My morning hike

We've been here at the Highlander in Lake City for a little over a week now - and I've either sat around watching TV, working on the computer, reading, or sewing.  It was time to get off my butt and start walking.

Up behind the campground is a mountain, and there is a "road" that switchbacks up the mountain from the campsite.  There are 17 switchbacks. The first 3 are pretty long, and end up at a bench that was put there by Don and Dianne.  I decided I will go up to that bench every day for a couple of days, and then go further up. I've been up 12 switchbacks - to where Don has a little water treatment facility for the campground. I'll make it up there by the end of the week.

 Right behind the campground, at the base of the road up the mountain, is Don's waterfall. It's water from a spring high up on the mountain. He diverts some of it for the campground.

 Right next to the waterfall is a sign that notes that this was the site of an old mine.

 A little further up the trail/road is another old mine, the Argus.

 This is the view of the campground from the end of the first switchback. Our trailer is in the center of the photo.

 Diane has placed a dozen or so of these gnomes at various places along the trail/road.

 I've made it to the Highlander bench!

Looking eastward - the Lake Fork of the Gunnison is in the lower part of the photo, and then above it is the Slumgullion Earthflow and Slumgullion Pass.

Looking southeast over the campground towards Lake San Cristobal. We're only about 300 yards from the lake. Don used to walk up there to fish before he started flyfishing rivers.

As I go higher and higher, I'll take more pics.

Fishing the Rio Grande Headwaters

On Wednesday we loaded up a lunch, my chair, and some fishing gear and went over to the upper Rio Grande Valley. We went over Slumgullion and Spring Creek Passes, and stopped for a bit at North Clear Creek Falls. 

Here you can see the volcanic history of the area; the creek flows across a flat high valley for several miles before dropping over the lip of the La Garita Caldera - a huge volcanic caldera formed during the largest volcanic eruption in Earth history.

A short trail took us to a different overlook and views downstream:

 

You can see that the aspen are already beginning to turn yellow here.

Next, we drove down to the Rio Grande, and went upstream about 30 miles to the river's headwaters above the Rio Grande Reservoir.  Here you're surrounded by the ridges of the Weminuche Wilderness and the proposed Handies Peak Wilderness.  I loved this mountain just north of where we parked:

 

The rocks at the base of this outcropping looked so blue in real life - I wish they'd showed up better in the photograph. 

Don fished for about an hour - and then the clouds built up quickly and it began raining. Since we were at the upper end of a long, rough, dirt/gravel road, we decided to head back downriver. We stopped for a while at River Hill Campground, where he was able to fish the river again. 

Devastation

We took notice of the complete devastation of the Englemann Spruce forests in the upper Rio Grande Valley and Spring Creek Valley - hundreds and hundreds of square miles of TOTAL destruction of the spruces by the spruce bark beetle. They're moving westward towards the Lake Fork Valley (where Lake City is) and have made it over Spring Creek Pass into the Cebolla Creek Valley. I'm not talking about the here-and-there destruction like we have in the San Bernardino Mountains - I'm talking about 100% of the trees for miles and miles and miles.  The aspen are the only ones left alive. It's so sad - worse than that, even. The area is now prime for forest fires, and it'll be hundreds of years before it recovers. So sad. 

"Home" in Lake City

This is our site, number 17, at the Highlander RV Campground in Lake City, Colorado. We're about a half mile from Lake San Cristobal, and about 50 yards from the Lake Fork of the Gunnison. We've been here about a week now - got here last Friday. We've been coming to Lake City every other summer since 1990 - and have been in this campground since 1997.  It's run by Don and Dianne Campbell; Don is a retired USAF fighter pilot.  They're wonderful people who welcome us back with open arms every time we come.

The days have been fabulous. Each morning it's clear and sunny - and a bit chilly. Don and I get up around 6:45 or so, and dress in sweats and boots while we drink our coffee outside. Then the sun comes up over the mountains in front of us, and by 9:00 we're in our shorts and sandals. By noon the clouds have built up, and most afternoons have some thundershowers or light rain. By night time it's clear again. Last night was lovely with the full moon.

As I have said many times, it's all about the view. This is the view from our "front porch."

When we finished setting up last Friday we took a short drive around the lake. In the upper section, where the river flows into a marshy area, we saw this gal.

She was calmly munching away, and didn't run at all when we got about 50 yards away to take the picture. We've been told that there are more moose around here than ever before; there's a trio of bulls hanging around the Deer Lakes. We'll go up there next week and fish a bit and see if we can find them.

We enjoy a cookout and potluck every Monday night in the pavilion - you bring your meat to grill and a dish to share and get to know the other folks in the campground. Since there are only 26 sites, and some of them are now empty as it's late in the season, there are about 20 people at the potlucks. I made some scalloped potatoes last time; we enjoyed other side dishes such as corn and black bean salad, 15-bean soup, potato chowder, brownies, snickerdoodles, and a cherry cobbler made in a Lodge Dutch Oven by Don and Dianne's son Scott.

Every Friday morning we enjoy donuts and coffee in the pavilion, courtesy of Don and Dianne - yet another opportunity to socialize with fellow campers.

Don has been having a blast fishing - he goes in the morning right after breakfast, and comes back mid-afternoon, or when it starts to rain. He's been successful, too, especially in the fly-fishing only section above the lake. There are so many places to fish; we'll be hitting as many as we can while we're here. There's also a massive network of ATV/Jeep roads in the mountains - the famous Alpine Loop is here that goes up and over Cinnamon Pass and Engineer Pass, connecting to Silverton and Ouray. We rented one of Don's Jeeps a few years back to drive the loop; we haven't decided if we're going to do it again.

Today I'm lazy - it's the first day of COLLEGE FOOTBALL!  and I'm going to enjoy several games, including Texas Tech (my alma mater) - Northwestern State and USC - Hawaii.

That's all for now - and in honor of Judy and Emma,

The End!

Last Days in Taylor Park

Like I've always said - it's all about the view.

After we left Dinner Station Campground, we went to Lakeview Campground for 9 days.  Lakeview is on the south side of the lake, with a loop of sites that have electricity and million-dollar views. We were in site 52 for 4 days, then moved to site 66.  Both have fabulous views, and we spent many hours just relaxing in our chairs looking at the scenery.

Taylor Park is surrounded on the north and east by the Collegiate Peaks of the Sawatch Range, and about a dozen of them are over 14,000'. 

We really didn't do a lot worth writing about other than Don fishing and me sewing. We did go to Crested Butte again - for dinner at Slogar.  Slogar is a pretty popular restaurant with a unique menu - you get chicken or steak, and most customers get the chicken. It's fried, and tastes a whole lot better than KFC.

 Here's how your meal goes:
First, the waitstaff brings out the "appetizers."  There's a relish tray - carrots, pickles, celery, and cinnamon-poached pears.  There's a bowl of creamy cottage cheese, a bowl of cole slaw, and a bowl of tomato chutney.  Our waitress explained that many people just mix it all together (we didn't).  The pears were pretty good, but were slightly flavored by the pickle juice.  The cottage cheese and cole slaw were really tasty, but Don and I were divided on the tomato chutney (he liked it; I didn't). 

Next is the main meal.  Each diner is allotted half of a chicken - so we got 2 huge breasts, 2 legs, 2 thighs, and 2 wings. It's all on one plate, as this meal is served "family style."  We also get a bowl of mashed potatoes, a bowl of cream gravy, a bowl of creamed corn (not like the canned stuff - this is whole kernels in cream), and a basket of the lightest biscuits I've ever had.  For the biscuits there's honey butter and homemade strawberry jam.  You can get seconds on all the sides, as they're "all-you-can'eat."  They let you take any leftover chicken with you, but not the sides.  We had seconds on the corn, but otherwise, were unable to eat everything and took chicken home with us.  We were both stuffed.

Most days at Taylor Park were spent doing our favorite activities - Don went fishing, and I sewed.  Since we had electricity, I had TV to watch as well, and kept up with the two big trials on TruTV. Our weather was wonderful - mostly sunny days with occasional thundershowers, but never anything extreme.

Pro Cycling Race - US Pro Challenge

The Gunnison-to-Aspen leg of the US Pro Cycling Challenge came through Taylor Park on Wednesday - this is a race that starts in Durango and ends a week later in Denver.  The route on Wednesday was considered the Queen Stage - meaning it was the most grueling.  They went from Gunnison up the Taylor River to Taylor Park, around a part of the lake, then up and over 12,126' Cottonwood Pass.  Then from there they went down to Buena Vista, up the highway a bit, then up and over 12,095' Independence Pass and down to Aspen. 

Don went fishing, so I walked down to the road at the base of the campground to join about 20 others to watch the race.  The camp hosts were there, and learned via radio from the camp hosts down at Lottis Creek (in Taylor River Canyon) that the race had just passed by.  That let us know that it would be about 10 minutes before they got to where we were.

We saw the helicopter first - the one from NBC Sports that was filming the race.  Next came the Colorado State Patrol escorts.  They had sedans, motorcycles, and SUVs.

Here comes the leader, followed by a pair, and then the lead pack of 15 more.  A race official had driven by moments earlier, letting us know that the lead pack had a 4 1/2 minute lead on the peleton.

Here the leader grabs a snack since he's going downhill.

This is still the lead pack.





The lead pack was followed by a great number of support vehicles (with extra bikes, wheels, mechanics, etc.).

 

About 5 minutes back was the peleton, escorted by more police and race officials, and followed by more support vehicles.  Bringing up the rear were 4 medical vehicles, in case they were needed.

 

This is looking across the lake towards the peleton and support vehicles as they were approaching the turnoff to Cottonwood Pass.  Here they hit a gravel/dirt road, which they took for 14 miles to the top of the pass.  From there it was pavement the rest of the way to Aspen.

Tom Danielson won this stage, but he didn't win it by enough time to take the yellow jersey away from Christian Vande Velde.  As I'm typing this on Sunday, Levi Leipheimer, the defending champion, is now wearing the yellow jersey, signifying the overall leader.  All he has to do today is hold off Vande Velde in Stage 7 - but it's a toss-up.

 

I'm typng

 

Dinner Station Campground

Tuesday, August 14

On Sunday we left the full-service Colorado Dream Ranch campground and headed up the Taylor River about 12 miles to Dinner Station Campground. It's a small but nice Forest Service campground on the river in the northern portion of Taylor Park. The location used to be a stagecoach stop back in the late 1800s.

Our site, #19, is on a loop that's out in the open and has a fabulous view of the Collegiate Peaks that ring Taylor Park.




We had this site for 3 days.





On Monday we drove up to Spring Creek Reservoir, about 12 miles, where Don fished all day and I read. I was able to sit outside for a while, but then the clouds moved in and I moved to the truck when it started to rain.











The mountain in the background that's making its own clouds is American Flag Peak.








Don was wearing waders and rain gear, so the rain didn't bother him at all.




When we got back to camp, the rain was clearing and we had a huge rainbow.

This morning we awoke to very low clouds--no more view.




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Cottonwood Pass

Saturday, August 11

Way back in 1976, my dad and I came to Colorado to do some camping and hiking. We visited Taylor Park and then drove over Cottonwood Pass to Buena Vista. At the top of Cottonwood Pass Dad took a photo of me next to the sign-- a photo that I wanted to reproduce 36 years later. I don't have that photo on my computer--it's back at home in a scrapbook somewhere.

Today Don and I drove up to Cottonwood Pass--here's the reproduction of the photo from 1976:




It was a gorgeous day for photos--here are some photos from the top of the pass.




A small lake near the summit of the pass.




Looking east.




That's Taylor Park Reservoir off in the distance to the west.




Don coming down from a trail at the summit.




About 1/2 mile from the pass is a lookout point with some picnic tables. Don climbed up to one, and had to rest since it's at 12,000+ feet.




I think the mountain on the right is Huron Peak, 14,003 feet.




This is looking back up at Cottonwood Pass, in the center of the photo.

On the way back down we stopped at a meadow with these two signs:







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