Settled into Durango for the next month

We arrived at our campground in Creede after our grueling 22 mile drive and settled in for several days.  It is right on the Rio Grande that is not much more than a trickle right now with this drought.  We gave it fishing a gallant try, and I caught a huge 2 inch trout and that was it.  We talked to several other fishermen that said they had never seen the river this low and with it so warm, the water, and so low, the fishing was over for the year.  We were disappointed but not surprised.  We had a few welcome showers come through but it was mostly virga and did no good.

But it did make for a pretty picture

We took several rides around the area and did enjoy our time in Creede.

Our awesome view and coffee spot high above Creede

But we decided since the fishing wasn't happening, we would cut our time short by a day and go back up the 22 miles to our boondock spot that we both just loved.

Back north we go

North Clear Creek Falls

You can just see us in the circle

We settled in and took several couple mile walks out across the meadow, and just enjoyed the silence, beauty, peace, and the feeling of being the only people in the world, it was wonderful, punctuated by a little issue in the middle of the night...

Our view

Cocktail hour, a little chilly with our fire pit,
and a big smile on Jan's face!

What issue?  I have talked about our air leveling system and its air compressor before.  The computer for the system looks at how level we are every 2 hours and adjusts if necessary. It adjusts by lowering the corner to make it level until finally it needs to raise a corner to relevel, and that's when the aux air compressor comes on.  Now when everything is good, the compressor comes on once or twice in a day.  Well, we had been noticing, particularly when it was cold the compressor might kick on every hour or so, so we knew we had a small leak somewhere.  Understand most motorhomes and trucks with air suspensions and brakes all leak a little bit, it is perfectly normal, there are tons of air lines and connections and the smallest of leaks finally presents itself when you let the vehicle sit for a time.  Well, at 3 in the morning, yeah, 3am, I hear the compressor come on, then stop, then 5 minutes later come on, run for a minute or so, then go off, and 5 minutes later, again, and so on until it is running about 1 minute out of every 3!  We are lucky our coach also has hydraulic jacks for leveling, so I get up, activate the jacks to keep us level, and have to go outside in the 28 degree weather to pull a circuit breaker to kill the power to the compressor, and then try to get back to sleep.  Oh well.

So the next day, we're in no rush to leave as our next campground is only 100 miles away, Jan, aka Diesel Mechanic, crawls under after I have started the engine and got the air up to see if she can find the leak.  The good news is we can actually hear it, so that makes it way easier.  And tada, she finds the pressure relief valve on the small leveling tank is leaking, a $10 part.  And with our jacks, we don't have to be in any hurry to fix it.  I should mention that going down the road, our main engine air compressor provides plenty of air to overcome small leaks, it's designed that way.

You can see the soap bubbles showing the leak

So after successfully finding the culprit, we head back down south to South Fork to the Peacock RV Park, another place we have stayed in the past.  We are very happy to see they have down a lot of improving in the year we've been gone.  We enjoy a nice sunset that evening.

I call a NAPA parts store in a nearby town, 25 miles, to see of they might have the valve, and they say they don't have it in stock but can have one the next morning at 7am.  We drive over the next day, have a nice lunch and much to our surprise and disappointment they tell us they never got it, and don't know why.  Oh well, I'll order one from Amazon.

The reason we're in South Fork is because it puts us pretty close to Big Meadow Reservoir where we've fished with our grandchildren and hiked around many times.  It is one of our favorite hikes which we've shared with you before.

Beautiful Big Meadow

Picnic

Now we were pleased to see the lake was at its normal level, but when we looked at the spillway, we couldn't believe it.  Hardly any water flowing at all.  But obviously, just enough to keep the lake full.

The tiny outflow

The stream below almost dry

I tried to compare with these next 2 pics,
this is this year

This flow is normal

We went up the dirt road to a higher lake, Shaw Lake, where we've fished in the past a couple miles past Big Meadow, and actually drove out into where the lake normally is!

Shaw Lake normally

Same lake now

Sure hope they get their snow pack this year.  They really need it, last year they only received 22% of normal snow!  Since we were quite close to Wolf Creek Pass we decided to go over and drive up to Lobo Overlook since it was such a nice day.

Wolf Creek Ski area in the background
Yeah, it's chilly!
11,760'

So we were able to get our pressure valve and Jan installed it.  

Jan hard at work

I put in the breaker for the pump figuring all was good again, but sure enough Murphy showed back up at 1am this time, compressor running and running.  Out I go again to pull the breaker, back to sleep, worry about this tomorrow.  I start up the coach again, build up the air, shut off the engine and I think I can just hear a leak?????  Jan goes back under, but can't find it or hear it, what?   We have been joined by Karen, Jan's sister and Tom for a week or so, and with much appreciation Tom asks if he can help.  He crawls under and since he could hear it, he quickly finds the new leaking culprit.

This is a PPV, a Pressure Protection Valve
It is on the rear main air tank and its job is
to protect the brakes in a air suspension component failure
Should, say an air bag blow, it would protect air pressure
to the brakes to prevent a very abrupt stop

So, I have been doing research for the part, and find there are actually 4 of these valves on our coach.  On Monday I will try to find them and right now am debating whether to just change out the bad one or preemptively change all 4.  Access to these is definitely a problem, so a small wiry mechanic may be in our future.  In the meantime we are sitting here happily on our jacks with nowhere to go for the next month so we have the luxury of time.  The saga continues, but Bert is taking it in stride.

Ho hum, quit bothering me!