Escape from AC problems ride

We had to get away from our AC issues, after all there is nothing to do now but wait until they get here, and then figure out how to get them on the roof, and the old ones down.  Plenty of time for that.  Our neighbors here in Montrose, also full-timers, told us about a neat road he found on his motorcycle, so we gave it  a shot.  Initially we headed east towards Gunnison and went south on a dirt road called Alpine Plateau Road.  It heads mostly south towards Lake City.  It was a very nice winding dirt road with awesome scenery, although a bit subdued with the weather all around.  We found a secluded peaceful stop for lunch.

Let's eat

For those of you who have not driven in the back country out here in the west, as you proceed along you pass from public land to private land all the time.  Most of the time you know this by crossing cattle guards.  These are slotted grates put into the roads that are attached to fences.  Most of the cattle are free grazing on public land, and some are on private land.  A cow won't cross these open slots in the guard, so it allows vehicles and people to pass on the road, but stop the cattle from using the road to bypass the fence.  There are thousands and thousands of these out here.

Cattle guard

So consequently, you see cattle everywhere and have to be careful as often times they are right on the road in the middle of nowhere.  It is amazing the ranchers can even find them, let alone gather them up and take them or drive them to where they need to go.  Here is a bunch grazing in the woods by the road, and just to put it in perspective, we are probably over 50 miles from the nearest town!

Lunch time

Even though the rain came and went, the views as we got closer to Lake City were great!

When we eventually came out on Rte 149, the road that goes through Creede and Lake City, we were about 80 miles from our campground in Montrose.  We saw a short cut that would save us several miles, and most importantly we had never driven it.  It is called the Blue Mesa Cutoff.  Rte 149 as it goes north from Lake City follows the Lake Fork of the Gunnison River.  149 veers away from the river right where we picked up our short cut road and we continued to follow the river.  We came upon a fork in the road with a sign saying straight ahead for Gate View, and watch out for landslides, and narrow road with washouts next 5 miles.  Sounds like our kind of road! Turned out this road was on the railbed of an old narrow gage railroad that runs north and now peters out into Blue Mesa Reservoir.  We saw the remains of a campsite used by some of the workers who built the railroad along the way.  It is a narrow canyon that follows the river and in many places solid rock had to be blasted out to make room for the tracks.  It was called the Lake Fork Spur of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad.  It was constructed in winter (?) by men earning $1.75 a day for 6-10 hour days a week.  Let the good times roll, huh?  Only hand tools were available so it was slow back breaking work.  But now it makes for a very picturesque drive along the river.

We drove to the end of the road where they now have a small campground in the same place as one of the workers' camps along the river.  We then backtracked to the start of the spur and went up over Blue Mesa to work our way back to Montrose.