The body of a hiker was found on a remote trail in Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona in what was the sixth death reported in the sprawling park this month, the authorities said.
20.08.2024 - 14:50 / cntraveler.com
I am scaling 1,000 vertical feet of purple sandstone in Colorado's Sneffels Range and, despite being a nonclimber, feeling weirdly relaxed about it. The steep route is laced with a via Ferrata—the system, invented in the Dolomites, of metal handholds, footholds, and cables that climbers can clip into and follow all the way up. “Nose over toes,” my guide instructs—in other words, not pressed up against the rocky slope, as anxious greenhorns often are. Near the top we scuttle through an old mining tunnel and traverse a 230-foot-long cable bridge before stopping to take in the scenery below: the 922-person town of Ouray, cozily enveloped in mountain peaks, and the butterscotch-colored Uncompahgre River.
The lobby of the Western Hotel in Ouray, which opened in 1891 during the silver boom and recently underwent a major renovation
The Western’s exterior
This was exactly the kind of adventure I was seeking in Colorado's Western Slope. My visit to this region was targeted: I'd focus on the higher-elevation 70-mile stretch that runs between Durango and Ouray, one of the best (and still somewhat off-the-radar) outdoor-recreation corridors in America. Diehards descend in the winter for ice climbing and backcountry skiing. In the summer, more casually outdoorsy types like me come for hiking, gravel biking, jeep touring, fly-fishing, and cable-assisted climbing—and for the solitude that's become harder to find in Colorado's more accessible mountain towns since the COVID-era outdoors boom. The nearest big-name resort to this rugged part of the Western Slope is Telluride, an hour or so away even in the best travel conditions.
No one else was scaling the two-year-old Gold Mountain Via Ferrata my first morning in Ouray. After getting a ride down from the top, I headed to another of the town's new additions: the Western Hotel, where the stripped-down Old West decor had everything I'd hoped for (bearskin rugs, leather-upholstered headboards, freestanding tubs, exposed ceiling beams) and none of the Victorian overkill of many of the area's other historic hotels.
Silverton’s historic downtown
The lobby bar at the Rochester Hotel in Durango
The place comes by its heritage feel honestly: It's one of the few 19th-century wood-frame hotels left in the West. A $15 million overhaul has given it a Nordic spa and an upscale restaurant, the Grill at the Western, which specializes in open-fire cooking. The juniper-roasted duck breast and a Calvados daiquiri, with the perfect amount of rustic apple tang, were just what I needed after hiking all afternoon along several of the well-maintained trails that encircle the town.
From Ouray I drove north along steep switchbacks. The 25-mile segment of road that runs to Silverton is called
The body of a hiker was found on a remote trail in Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona in what was the sixth death reported in the sprawling park this month, the authorities said.
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