After Aspen

Wednesday (Aug 24)

Sleeping out front worked just fine! I deployed my window blocker – a thick vinyl sheet that snaps around the sliding door window to block out everything. And there’s really not much traffic on our little dead end road, so it was pretty sweet – and coffee is only 30 steps away!

Eat excellent and healthy(!) leftovers from our feast of two nights ago, hang till 1:30-ish, then grab a sando and hit the road.

The drive over Independence Pass is just stunning, even for a jaded travel veteran such as myself – the huge canyons on both sides, the aspen groves a-quaking, the tundra conditions at the top, the narrow roads clinging to the sides of the cliffs.They made quite a point of telling you that there is a $1,500 fine for driving up here with a vehicle longer than 15′, and I am glad. One could get crowded off the edge pretty easily. There is a nice little trail at the summit, so one can experience a slice of life at 12,100′.

This is the first of four USFS campgrounds that my app tells me are in the Twin Lakes area. It sounded nicest also, so I’m stoppin’. There are like 500′ of switchbacks to get to the next one, so this is also the highest elevation and the coldest by far. I chose a site right next to the only maintained trail down to the creek. It’s also a relatively open space so I can see the surrounding mountains and sunset. The Lower Loop sites are closer to the creek, but darker and not really that much closer … so I’m happy being at my spot.

It’s early enough in the day that I to do a lot of computer stuff before deciding to try out the store-bought pot I bought in Aspen and explore the neighborhood [note: that stuff gets you baked!]. I follow the edge of the bluff downhill, through the Lower Loop. Pressing onward to the fence that marks the downhill edge of the campground, there is a pretty good trail that follows the narrow space between the road 10 feet above and the creekside bluffs. I follow it for a little while, but decide to head uphill while there’s still some light. Also, I’m very conscious that every additional downhill step is going to require and additional uphill step which is going to be hard at this altitude.

So, back a round the Upper Loop and back to my spot, where I finally take the stairs down to the creek.  The creek has kind of milky water, like it’s carrying a lot of silt from melting snow. I haven’t seen snow, but I’m at almost 10,000′ and there’s another 3-4,000′ feet of mountain above me, so I’ll bet it’s there. Bushwhack around for a while, then back to the van to wrap up a very pleasant evening.

Thursday

Go down to 32° last night! I was very cozy inside. It’s very pretty and peaceful here, the (late) morning air is crisp and clean. It’s hard to leave … but around 1pm I do.

Down the hill to Twin Lakes, fresh snow in the mountains across the wide valley to the east! My overeager Camp Host last night had made out a parking pass for me, good for day use at Twin Lakes, so I felt some minor need to use it. I drove down the potholed road to the lakeside parking area, but once there was not too impressed. There was a concession for boat tours of the lake, which made me think maybe there is more to the place, but it was not apparent to me, so I moved on.

I had breakfast at a frustrating place in Buena Vista. They must have taken a direct hit from last night’s thunderstorms, because the parking lot was a lake, After navigating the water hazard with my laptop there were eight people ahead of me in line inside, each ordering fancy coffee drinks – aargh! So it took longer than I thought. But it was busy for a reason – the food was very good. So I calmed down and enjoyed the ride.

This part of the trip is US 24 then US 285, down the magnificent wide valley of the Arkansas River. This water is destined for the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico since we are on that side of the Continental Divide. At Poncha Springs I leave the Arkansas and turn west on US 50, over Monarch Pass (a mere 11,312′). On this side, small but spunky Tomiehi Creek spawns countless beaver ponds in the high mountain meadows up here. It becomes the Gunnison River, which flows int the mighty Colorado River and in theory to the Gulf of Baja. The sad fact of course is that cities and agribusiness will suck it all up before it gets there.

Anyway … up here where there is still water, the Gunnison River is dammed to form the large Lake Curecanti. As I found out at the Visitors Center, the Park Service (Department of Interior) administers recreation on these lakes – Lake Meade, Flaming Gorge – so the string of campgrounds on the lake are federal – my favorite!

I drive along the northern edge of the lake, past a few pretty big RV campgrounds along the shore. My destination is a smaller campground on the other side of the road from the lake up a little canyon.

Loving my campground! It’s the classic cottonwood grove in a cleft in the dry, barren hills, grassy and shaded and downright edenic! Loved it even more before some dude decided that out of all open campsites, the one he must have is the one I am looking directly at as I sit here typing at my table.

Rain drives us both inside. I got out my raincoat and took a walk across the busy highway to a little hill over the lake, Sagebrush smell after the rain was wonderful.

Friday

When I get up, everybody else is gone – I have the small campground to myself again. All is calm and pure peacefulness until … I break out the granola for breakfast and notice that critters have been nibbling at the bag!

M I C E !!!

I freak out a little for a while, my last mouse experience, coincidentally (or NOT?!?) after camping near a town in Colorado traumatized me deeply. Initially I was sure it had snuck in at Difficult, then I thought maybe on my one night on the streets of Aspen instead. I remember hearing noises at Aspen, but it also rained that night which always churns up odd noises. Then my third theory is an unusually bold chipmunk hopped this morning out while I had my door open. We’ll never know. The important thing is that it didn’t come back, it wasn’t living here, it’s gone, and that’s good enough for me. I did silly little experiments like leave a fat cashew in the floor all night. My last mouse would not resist that. The cashew was there in the morning, un-nibbled to my great relief.

I backtrack a few miles to drop by the Curecani Visitors Center to glean whatever knowledge I can. Quirky old retired dude fills me with knowledge about why this is here. Nearby is a place with the romantic name Black Gorge of the Gunnison, which is what I thought this was, but not so, a different place.

Pretty drive back to Montrose. I say “back to” because when I re-join US 550 I have completed a loop. I went north through here then east at Delta to go to Aspen, but the campgrounds with National Park icons to the south intrigues me, so after Aspen I looped south then west to last night’s spot, and now I’m back!  This time at Delta I will keep going northwest, eventually planning to end up at Bear Lake a few days from now.

US 550 was VERY busy today. It’s an old-school highway style goes straight through the downtown of every city and town if passes through. Montrose at lunchtime was a nightmare. I suffered the traffic stream north for a while to discover that my destination was closed, then yelp tells me the only other good place is three miles south – yuck. I found a back route, and it worked out well.

It was a coffee roastery on a little suburban street. The didn’t have goodies, and they didn’t have much seating, but the did have wifi and it reached outside to some small tables in the shade, so overall, it was quite nice.

The traffic had kinda fried me, but after my shady interlude I was ready to take it on. I drove with relative serenity through Delta thence to Grand Junction. The stress musta been building up though, because I kinda lost my shit a little in the deli in GJ.

It’s late afternoon, I want a sandwich for tonight and I want it fast, because sunset from the rim of Colorado National Monument will be spectacular. Traffic in GJ was sucky, the deli turned out to be some nasty chain food factory rather than the quaint little shop I was expecting, There was a very slow line of citizens waiting to order, and it soon became clear that the dude at the register was on his first day and did not have a clue about anything. I kind of lost it for a minute, but eventually I got my sando and got up the hill in time for a great sunset at:

Had to drive the loop a coupla times to figure out what’s going on, but what a tremendous place. It;s a smallish peninsula with spectacular views in three directions. The tent loop (no hookups) dates I’m pretty sure, from the 30’s CCC era. The little road seems built for Model T’s, and the sites are small and un-level.

My evening hike circumambulating the peninsula was perfect. It reminded me very much of the hike at Island in the Sky at Canyonlands. Both in terms of the endless view and the sheer drop, but the nature of the sandstone ledge is exactly the same.

It was one of those sunsets where the sun is hidden by the clouds, then appears between the cloud layer and the horizon for a few minutes before disappearing for good. Tonight you could see that it was raining over there to the west somewhere. As it got darker on the walk home the lightning and thunder got closer and brighter and louder. I guess I was a little lucky, because 20 minutes after I was safely at the van it was blowing hard and pouring down rain. My rear vent leaked a little bit. Second time it’s done that. :-<