pass to Lake City and came back over Cinnamon Pass through Silverton.  Engineer Pass requires navigation of tight switchbacks and massive boulders.  On the initial ascent we came across an abandoned Jeep Wrangler that had partly gone over the cliff edge and it's fall was stopped by pine trees.  The trail was so narrow our vehicle could not get by.  So we waited.

Mountain Rescue came up and pulled the jeep back onto the trail.  We found out later that 2 college girls had tried to drive over Engineer in the dark the night before (insanity), missed a turn and went over the cliff edge.  Luckily they were unhurt.  The girls left the jeep behind and had to walk out.  They walked the entire 9 miles out of the mountains into Ouray in the dark in order to find help.

But back to Dave.  I was so taken with his tales of the mountains, mines and mining towns that I snapped several photos of him that day.  He seemed to be part of the very fabric of the hills and became the inspiration for a drawing I did of him gazing up into the mountains.   I entitled the following colored pencil drawing "Listenin' to the Rockies"