We hadn't planned on being in this part of the country. But when the weather unexpectedly turned bad in Montana we headed south. We made it as far as Grand Junction, Colorado. We found a KOA where we could take showers (you know, real ones, where the water comes out of the wall), do laundry, and watch the two Broncos games we had missed.
Then when the weather turned nice we headed toward Gateway, Colorado, a place we had never heard of before.
To get there we drove through a stunning valley. We passed the Driggs Mansion, which was built in 1914 and hardly ever lived in. It was allowed to go to ruin but now people are trying to preserve it. Hope they can.
See the remnants in this photo (lower right hand corner):
Some views of our drive to Gateway:
After leaving Gateway, we headed up a dirt/gravel road: John Brown Rd. It was steep and winding. Here is a photo showing the what the road below us looked like (see it in the bottom middle of the photo). This is the definition of steep.
After about 4 miles we spotted a nice place. There was still a lot of hill to climb at that point, but the 500-600 foot elevation gain per mile and switchbacks were making our pickup groan. And we were starting to detect that smell that says that your engine and transmission are being asked to do more than they were designed to do.
As luck would have it, we found the last place before the top of the hill, which was a mile away. And that one mile climb was more rewarding on foot than it would have been in the pickup. We would know--we did it three times.
Here is our spot:
We had about 10 cars/day drive by us. Everybody waved.
Our second day we saw two cyclists huffing and puffing up the hill (by the time they got to us they were taking a break and walking). We had a nice discussion with them. We were able to tell them they only had a mile left (I know that could sound hostile, because "only" a mile in this instance was probably on a 25% grade, but we were were trying to be accurate). They are from Minnesota, and are cycling around the USA. We gave them V-8s, a bag of dried cranberries, and our last bottled water. I hope someday we run into them again. Pretty cool:
We took three hikes from this camping spot. Most of the hikes were on roads, although one of the roads was clearly an old mining road and was only fit for walking on. We also did some off-trail hiking, which isn't always easy to do in the mountains.
Uranium ore used to be mined in this area. There are still remnants of the mines, which are always fun to explore, although we were careful because we didn't want our heads to start glowing in the dark.
Here are some of our photos of those hikes:
The first one shows how steep the road that we went up each day was:
We were going to spend one more day hiking in this spot and another night camping there, but the weather forecast showed a 35% chance of rain during the night. My foot needed a rest anyway, but we clearly did not want to be driving down these roads in our camper when they were wet and slippery, and when there were strong wind gusts. There are no guardrails, and at places there are 200 foot drop offs. That didn't sound like fun....even to us.
So we went back to Gateway and headed out on a flat BLM road to find a camping spot. Along the road we stopped a guy coming toward us in a pickup, to ask him where we might camp. We ended up having a long conversation with him. We had noticed a large log house 1/2 mile back, and he said he lived there. Built it. It's for sale, and his asking price isn't nearly what it is worth. Sits on 26 acres, the most incredible view you can imagine. However, it is very isolated in this part of the country, and even the drive to a grocery store would be a day's activity.
He was a drill sergeant at Fort Lewis during the Vietnam War, after his tour in Vietnam, so we had a lot to talk about (Owen, Vicky's son, was stationed at Fort Lewis, and we both have enough experience with the military to know how grateful the boys and men who served in Vietnam and elsewhere were for the guys who were actually in combat and then taught them how to be safe). We have made a new friend, and he has made two of them.
So we drove to where he suggested, and found a camping spot. We will only be able to spend one night here because we have to drive to Grand Junction tomorrow for our appointment to have the computer looked at. It died a few days ago and then this morning, like Lazarus, started up again. But we don't trust it. There is some type of problem, and our motto is that as soon as something looks like it could be a problem is the time to fix it.
Is this a beautiful camping spot or what? It looks like Monument Valley, but without the people.
We'll be back...
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