Last week was mine and the wife's annual Ouray, CO trip. This year we would have a couple of RV'ing friends joining us a day or so after we arrived.
We were to leave on Friday morning and with the new Starlink setup on the coach, the wife can easily work from the road so I was just going to get the lawns mowed and then hit the road with the first stop for the evening in Green River, UT so we could have dinner at our favorite tavern as it has been six months since we had been there. It was also supposed to be 108 degrees in Green River that afternoon so I wanted to get through Spanish Fork Canyon and up and over Soldier's Summit before the triple digit heat fell upon us as that is a long and steep pull.
I had a few cups of coffee and enjoyed the back yard on the deck before commencing the trimming, edging and mowing of our lawns and my son was gracious enough to be willing to come over mid-week to run around them after he got off work and I didn't want him to worry about trimming and edging. I was partway through the mow when the wife can out of the house to show me all of these pictures of fire, flood and famine on freakin' social media. I knew there was a fire that started two weeks earlier on the northeast side of Highway 550 about 4-miles north of the town of Ouray, just across the street from the KOA entrance actually, where we used to stay. I had called the RV park that we now stay in and inquired and they informed me that the fire was in fact rather large, but was moving northeast, the opposite direction of the town of Ouray and at that time no evacuation was needed and as the fire crews mobilized and attacked the fire, the chance of evacuation was dropping daily and there was no worry about coming to the area.
I then heard of several days of heavy rain just several days before we were going to be there had created a mudslide at the burn scar which had the highway blocked for several hours during cleanup. I had again called the RV park to get an accurate update and they confirmed that the highway was cleared, the skies were blue and the fire was diminishing due to the several days of heavy rain. The nice woman at the RV park had also informed me that they also had a mudslide up on Red Mountain just at the switchbacks, but it too had also been cleared rather quickly. I knew exactly where she was talking about as we have been there during a "normal" year and after a long day of rain, I knew the area where silt and water would run across the road at the switchbacks as we would be driving back from Silverton to Ouray. Evidently several days of heavy rain was just a bit much for the ground to hold before letting go and this time it was more than silt and water, but again, the road crews had the area cleaned up in short order. My hat is off to those workers who maintain Highway 550 between Ouray and Silverton as that is always a lot of work. They don't call it the Million Dollar Highway for nothing.
Anyway, as I was about halfway done with my yardwork the wife came out to show me pictures from FB and she was freaking out. I have stopped participating in social media for over a year now and unfortunately, she still is on it quite a bit so naturally she was anxious to say the least. We had to pay in full for our week's stay at the RV park and I knew the chances of getting a refund were slim to none if the road was open. I had called another location that we talked about going if it would make the wife less anxious and they had one site that had just become available, so I called the RV park in Ouray to discuss a refund and was told the weather was beautiful there, no issues with roads nor fire and they would stick to their "normal" cancellation policy, which meant no refund. Now I don't want to beat up on the campground because I know they have a very narrow window for their tourism revenue to be made, but on the flip side, I wasn't prepared to lose $1k dollars either, so I told the wife we were going and we would just be cognitive of the trails we ran while in the area and not put ourselves in harm's way. This did little to calm her, but she agreed. The trip was awesome with beautiful weather and scenery.
Upon arriving at the RV park in Ouray and talking with the owner who recognized us from previous years I had inquired about the social media aspect. I told her that I was reading the comments and when people were asking about their plans to visit the area that there were a lot of comments from people who seemed to be residents were telling people to stay away due to the fire and flooding and NOT to visit, yet we were standing there on Saturday afternoon in that beautiful canyon with fantastic weather. Yes, the area that flooded across Highway 550 just a few miles north of town was evident, but it was cleared away and the road was back to normal.
The wife and I were told that over the past several years there have been a lot of transplants moving into the area as people were retiring and buying retirement homes in the area to live in during the summer months and THOSE people were trying to deter the tourists from coming into "their" community. It sounds like there is some contention between long time residents who make their living on tourism and the new transplants coming into the area from other more affluent areas who are trying to dictate. Sound familiar???? Sounds like this is happening to a lot of areas.
Anyway, now to my pictures before I say something that gets me banned.
By the time I finally convinced the wife we were still going to Ouray and I finished the lawn it was almost noon. The Jeep hooked up to the coach while I showered and fixed me a cold drink for the road it was nearly 1pm before we pulled out of the driveway and already over 100-degrees at home. This was not going to be a fun drive, but I figured it would test out the coach's cooling system that I rebuild last year as well as the generator that I had worked on last year and haven't ran it for more than an hour or so at a time. I hooked up the Jeep, started the generator and kicked on 2 of the 3 roof airs before leaving the driveway so we would be comfortable for the 4-4.5 hour drive to Green River, UT.
As we exited I-15 at Spanish Fork the outside temperature was 103-degrees and we headed east up Spanish Fork Canyon. The traffic was not terrible at all and speeds were at posted limits just meandering through the canyon. As we approached Soldier's Summit I began to get a bit nervous about coolant temps, they had been fine all day in the 180-195 range with only hitting 200-degrees on the gauge going over point of the mountain near Lehi, UT, but Soldier's Summit is a long grade climbing to 7500' before reaching the summit. The coach was running great and I was able to keep the coolant in check and went over the summit at 206-degrees. The generator had also been running perfectly for a couple of hours now providing nice cool A/C inside the coach. I had issues with the Onan 10kw generator for a few years where it didn't like to run for more than about 2-hours before shutting down on an overtemp condition. I had cleaned the radiator, flushed the coolant and gone over it a couple of times but still fought this condition. Last year when I tore the entire cabinet apart to perform the valve adjustment, I noted that some of the gasket/weatherstrip material inside the cabinet had deteriorated to the point of falling apart and much of it was missing. This gasket material is crucial to keep the airflow through the generator cabinet as designed by pulling the air across the radiator first, then across the engine and expelling it out the back and lower section of the cabinet. Any air leaks to the exterior will not pull the proper amount of air across the radiator and with missing or damaged weatherstripping inside the cabinet it will cause air to circulate inside the cabinet rather than pull in and push out as designed. I had replaced all of the deteriorated foam with a more durable Trim Lok EPDM/rubber style of weather-stripping last year and it seems to have worked well as the generator ran perfectly the entire trip. In fact on the drive home I kicked on all 3 rooftop A/C units and it never missed a beat.
As we pulled into Green River around 5pm it was 109 on the dash indicator. Freakin' hot for us Utahns from the northern parts.....
We disconnected the Jeep, ran to the Vetere's melon stand and bought a watermelon and cantaloupe for the road and then hit Ray's Tavern for dinner. The meal and slowed pace was worth it.
Back to camp to settle in the evening as the temps were still over 100-degrees we took note that we had neighbors on the street side of the coach. If people don't want to be stereotyped, why do they make it so damn easy. As we pulled up and were hooking up the Jeep I took note of the couple sitting outside next to us and they didn't look to be the cleanest of campers nor appeared to care too much about campground etiquette, so we just said our pleasantries, hooked up the Jeep so we were ready to hit the road on Saturday morning after grabbing some breakfast.
As the wife and I were relaxing and the wife was working for a bit on the computer, she mentioned that the neighbor was dragging his sewer hose around like he wasn't sure what to do. Then his "classy" wife came out and the two of them fiddle-farted around with the hose trying to get it to connect to the camper but then just stuffed the open end into the ground connection, which there are signs all over stating it must be connected to a rigid connector and sealed before dumping. NOPE, not these people, the rules didn't apply to them.
I mentioned to the wife that she may not want to look because I highly doubted that the open ended hose would stay put in the ground opening and she may see more than she bargained for. I no sooner said the words when the guy pulled the valve and the hose popped off the camper end, which I didn't see coming, but it expelled the contents of their tank all over the ground under their camper. The wife came over and hurried and closed the valve while the guy stood there with the hose in his hand. She then lifted up the stairs slightly while he backed the camper up over the mess and they resumed their evening. Shortly afterwards they hooked back up to their boat and moved to a different site. While the wife and I were walking to the diner next door the next morning we ran into a camp-worker and mentioned that they may want to perform a cleanup in the site next to us and explained the situation. I hated to have to do that, but I would also hate to have been the next person to pull into that campsite not knowing the mess I was pulling into. They were the definition of pigs and were quite literally a "**** show".
We couldn't check in until noon at the RV park in Ouray, so we decided to walk next door for a nice breakfast before departing Green River and hitting the road. The drive was uneventful, stopping in Grand Junction to take on fuel in the coach and stretching our legs.
We arrived in Ouray just before 1 pm and after getting setup went for a nice walk around the campground, running into some fellow RV'ers that we met a couple of years ago who were back. We had a nice relaxing dinner and then opted to sit around the rather large gas fire ring that the campground has as a communal area. We sat around it almost every night last year and met some great people from all over the U.S.
As the wife and I were sitting there enjoying the fire, someone shouted out there was a bear near the back row of RV's. Several people jumped up and ran into their RV's whereas the wife and I went to investigate. There was in fact, a good sized black bear sniffing around the RV a couple down from us but he got spooked and ran off towards the river, but not before I was able to get a quick picture.
The next morning the wife and I headed up towards Mineral Creek to check out one of my favorite trails. Airing down for the first day of the week. This is always a mixed bag. Exciting because I love this area so much, but anxious because it tests every system of the vehicle. I've said it multiple times that SW Colorado wheeling is our proving grounds as it will not just test the whole package but each and every sub-system on your rig. And that it did to mine, more on that later.
As we were nearing the turnoff to Phoukeepsie Gulch, the wife exclaimed that there was a vehicle rolled off the side of the road. I stopped as we were the only vehicle at that time and I wasn't sure if it just happened or was a previous incident, but it looked rather recent. I climbed down and saw no one inside or around, but what a mess. I still cannot determine how this happened as it was on a straight section with no turns and the road was plenty wide, even for this full-size Dodge truck. I'm guessing someone wasn't paying attention or looking at a map or the scenery, which unfortunately does happen more than people think.
Upon sitting around the campfire that evening, our friends arrived and we were sharing what we saw and another camper mentioned that it happened a couple days prior and resulted in a dual fatality. Sad.
The waterfalls were less than spectacular this year due to the drought that is also affecting SW Colorado much like Utah. But still pretty.
We ate at another one of our favorite establishments in Ridgeway and on the way back to camp we took a bypass along a county road where we often see wildlife in the evenings. Sure enough, about six nice sized bucks all in velvet.
The next morning we headed over Corkscrew Gulch, Hurricane Pass and California Pass which is another of our favorite trails. We led our group which consisted of our two couples of RV friends who arrived the day prior. We explained what the trail consisted of and what to expect around the fire the night before and they informed my wife and I they knew what to expect and were fine with the trail we chose.
As we were dropping down from California Pass into Animas Forks the skies opened up with heavy rain and then hail.
Typical storm however, which lasted about 15-20 minutes and by the time we hit Animas Forks there was blue sky and warm, just in time to get the lawn chairs out for a lunch stop before hitting Silverton, airing up and heading back north on Highway 550 to Silverton.
That night around the campfire we were informed that our fellow RV'ers preferred trails with less rocks and steep grades.
WTF? We're in the San Juan Mountains of SW Colorado, they are rough, steep and rocky. They asked if the next day would be more of the same and I informed them not only the same, but much more if it as it is a long day. The trail over Corkscrew, Hurricane and California was a total of about 17~ish miles off-road and the drive over to Lake City by way of Mineral Creek, Engineer Pass and Hurricane Pass back to Animas Forks and then Silverton was going to be roughly 70~ish miles of off-road. They bowed out, so the wife and I took off on the Alpine Loop by ourselves with the plan of stopping in Lake City for another of our eating establishments for lunch. Shortly after airing down and climbing a couple thousand feet, I looked out my window and a doe was standing so close I could have touched her on the nose, just looking at us and not bothered one bit.
The flag at the top of Engineer Pass was something new. Very nice to see it actually.
Stay tuned for some more pictures as we conclude our annual Ouray trip.
This sign caught our attention when we were airing down. It was actually quite a ways off the trail and the brush had grown around it making it hard to see. Had we not stopped right there in the wide spot to air down, we may have completely missed it.
