The San Miguel Cirque

The San Miguel Cirque is located just east of Telluride. The view up into this glacier-carved high mountain valley is one of the defining views for the town of Telluride: people know that these 2 waterfalls in the distance mean "Telluride". The waterfall on the left in the above photo is Ingram Falls, the one on the right is Bridal Veil Falls. The two streams come together down below and form the headwaters of the San Miguel River.

Bridal Veil Falls is a big time draw when ice-climbing season gets underway. 365' of vertical ice is hard to beat if that's a sport you'd like to excel at.

When the first gold prospectors came into this valley, they found all kinds of ore bodies through these mountains. There are more than 360 miles of tunnels in this area, tunnels cut in solid rock by men trading their lives for a few bucks: this kind of mining took a lot of money and the folks who found the minerals didn't usually have the money needed to make a go of it. So the first prospectors sold out to large corporations who hired laborers for very little pay to do the actual blasting and digging and milling of the ore. And with all the tunneling done in the rock of these mountains, we're still left with this incredible vista.