Leaf Peeping and the Rio Grand Southern Railroad

My wife and I had a wonderful ride looking at the aspen up route 145 towards Telluride from Cortez.  West of Durango. When we passed Trout Lake south of Telluride, I could not resist the blip.  For some reason, they are lowering Trout Lake's water height - probably for repairs to the dam. However, see I you can find the RGS water tank along the far side of the lake.  It is there and brown.

The extra is a long shot of the lizard head area where the RGS had a very neat snow shed and a stock loading Y for the October stock rush.  Big business for the RGS - even though in the later years it was way more sheep than cattle.  The Y was about where those trailers are today.  The road that goes out of the picture on the left side of the blip is the RGS line north - a fun bike ride.  If you blow up the blip significantly you will see remnants of the cattle pens.  Probably replaced a few years ago.