Let's see if I can wrap up August so I can catch back up to my "Up, up, and away to the mountains" post in early September! Here goes!
Friday, August 9, 2013
Roosevelt National
Forest, CO
Back to the Fountain of Youth!
We’re low on
drinking water so we take a drive back up Pingree Park Road to the artisan
spring to collect our six gallons of mountain spring water.
As we drive up
to the spring we see a tent, truck with horse trailer, and horses in the meadow
beyond.
Jack parks and
heads for the spring.
A young lady
appears from behind the trailer with her dogs. Before long a large dog comes lumbering across the meadow towards us. He’s a big friendly pooch looking for
attention. We oblige.
The young lady
follows after him with a bucket. We all
introduce ourselves. She’s from North Carolina
and vacationing in Colorado with friends.
They were on a trail ride earlier in the day and planned another for
this afternoon. The skies look
threatening and she says they will probably pass on climbing the mountains on
horseback this afternoon. She gathers
water for the horses and returns to her camp.
We load our
water container in the Jeep and head the six miles back to the main highway to
return to camp.
Arrowhead Lodge Ranger Station
We arrive at
Highway 14 and decide to take a detour up the Arrowhead Lodge Visitor Center. An afternoon rain shower follows us up to
Arrowhead Lodge Ranger Station. We park
and go inside to talk with the volunteers about some hiking trails in the area. These folks are caught in a rain shower as they try to get back to their minivan.
We wind our way back down toward Dutch George Campground in the rain.
Saturday, August 10,
2013
Colorado Rocky Mountain Bicycle Tour (Aug
4-10)
The bicycle tour is over the course of a week and goes from Fort Collins to
Estes Park, Golden, Frasier, Steamboat Springs, Walden and back to Fort
Collins - 469 miles total. We observe the last leg of tour
from Walden to Fort Collins as the bikes whiz down the canyon.
It's a fiasco to say the least. People in vehicles yelling at the cyclists for hogging the road (which they do, as a matter of fact). Cyclists hollering back at the drivers equally mean comments. Neither is happy with the other. Why they have a bicycle tour down a narrow canyon with no shoulders on the road is beyond me ... but then again, no one asked me.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Dutch George Campground
Meet the Bicycling “Wild Camper”!
A lone bicyclist stops by the campground to replenish his water supply.
We visit with him for a few minutes. His name is Peter Hansell (the “Wild Camper”). He has cycled to many locations: Alaska to
Florida, Alaska to California, Oregon to Chile (with extended stops to do
volunteer work). His current trip started 7 – 8
weeks ago in Southern California – heading East. I ask how far east he intends to go. He's thinking the Far East - really. Maybe not this trip, but some day.
He asks about our rig and suggests we’ll need to downsize if
we’re going to be “wild campers”. Great
idea, Peter. But, this may be as wild as
it gets. He's keeping a blog and you can check him out on the following site.
Monday, August 12, 2013
Dutch George Campground
Rist Canyon
& Stove Prairie Road
We take a drive today down to Fort Collins - more errands. We're looking for a different route and some new scenery. Rist Canyon and Stove Prairie Road look like a good choice. Here's some interesting pics of the area.
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| Very cool mailbox with "ski" fence behind it. |
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| Now there's an creative and interesting fence. |
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| There must be 30-40 mailboxes line up along this road for a community located up the mountain. |
Dutch George Campground
Parlez-vous français?
We drive up to
the Upper Poudre Canyon Fire Station to make a phone call and decide to stop at
Glen Echo Resort for a sweet treat before returning to camp. A group of a dozen or so Harleys come roaring
up as we’re sitting on the front porch enjoying our ice cream bars.
As they walk across the road toward us I
detect a French accent – first from one, then another, and another. I strike up a conversation with them. I only know a
sentence or two of French. I’m in luck,
they know a lot more English than I know French. They’re bikers from the Marseille Chapter in
France here in the States attending the Sturgis Rally last week. They flew into Denver, rented their bikes, and
rode up to Sturgis. After Sturgis they’re
completing a bike trip through Colorado’s High Country before returning to
France this weekend. They're happy to pose for a few pictures and we do likewise. “Parlez-vous
français?” “Whut?”
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Dutch George Campground
What’s more interesting – a fish hatchery
or the young man that works there?
We make a trip
back up Poudre Canyon to visit the Poudre River State Trout Hatchery. It’s been on our list of things to do, but it
seems every time we come past on our way back to camp it’s after visiting
hours. Today it’s our only destination
except for a picnic along the river.
We park the Jeep
just as a gentle rain begins so we grab our jackets. We stop and read the posted sign with some
general information about the facility and then head over to check out the fish
runs. Without a little more information
it just looks like a whole lot of trout swimming in the concrete runs. Maybe we can find someone willing to answer a
few questions. Sure enough, a young man
wearing a Colorado State Parks & Wildlife shirt comes walking our way. He’s very personable and has the answers to
all our questions about the hatchery. He
talks about the bears that frequent the hatchery nearly nightly to feed on the
automatic feeders in the fish runs. The
bears want the fish food – not the fish.
Who woulda thunk? He says in the
winter they get a lot of moose in and around the hatchery. What a beautiful sight that would be.
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| Automatic fish feeder the bears like. |
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| One of the fish runs. The fish are kept in runs based on how old they are. |
Without much
coaxing, he is willing to talk a little about himself and how he ended up in a
fish hatchery. He says he was raised on
a ranch about 25 miles from where we stood – and their home was 50 miles from
the nearest town. A graduate of the
University of Wyoming in Laramie in Wildlife Biology, he knew he could never
sit in an office and didn’t want to be near a city. He and two co-workers each have a home on the
hatchery property, where he also keeps his horse. A break away from the hatchery is a few days
on horseback in the Rawah Range counting Rocky Mountain sheep for the State of
Colorado. When he does take a couple of
days off he usually heads to his parents’ ranch to help his dad with all the
things that need to be done there. What
a very nice young man. Although the
trout hatchery and all his explanations were very interesting, the personal
conversation with this young man was most enjoyable.
After leaving
the trout hatchery we wind our way back down the canyon and find a great spot
to have a picnic along the wild and scenic Cache la Poudre River.
Friday, August 23 –
September 2, 2013
Cherry Creek State Park,
Denver, CO
Sisters on the Fly - Colorado Style.
Family events
keep us in the Denver area for several days staying in Cherry Creek State
Park. We have a couple of really interesting neighbors. This older lady and her daughter belong to the Colorado Chapter of Sisters on the Fly - a fun-loving group of lady campers with really decked out trailers. This is the back end of her trailer. I just love it!
More "American Ingenuity" - I like it!
These folks are
in the running for the “American Ingenuity Award”.
I admire anyone that comes up with a unique
idea to spend time out of doors camping.
This is a run-of-the-mill flatbed with a frame built on it, aluminum
siding, windows, and a 6-panel door added and you have a rather inexpensive
trailer. It’s pretty unusual looking,
but it meets their needs. I wish I had
had the chance to peek inside.
Be safe. See you soon.
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