After leaving the falls we quickly reached the top of Spring Creek Pass at the continental divide, elevation 10,898. Once we crossed the top of that pass the other side was lush forest not the arid and open we had been traveling through. The thunderstorms started growing and we came upon a couple vehicles stopped and when we got up to where they were we saw they were stopped because there was a moose with a baby awww I stopped right in the middle of the road to take a couple photos, it was raining fairly good which makes the photos look soft and out of focus. There was a car behind me and I thought they may be getting pissed off, but after I pulled away they stayed a moment so I guess it wasn’t an issue.
There was only maybe 10 miles between the passes so we were quickly up top the second pass (Slumgullion Pass 11,361 ft) shortly after getting over the pass there was a look out point we pulled over into. There were lots of clouds so the big peaks were hazy but his is absolutely a spot I will be returning to for a panorama perhaps on a nice fall day since there were lots of aspens that would be so beautiful bright yellow. We were not expecting the moutains to have so much snow as our mountains in Pagosa and the south face of the Weminuche wilderness are already bare so that was a nice surprise for the rest of the trip.
The big peak below is Uncompahgre Peak 14,309 feet 
This is the Slumgullion slide. 800 years ago the whole top of the mountain slid and went way down the valley to block the Lake Fork of the Gunnison River creating Lake San Cristobal, the second largest natural lake in Colorado.
The next look out available was the Lake San Cristobal overlook that little peninsula is for sale we noticed when we got down below.
From the end of the road that goes around the lake had the view of this red tipped mountain
This is where the Alpine Loop takes off from this area it is a dirt loop that goes between Lake City, Silverton and Ouray through the high country. I’ve never been on it parts of it are 4WD and I’m not sure how rough it is but I’d love to get up there one of these days.
By this point is was raining pretty consistently so this was the last shot of the day of a little part of the Lake Fork of the Gunnison River North of Lake City. It was raining too hard to get any photos of Lake City itself. It is a sweet little resort town, but not the tourist type resort, but the back country cabin in the woods kind of resort. We headed down to Blue Mesa Reservoir and into Gunnison for the night. Before you get to the reservoir you go through heavy sage country so we stopped at one point to cut some sage for smudge sticks. 
