A Weekend In The Mountains

This is true Colorado weather. After a very chilly week (see my last post), things warmed up considerably. The Bride and I headed out on Friday morning to spend the weekend in the ski resort, Keystone, about a hour west of the Denver metro area. The weather was absolutely perfect, 60’s daytime with brilliant blue skies.

Before the ascent, I took The Bride to three different RV dealers to look at new fifth wheels. We have both agreed on several parameters and those choices narrow the range of trailers to look at. Of all the different units we have looked at we are down to three models that we now need to choose from…that is providing that something unknown doesn’t pop up before a decision is made. Looking is fun but there are so many variables that it can be confusing at times. Each unit has pluses and minuses but it seems like no one unit has it all so we have to make choices.

The RV search lasted until noon and after a quick lunch we headed into the mountains. The weather could not have been more perfect and it was soul soothing to get into the high country under these conditions. Our destination was the Ski Tip Lodge. This quaint little lodge is an old 1880’s stage stop that was converted into a ski lodge in the 1940’s and then acquired by the ski resort in the 1970’s. Throughout the years it was remodeled and added on to numerous times but it still only has nine rooms. It would never be able to live up to today’s building codes because of the narrow winding hallways, frequent step ups and downs and other eccentricities of the add on building style. That is however one of the reasons it is so charming. It also has a fabulous restaurant in the lodge itself.

Saturday morning we decided to go into the resort area of Keystone. We were surprised to find that we were there in the slowest time of the year, after the leaf peeping but before the ski crowd arrived.  It was absolutely deserted! The picture above was taken at 9:30 in the morning and if you look closely you can see one, count ‘em, one person in the middle of the retail area (I marked him with an arrow). Most of the shops and restaurants were closed until the snow falls.

That was a bummer to The Bride as shopping is ALWAYS a big part of any get away. Fortunately, Breckenridge is only a short drive from Keystone so Saturday afternoon was spent browsing around another ski town. There was much more activity in Breckenridge and all the stores were open and doing a brisk business.

This morning after a leisurely breakfast we headed back to the Denver area. We avoided I-70 for a while and took the Loveland Pass road which goes right by Arapahoe Ski Basin. This ski area is always one of the first to open for skiing and it’s not uncommon for it to be open as late as June at the end of the season. Sure enough there were quite a number of “early bird” skiers on the slope.

By the time we made it back into the Denver area (45 minutes) the temperature was up to 75 degrees. That change in temperature is appropriate as in two weeks, The Bride, The Emmer and I leave for a Caribbean cruise. We will fly from here to San Juan on the 29th and return to the Denver area on the 9th of November. More about that in a later post.

Thanks for visiting

Fall Has Fallen…

With all my travels of the past few weeks, I haven’t had a chance to enjoy fall in the high country so Sunday Guitar and I headed up through Kenosha Pass to the Fairplay and Alma area to do a little leaf peeping. I didn’t have big expectations since we’re at the beginning of October and it was a good thing. There was still some color at lower elevations but once we got to the summit of Kenosha Pass the leaves were totally gone. Not only were the leaves gone at higher elevations but a lot of the peaks were showing a dusting of recent snow.

The top of Kenosha Pass gives you a wonderful view of South Park and the many high peaks that surround this beautiful area. On this day we could see wintery clouds and snow squalls covering the entire area.

Plan B was to head up to the timber line outside Alma, CO and visit with the 1000+ year old bristlecone pines in an area called Windy Ridge. These amazing trees are among the oldest living things on the planet. One tree in California is 4900 years old! The Windy Ridge trees are young in comparison to that but they are still pretty spectacular.

It wasn’t the best day to take a 4WD trail above timberline but this would almost certainly be the last chance we had until next June when the snow finally retreats from this area so up we went. Aside from the cold and wind…on Windy Ridge, go figure…it wasn’t too bad. We had a few snow showers blow by but nothing serious. It was however, cold enough to keep me from doing all the photography I had planned on doing.

After a couple of hours of visiting and exploring we headed back down to the little old mining town of Alma and lunch at the South Park Saloon. The saloon is one of about two places in town to get a bite to eat and despite it’s “rustic” look the burgers were quite good.

We were back home in time to see most of the Denver Bronco football game….yes, winter is just around the corner.

Thanks for visiting.

Catching Up and Searching

This week has been one of catching up on all sorts of things after being on the road for two weeks. Early in the week it was catching up on clean clothes and cleaning out the RV. Mid week it was catching up on normal chores like mowing the lawn…hopefully I’ll only have to do it once or twice more before the weather impedes it’s growth.

The weather has definitely turned more fall like. A front swept through yesterday with strong winds and today the high is in the 50’s with more wind. I am enjoying the cooler weather. Nothing is better than a crisp day, cool enough to have to wear a vest or light jacket, the colors of autumn and that cobalt blue Colorado sky. The only down side is that it doesn’t last long and winter is next. They are actually calling for snow (4”-8”) at some of the ski areas tonight!

I’ve also been catching up on my search for a truck. I have searched car dealerships, want ads and craigslist. The other day I spotted one that met all my needs and traded several emails and phone calls with the owner, who lived in Cheyenne, WY. The owner agreed to drive the truck to Denver and if my inspection verified his description of the vehicle, I would buy it. The owner also said that someone else had expressed interest but had offered him a lowball price. About an hour ago I got a call from the owner and he said that the other party had called back and offered his asking price and was going to meet the owner on the north side of Denver for the inspection….I live on the south side of Denver, so I lose out due to a couple of interstate exits.

The owner is a young man and I told him that I was disappointed that I was treated this way especially since I contacted him first about the vehicle. I am disappointed and somewhat… peeved, but on the other hand if the young man didn’t have the integrity to honor my first offer, he may not have the integrity to be totally honest about the condition of the vehicle? So, it’s back in the hunt….

In the meantime I’m going to try and take a trip into the mountains this weekend. The leaves have already peaked at higher elevations but there’s plenty of lower altitude areas that should be just as spectacular.

Thanks for visiting.

P.S. The picture at the top of this post was taken at the Old Agency Forest Service Work Center, two weeks ago.

Old Spanish Trail Passport In Time Project

Monday afternoon- 5pm

I arrived at the Old Agency Forest Service Work Station on Saturday afternoon after a pleasant five hour drive from the Denver area. This place is called “Old Agency” because it was the first Indian Agency for the original Ute Indian Reservation in Colorado during the 1870’s.  The land is now mostly private ranches and National Forest. The terrain here at the Agency is high prairie with an elevation of about 9100’ above sea level. About eight RVs full of volunteers and Forest Service personnel are using this as a base of operations. The actual project site is about three miles from here.

Yesterday we visited the site and cleared sagebrush off of the area we were going to excavate. The local Forest Service archaeologist believes that the site is an old stage stop for the Barlow and Sanderson Stage Company that operated in the area in the 1870’s. The site consists of what appears to be the main building with two fireplaces, a root cellar, two rock lined wells and a privy. The ground is littered with old tin cans, brown bottle glass, clear glass, aqua glass and some earthen ware shards.

It seems as if we’re in a monsoon pattern because every afternoon it clouds up about 1 pm and by 2:30 or 3:00 pm we get rain for about an hour and a half. That makes our days pretty short, which is a welcome change from the last project I worked on. Before and after the daily rain it is absolutely spectacular. It’s cool and the aspens are beginning to turn.

Today we began actual excavation of four test areas. This was an interesting experience for me as I have never done a “dig” before. The excavations consist of 1 meter by one meter squares that are aligned in a true north/south/east/west direction. The dirt is then removed 10 centimeters deep (about 4”) at a time. All the dirt that is removed is put through a 1/4” screen to find any object that are missed when we take the dirt out.

Today I worked on the root cellar site. By the time rain chased us off we had removed about a foot of dirt from our meter by meter square plot. The only things of interest we found were old square cut nails, some brown bottle glass (most likely old beer bottles) and several pieces of rib bones that looked like they had been cut….probably I side of venison or beef that had been hung in the root cellar. Once we get to what we think is just about or below the floor level, we’ll start another meter by meter square right next to the one we’re working on now.

Back to the Old Agency site….There is a cowboy that is staying here with the permission of the Forest Service. I’m not sure of all the background but he’s a real life working cowboy and he leaves early each morning with two horses and rounds up cattle in the hills around us. He needs to bring them down before winter sets in….so I’m here at an old Indian Agency and I watch this cowboy come in every evening with his two horses. He takes the saddles off, curries them, feeds them and turns them loose in the corral close by. This is the heartland of America!  It’s hard to describe the feeling I have in these surroundings. I feel like I could walk out of my RV tomorrow morning and be magically transported back to the 1870’s.

I’ll try to find out more of the cowboy’s story and get some better pictures…

Thanks for visiting.

Another Passport In Time Project

I mentioned that there was another PIT project that I may participate in, in September. Well, it been finalized and I will participate for sure. This will be an archaeological survey as well but this time we’ll be looking for the remains of an 1870’s toll road and the remnants of any structures related to the toll road. Additionally we will look for any signs of the earlier Old Spanish Trail which was known to go through the area. We may even do a little excavating which is something I haven’t done yet on a PIT project.

The project will be the third week in September which is usually the peak time for fall colors in the mountains. This promises to be one of most scenic and interesting projects yet.

I actually had my choice of this project and another one the same week that was in northern New Mexico. It was difficult to choose between the two but the Colorado one was closer and to be able to work in the mountains at the peak of fall colors won out.

I have applied for two other Passport In Time projects the week following this one and hopefully I’ll get chosen for one of them. It’s shaping up to be a busy fall…stay tuned.

Here’s the official write up for the Old Spanish Trail PIT.

Old Spanish Trail & Early Toll Road Survey and Excavation

CO-3872
Sept 13–18, 2009 (including weekends)

Must commit to minimum of 2 days

In the early 1870s there was a rush to explore new mining opportunities in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. In 1871, as a result of the increased influx of interested parties, Otto Mears established the Saguache-San Juan Toll Road, which spanned the distance from the San Luis valley to the then up-and-coming town of Lake City.

The toll road is no longer visible in its entirety, but several sections of it have been relocated. Just a few miles northwest of the Cochetopa Indian Agency is a site that is believed to be a stage stop for the toll road. A stone foundation, a well, and a scatter of associated artifacts are present at this site. PIT volunteers and Forest staff will test (and possibly excavate, on a limited basis) the site to determine its association with the toll road and determine a time period for its occupation. Additionally, we will survey along the known (1870s) route of the toll road for remnants of other sections and possible evidence of the Old Spanish Trail, which also ran through the area.

Volunteers interested in this project will not submit applications as usual. If you are interested and available for the project dates, contact GMUG N.F. archaeologist Justin Lawrence directly. He can answer all inquiries and accept commitments for participation.

Number of openings: 10

Special skills: Must be physically able to hike moderate to long distances over potentially rough terrain daily, and in highly variable weather conditions; previous excavation experience helpful, but not required

Minimum age: 12 years old, under 18 with a responsible adult

Facilities: Tent and RV camping available at the Old Agency Ranger Station; electricity and working toilet at O.A. Ranger Station, no water or other facilities; volunteers responsible for personal camping equipment, food, and water; Gunnison is a full-service community with hotels/motels, restaurants, and a full range of other amenities; those opting to stay in Gunnison must provide own transportation to and from designated meeting area each day

Nearest towns: Gunnison, 40 miles

Thanks for visiting.

Dodging Winter

The weather in Colorado this time of year is always an adventure! Looks like we dodged the bullet this time. The map at the top of the post is the national radar picture. See that classic curlicue over Kansas? That's a pretty strong storm that's causing a blizzard in western Kansas today.

Tuesday night the temps dropped like the stock market and the winds howled most of the night. When I looked around yesterday, a lot of the trees had been stripped of their gorgeous fall plumage but it looks like the mountains directly to our west deflected the system enough to protect us from the really nasty stuff.

The radar map to the above left is this morning's radar showing the snow starting about 100 miles to the east of here. I can see the dark storm clouds at the back edge of the storm from my home office window.

Now let me show you why Colorado weather is an adventure. Look at the extended forecast below. By this weekend it will be spring/fall like again. Short sleeve weather. I'm loving it!!!



Stay tuned for a BIG, BIG announcement on Saturday!!!!

Thanks for visiting.

Adventure Is Where You Find It

As I said in the last post, I was abandoned this weekend. The rest of The Circle except for me and Too Tall-Two Timing was out of town having all sorts of adventures. On Friday I felt like the unwanted orphan but I was determined to find at least a little adventure to fill a beautiful fall weekend.

Saturday at about noon I got a call from Too Tall. He said he was washing the Jeep and had the top and doors off and, by golly, he had the urge to drive that thing with the top and doors off, and did I want to go with him? Did I.......you're darn right I did.

Not too much later we were on our way up into the foothills around the South Platte River. Temps in the mid seventies, gorgeous sunshine. THIS was my idea of being abandoned!

We didn't have to go too far to find a dirt road that paralleled the river, that we had never been on before. There were plenty of people fishing and there was one party shown in the picture to the right that looked like one of them at least had bagged the limit!

That's a wedding party with the ceremony in full tilt. When we stopped to take a picture they were almost to the "I Do-s". They certainly picked a wonderful day and a pretty neat spot to start a new marriage. It kinda' gave our ride some "adventure" too.

Not far down the road we came to an abandoned old hotel. I remembered seeing something about this place on the internet or the paper but couldn't remember what it was. This morning I "googled" it and found the story. Quite an interesting place and just the thing to add a little more adventure to the ride.

Too Tall and I spent about 3 hours on this ride and it was just the "salve" to sooth that abandoned feeling. This wasn't the end of the adventure for the weekend however.

This morning I decided to try a little more geocaching. If you will remember from previous posts that I have tried to locate a few in the past couple of weeks but was stymied by one thing or another. This morning was another beautiful fall day with temps forecast to be in the mid 70s again so it was the perfect opportunity to give it another try.

This geocache was close to a popular hiking and biking trail and I arrived at the parking lot at about 9:30 am. I guess the geocache Gods were with me because this one was pretty easy to find. That's it in the picture to the right. A small camouflaged box hidden in the crook of a tree in a very brushy area. I didn't even bother to open this one and sign the log because as I was looking at it I heard some movement not far away. When I came away from the tree and looked across the small stream that ran nearby I saw the coyote shown in the picture at the top of the post. He was probably only 100 feet from me. It was obvious that he knew I was there and didn't seem frightened at all.

That was enough to get me, quickly, out of the brush and back on the trail. To my amazement this wasn't a lone coyote, there were several more in the brush foraging for food. I watched the for about 10 minutes and just as I was about to leave I saw a rabbit scurry across the trail into the woods behind me. Now it all made sense and I hope that my presence gave the rabbit a new lease on life!

With that little adventure to add to the weekend I decided to head home and prepare for the return of The Bride and the rest of the ladies of The Circle. While they tell me about their adventures this weekend I'll have that smug thought that "adventure is where you find it"!

Thanks for visiting.

Where Have All The Aspen Leaves Gone?

The post title is a take off on the 1962 Kingston Trio hit "Where Have All The Flowers Gone". Actually the song was written by Pete Seeger and recorded by just about every folk singer of the 1960's but in my mind I will always associate it with the Kingston Trio.

But I digress...I was at Tarryall Reservoir about three weeks ago and the aspen leaves in the high country were just starting to show the slightest bit of color. Last week Guitar and I were in far southeast Colorado, far away from any aspen so yesterday I decided to take a ride up to Kenosha Pass (10,000' altitude) to see if there was any color left in the high country.

Looks like I missed it by about a week and a half. The trees at 10,000' and above were pretty bare. At lower altitudes it was a mix of bare trees, full color trees and even some that haven't started to turn yet. This year is just not a classic Colorado autumn.

In spite of that, I came prepared to enjoy a brisk fall day in the mountains. The Colorado Trail crosses Highway 285 at Kenosha Pass so I thought I'd walk that a ways and maybe do a little geocaching. It was a perfect day for a hike. Temps in the 60's, bright sunshine and the classic cobalt blue Colorado sky.

I arrived at the pass at about 10:30 and started back home at about 2:30. My idea about finding a couple of geocaches didn't pan out too well. I was able to get to the general vicinity of the caches without any problem with the aide of my GPS but all the aspen leaves on the ground made it next to impossible to find the cache itself. So...I had to make do with just enjoying a gorgeous fall day....Pretty good consolation prize, huh?

While hiking, I did manage to find a couple more aspen graffiti trees to add to my collection.

Next on my adventure list is a trip to Moab for some 4 wheeling a week from this Thursday. This is the annual Fall on the Rocks that I have missed the last couple of years and I'm looking forward to it. There is one potential hitch. Too Tall-Two Timing and K. are expecting the arrival of a grand baby any day now. I was planning on riding with and sharing a room with Too Tall-Two Timing, so if he needs to stay in the Denver area I will probably cancel the trip.

If everything goes on schedule. Too Tall and I will go to Moab and the ladies of The Circle, The Bride, Pic-E, and K are going to do a ladies weekend at a cabin in the Cascade, CO area.
Thanks for visiting.

Passport In Time Adventure

This past spring I became acquainted with an opportunity to do exciting volunteer work with the U. S. Forest Service. The program is called Passport In Time and it allows everyday people to work alongside professional Forest Service archaeologists doing really cool stuff such as "archaeological survey and excavation, rock art restoration, survey, archival research, historic structure restoration, oral history gathering, and analysis and curation of artifacts".

Can you see me salivating as you read this? If you can't just believe me that when I saw this opportunity I did indeed slobber all over my computer screen. These volunteer opportunities are available all over the United States but they are particularly numerous in Colorado.

After looking at all the available projects I decided to apply for one in far southeast Colorado, not far from the Kansas and Oklahoma borders. The project is scheduled to run from September 28th until October 3rd.

Much to my delight I was picked to participate. To make things even better, Guitar applied as well and was selected to participate also.

There will be between 8-10 volunteers working with a Forest Service archaeologist doing a surface inventory of historic and pre-historic sites. We will also evaluate the condition of currently known sites that include Indian rock art sites.

Our base of operations will be a very remote site thirty-five miles from the nearest town at the entrance to Picture Canyon. There will be no facilities whatsoever so everything we need in terms of shelter, water and other staples we will have to bring with us. The one exception is food. The Forest Service has arranged for a cook to prepare meals. We will have to split the cost of the food itself but the cook will do all the hard work.

Guitar and I plan to use his truck camper and will leave the Denver area early Sunday morning (next week) to travel down there.

I am so excited, I'm like a little kid getting ready to go on his first camping trip. This hits three or four of my top interests so I'm in curiosity overload!

So stay tuned to see how this thing turns out.

I may even get in a mini adventure sometime this weekend but you'll have to wait and see if this one pans out.

Thanks for visiting.

Holding on to Autumn

The forecast for Saturday was supposed to be nice but not so good for Sunday. I wanted to sneak up the the high country sometime during the weekend to check out the leaves and it seemed like early Saturday was the ticket.

I had also wanted to explore an area not too far from Kenosha Pass that presented opportunities to "boondock". Boondocking in RV lingo is to camp outside of a sanctioned campground and to camp without city electricity and water, using the RV's internal systems. In the 2 years I've owned Bivouac I have only boondocked a few times. I really want this to be my primary means of camping but in order to do this you have to know where the spots are. Hopefully I'd find some spots on this trip.

I left early Saturday with the goal of getting up to the pass, doing my exploration and being back home by noon. I took the new old Contour as I wanted to see how it would do in the mountains and I reasoned that if I could get the Contour into any discovered boondock spots, Bivouac could make it for sure.

The colors were a little past peak between 8000'and 9000' but once you got to 10,000' not only was the color gone....but so were the leaves.

In the picture above and to the left you can see one of the boondock spots I discovered. It was obvious that others had camped here and I can see why. A great view of the mountains and a nice large level spot for a trailer. If you will click on the photo and enlarge it you can see that there is some snow on the mountains in the background. You can also see that all the leaves are off the aspen on the hill in the middle of the picture.

I found four different spots that looked suitable to boondock and that I thought I could get Bivouac into. Now all I need is for the snow to hold off for a while so I can try them out!

After my exploration, I headed back down the mountain and once I got back down about 1000' the aspen colors came back. Going through the little crossroad village of Grant, I caught a glimpse of an old pickup truck camper on the side of the road and slammed on the brakes....turned around and went for a look.

To the uninitiated observer, the object of my interest was a big ugly piece of junk....and it was...but for me it was a forty year flashback. The picture shows a very, very abused and beat up Travel Queen Camper. In the last post I described driving across country in a pickup truck and camper in 1964. That camper was a Travel Queen. Travel Queens were the Cadillac of campers in their day. The distinctive rounded top and boat front made them stand out from everything else on the road at the time. A lot of my love of the out of doors comes directly from the adventures I had with my parents and brothers in our Travel Queen camper.

Travel Queens are a rare find today. In the last 10 years I have come across maybe 6 or 7 of them. Most are not in good shape. Every now and again I see one on the internet that has been restored with the original birch or knotty pine interior.

If I ever win the lottery....no I mean if The Bride ever wins the lottery, because I don't play the lottery, I WILL find and restore a Travel Queen and put it on a restored 1963, 3/4 ton Chevy truck.

The owner saw me taking pictures and came out to make a sale but I was not buying this day. He did let me look inside and that also provided lots of memories....and kinda brought me back to reality because if you think the outside looks rough...well, you get the idea.

I had one final thing to do on the way home. For years I have driven Hwy 285 and past the little cemetery on the other side of Crow Hill from Bailey. There are a number of plain white wooden crosses visible from the road and I have long wondered about them. This day was a perfect day to finally stop and check it out.

The sign identified it as Horn Cemetery and the wooden crosses all lacked any kind of identification of the occupants. It appears as if these were very old graves whose tombstones had long since disappeared. There were a few older headstones dating to the 1880's and a surprising number of newer stones.

One particularly interesting stone identified the owner as a former motorcycle rider. The inscription read "Ride Free, Forever Ride, The Tough Part is Over". I also noticed an unusually high number of Vietnam Veterans for such a small cemetery.

It was now time to get on home and do the weekend chores...and I did. The weather remained windy but sunny for the rest of the day and at this altitude (5800') I was able to continue to hold on to autumn.

Thanks for visiting.

Just Around the Corner

Maybe it's just me but the last two mornings I have detected a "feeling" in the weather that reminds me that autumn is almost here. It has been pleasantly chilly in the mornings for a few weeks now but the "chilly" of the last two mornings has had something a little different to it.

In about three weeks the aspen will be at peak color in the mountains. Autumn has always been my favorite time of year. I don't know what it is, the weather is certainly great and in my humble opinion there is nothing more beautiful in the known world that a golden stand of aspen shimmering on a mountain side. To me there is a pleasant melancholy that also accompanies autumn. It's a feeling of ending but not necessarily a bad feeling. It's kinda' like the feeling you have after a really good meal.....you're sorry that it's over but oh, so glad that it was to begin with. There's that warm glow deep down in your gut.

Autumn in Colorado is pretty short. Even though you know winter is close at hand, to me it feels like a beginning too. Time to start the cycle all over, and for me the cycle starts with winter.

It's not time just yet to start the cycle again...I'm gonna enjoy autumn first. I think this year I'll take an entire day to sit in an aspen grove somewhere and be....melancholy....in a good way.

Thanks for visiting.