Yankee Boy Basin is an alpine basin in
Ouray County, southwestern
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...
. It is in the
San Juan Mountains
The San Juan Mountains is a high and rugged mountain range in the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Colorado and northwestern New Mexico. The area is highly mineralized (the Colorado Mineral Belt) and figured in the gold and silver mining industry ...
, protected within
Uncompahgre National Forest
Uncompahgre National Forest is a U.S. National Forest covering 955,229 acres (1,492.55 sq mi, or 3,865.68 km2) in (in descending order of land area) parts of Montrose, Mesa, San Miguel, Ouray, Gunnison, Hinsdale, San Juan, and Delta ...
.
The basin−valley is well renowned for its display of
wildflower
A wildflower (or wild flower) is a flower that grows in the wild, rather than being intentionally seeded or planted. The term implies that the plant is neither a hybrid nor a selected cultivar that is any different from the native plant, eve ...
s during the spring bloom period, and for Twin Falls on
Sneffels Creek.
Visiting
Access is provided by a dirt
four wheel drive
The Four Wheel Drive Auto Company, more often known as Four Wheel Drive (FWD), was a pioneering American company that developed and produced all-wheel drive vehicles. It was founded in 1909 in Clintonville, Wisconsin, as the Badger Four-Wheel Dr ...
road which branches off the Ouray County road that runs from
Ouray to
Camp Bird Mine
The Camp Bird Mine is a famous and highly productive old gold mine located between Ouray and Telluride, Colorado. The mine is within the Sneffels-Red Mountain-Telluride mining district in the San Juan Mountains.
It was discovered by Thom ...
. The road starts a quarter mile south of Ouray, passes a
DOT site, and winds its way up the canyon.
Along the way are several primitive campgrounds that tend to be rarely visited. These encourage collecting dead-and-down firewood, though, which occasionally brings locals and people visiting other campgrounds. In general, though, the area is fairly private.
Yankee Boy Basin is a good place to see native wildlife, including:
deer
A deer (: deer) or true deer is a hoofed ruminant ungulate of the family Cervidae (informally the deer family). Cervidae is divided into subfamilies Cervinae (which includes, among others, muntjac, elk (wapiti), red deer, and fallow deer) ...
,
black bear,
birds of prey
Birds of prey or predatory birds, also known as (although not the same as) raptors, are hypercarnivorous bird species that actively predation, hunt and feed on other vertebrates (mainly mammals, reptiles and smaller birds). In addition to speed ...
, and other fauna of the southwestern
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in great-circle distance, straight-line distance from the northernmost part of Western Can ...
region.
See also
*
Chief Ouray
Ouray (, c. 1833 – August 20, 1880) was a Native Americans in the United States, Native American Tribal chief, chief of the Ute people#Northern Ute Tribe (Uinta Utes), Tabeguache (Uncompahgre) band of the Ute Tribe, Ute tribe, then located in we ...
*
*
External links
Yankee Boy Basin - GORP*
Valleys of Colorado
Landforms of Ouray County, Colorado
Protected areas of Ouray County, Colorado
San Juan Mountains (Colorado)
Uncompahgre National Forest
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