Farewell Pagosa Springs

We made good use of our few remaining days in Pagosa Springs.  Jan and I took several walks along the San Juan riverwalk.  The whole thing is a nice just over 2 mile walk.  All paved and really pretty.

The view from our walk

We also, amidst the socializing, took a fantastic almost 5 mile hike along the Piedra River.  It was a wonderful mix of rushing water, cliff faces, narrow paths, huge meadows, few climbs and descents, and killer views.

The beautiful Piedra River

Looking back towards Pagosa Peak

Interesting terrain

Across a bridge

Through a meadow

Back along the river

Pagosa Springs grows on us more and more each visit, and Harvey has an incredible collection of wonderful people at his little slice of heaven campground, Cool Pines.  It is so nice to be welcomed and to enjoy everyone's company for the time we are there.  We had a delicious community breakfast Saturday morning, sausage and gravy and biscuits prepared with Buzz's expert hands, we enjoyed visiting later with Buzz and Gay and hearing about their harrowing experience slipping off a "road" high, high up in the mountains near Engineer Pass, thank goodness they are all right!  We had many evening gatherings to solve all the problems in the world and to hear Ron and Jo's excellent stories.

Ron holding court

We enjoyed several meals together with Harvey, Jan, Ron and Jo, and Jan and I.  We met some wonderful new folks, Lynn and Diane and Linda and hope to see them back there next year.  It was nice to see Jack and Barb, Vince and Susie, and Bob and Georgia again.

Jo explaining the facts to (R-L), Harvey, Jan, and Ron

Having one more big laugh with Harvey, Jan, Ron, and Jo

It is very hard to leave Cool Pines.  Thanks again so much Harvey, for your hospitality and welcome!!

Now we are in Durango for perhaps the longest time we have ever spent while traveling in the summer, 5 weeks.  We love Durango and thought it would be interesting to spend enough time here that we could really experience what it might be like to live in this area.  We'll see.

Our view in Durango

Pagosa Springs now, after Blue Mesa Reservoir

We left you sitting at a campground, Elk Creek, along the Blue Mesa Reservoir.  We had stayed there once before, and really enjoyed it.  Sites are huge with concrete pads, killer views, and 50 amp power only, no sewer or water.  The reservoir is full, this has been one of the wettest summers on record in Colorado, and it is really nice to see it full, in fact, the last time we were here it was so low we drove our Jeep out where the lake was supposed to be!

A view of the lake from our campground

We are running out of passes that we haven't done, but Jan git looking and we didn't think we had ever done the Cumberland Pass, 12,015', which goes from Ohio and Pitkin to Tincup.  I should probably say we are running out of passes that we haven't done THAT I WILL DO.  Scaredy pants Bill won't do ones that are terrifying:-)  Off we went, it turned out to be a great drive, Pitkin is a cute little town that was friendly and inviting, then up the mountain we go.

Start of the climb

Getting higher

It turned out to be a good road for me, tremendous views, but a few trees here and there to give me confidence.  The higher we went the more ATV's and dirt bikes we saw.

The view at the top, a little hazy due to smoke from many fires

The official top

We decided to have a picnic at the top, so we took the truck up to a little knoll above the pass, turned it around to block most of the wind, put on sweatshirts as it was only about 50 degrees, and had a great lunch with awesome views.

Lunch

Good times!

Of course then you had to come down, a little more challenging for me, but turned out okay.

Nothing off that left side.

It got better and better as we made our way down to Tincup, we passed an scenic little falls.

Just gorgeous

And to prove Jan is here!

We did a couple other back country drives and then off to Pagosa Springs to the BEST campground of all, Cool Pines, to see our good friend's Harvey and Jan(Yaan), and the rest of our "western family", Ron and Jo, Buzz and Gay, Jack and Barb, Vince and Susie, Lynn and Diane,....
We arrived to a big welcome and lots of hugs!

Our drive down from Blue Mesa was on one of the most scenic roads, yes big enough for a motorhome, in Colorado in our estimation, Rte 149.  It cuts down through Lake City and Creede, Southfork, and over the Wolf Creek Pass, 10,856', into Pagosa Springs.  It also goes over Slumgullion Pass, 11,361', and Spring Creek Pass, 10,901', so it is not for the faint of heart.

Our lunch stop above Lake City

  
It was sad though, over and around Slumgullion Pass, the beetle infestation has absolutely destroyed square miles of pines, and they are clear cutting some of the dead trees in perhaps 200-400 yard swaths along the highway, just a shame.

So now we are in Pagosa having great time.

Downtown looking at the hot springs

And not just visiting, Jan and I went for a nice hike to Piedra Falls, one of our favorite short hikes in the area.

Off she goes

Piedra Falls

We have a couple more hikes to do, a few back country drives, several walks along the river walk path, lots of socializing, and a breakfast get-together before we head out to Durango.

Denver Stopover

We weren't necessarily planning on going to Denver this trip as we wanted to get to southern Colorado as soon as we could, but a broken windshield changed our plans.  Our coach has a huge one piece windshield that is really nice to look out but it is expensive, and if broken obviously the whole thing, all 150# of it needs to be replaced.  And just any old auto glass shop can't handle it.  About 5 years ago, we had a company in Denver replace the windshield, yeah on the same coach, RV Glass Specialties, that did a great job.  Since our break wasn't causing us to not be able to drive, we had it taped up with gorilla tape, and luckily it wasn't growing, we altered our plans a bit so they could do this replacement as well.

Getting ready to remove

Out it comes

The new one

Here it comes, with a little "help" from me

Getting all wiggled in

Finishing touches

Somebody's pissed being locked in the bedroom

While in the big city, we managed to get a few other things done, a run to Costco, some super Vietnamese food, a big grocery store, some real Jewish deli sandwiches, some fresh veg, and to top it off, I was able to see a friend of mine who moved to Denver recently, Brian, and to catch up on some of the goings on in the airline business.

How's that for a sandwich??
Pastrami, tongue, and swiss cheese!

Now we are down near Gunnison, CO, at a National Recreation Area on Blue Mesa Reservoir.  We will make a couple forays onto some nearby jeep trails, and check out a couple ghost towns, then off to Pagosa Springs tomorrow.

The Bighorns, kind of a long post

What a fantastic time we had exploring the Bighorn Mountains out of Buffalo, WY!  As I said we just wanted to poke around the setting of CJ Box's books about Joe Pickett, and explore we did, 2- 250 mile days almost entirely on dirt and gravel, and it was worth it.

On our first day we wanted to just make a big loop, and what was made apparent to us after 50 miles or so, Wyoming is big.  We realized that our planned loop was going to be way too big, so we shortened it a little bit.  We went from Buffalo over to Ten Sleep, a spot much mentioned in the books, then took mostly dirt roads back up north and around to Sheridan and down to Buffalo.

The terrain is constantly changing, from rolling grasslands to rocky mountains to pine covered hills and valleys.  It was terrific.

The Bighorns in the distance

At the top of Powder River Pass 9666'

Rocky relief

We cut around and enjoyed lunch in a little spot in Ten Sleep.  Lots of farming and ranching.  Cattle and sheep were abundant, and isn't it amazing what irrigation can do?

Beautiful valley

Our thoroughfare

Just add water!

We saw a sign for Medicine Lodge Archeological Site, and decided to make a little detour. It was a picturesque spot that has been inhabited for 12,000 years.  Many pictographs and petroglyphs dot the sandstone walls.

They had a very interesting display depicting time in the form of distance.  The far end represents 12,000 years ago when humans lived here all the way up to present with signs showing significant events along the way.  It shows modern man is just a speck in the continuum.  This is also why I'm skeptical of man caused climate change.  In fact if there hadn't been almost continuous climate change over the years a lot of America would still be either under water or covered with ice!  I digress.

The far end is 12,000 years, I'm standing at the birth of Jesus Christ

And of course for humans to have lived here there had to be a water supply and it's a crystal clear babbling stream.

Clear as a bell

Beautiful spot, yeah I think that picnic table was used by the ancients

So off we went after walking a short nature hike.  The road wound around up and over the hills.

Nice ride

Our road in the distance

We eventually joined paved roads again and all of a sudden we both yelled at the same time.....STOP!  Now we have seen many, many animals in our traveling time, but there are two we haven't seen much of or at all.  The one we have never seen in the wild is the mountain lion, and the other with very few sightings is bull moose.  Well here are 3 huge bull moose all together!

3 baby, count em

Big guys

Lunch time

After that very cool sighting we are almost back to Sheridan when we catch sight of a helicopter with a water bucket going down towards a lake to fill up.  Pretty neat.  We watched him fill up a couple times and fly up on the mountainside to what looked like a very recent fire.

Almost there

Full!

There's the fire

So that finished our day.  Fabulous.

The next day we chilled out and saved the Hole in the Wall for the last day.  What a deal getting there, all in all 90 miles from the campground and half of it on dirt, sort of.

Our route

This makes the interstate portion a little better:-)

The beginning of our off pavement

Hills along the way

Road deteriorating

Now we had read that the Hole in the Wall is on private property and you had to hike the last 2.5 miles into it.  We left at 8 am hoping to beat the daytime heat, but it kept getting warmer.  The last 10 miles had 7 gates we had to open and close along the way, and by then the road was more a path.

The road??

We have company

Lots of company 

Someone's dream home in the middle of nowhere?

In fact, as we head west on our trips Jan and I compete to see who will see the first antelope, and we were well into North Dakota before we saw even one, since then we have seen hundreds and hundreds, with all the farming around, good food is plentiful!

So finally we make it to the Hole in the Wall, by now it is 95 degrees and not a cloud in the sky.  We've got a really good view from the parking area, so should we do the hike?  It starts straight down, through a small stream, and right back up the other side all in the first half mile or so? 

The Hole in the Wall

Parked thinking about the hike, or a Dodge Ram commercial?

So we learned our lesson as we went against common sense, when we decided we would at least hike part of the way to get a closer view of the Hole in the Wall.  They used to drive cattle right down the crease in the wall.  So down we went, straight down, through thistles and raspberry bushes, through the stream, and right back up the other side, and up and up until we got a view, knowing very well that we had made a mistake, AND realizing we had to go back the same way.  Too frigging hot!

As close as we got, picture cattle and horses going down the crease in the wall

A beautiful spot

We managed to get back, but Jan was really in distress, overheated and red as a beet.  We cooled off in the AC of the truck, yes we were drinking tons of water.  Realized it was a stupid thing to do in the absolute middle of nowhere, no one around, and of course no cell phone coverage.  Won't do that again!

So we worked our way back, still had 80-100 miles of dirt to go.  Found a spot for our picnic lunch that wasn't too shabby.

Picnic time

Nice

And then after many more miles, time for coffee.

Another nice spot, heck they were all nice

What a view

We had company

Thought it was some kind of hawk, but after studying the photo
with the bird book, it is a juvenile Golden Eagle

So we worked our way back with the beautiful sights, cut down through Crazy Women canyon, and back to the campground.  Another terrific day!

Along the way

Not a bad campsite, huh?
Swing, table and chairs, fire pit,  even a grill!