The road thus far…… (part 1)

The San Juan Backcountry Lodge will be a 3 bed, 3 bath lodge about 2 miles outside of Silverton Colorado. So far, all that’s happened on the ground is that we’ve cleared trees, built a road and dynamited the foundation. In reality, getting to this point has taken years and alot of money.

Let’s start from the beginning. My brother Adam bought the land a few years ago from a close friend. Soon after, Adam told me about this incredible piece of land he’d purchased so we visited together. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Downtown Silverton is at 9300ft, which is already incredible. The peaks immediately surrounding Silverton are over 13000ft, waaay above the treeline and super steep. It’s very dramatic compared to the mountains of Southern Utah where I grew up, that are more like plateaus.

We then headed up county road 33 to the property he’d purchased. I was blown away to learn that somehow, Adam had secured one of the very few spots on the side of Kendall Mountain that was flat and appeared to be buildable. Then he showed me the river running through the property and I was on board to do, basically whatever Adam wanted to do with this property

Up to this point, Adam and I had built high end vacation rentals in Garfield County Utah, which we thought was difficult. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, trying to build a backcountry lodge in San Juan County Colorado…….

Part 2 coming next week…