danleeth – Page 21

Back home again

When we left home, we set a goal of both hiking and biking a minimum of 100 miles. We achieved both, covering 101 miles on foot (not counting walks around the campground) and 124 miles atop two wheels. In addition to the fun of pedaling and perambulating, I had work to do.

Just before leaving on our trip, I received an assignment to do a series of short features for Colorado Life magazine covering scenic, out-of-the-way campgrounds in Colorado. The rustic, no-hookup campground at Mancos State Park fit the requirements perfectly. We’re hoping the editor will run this in the May-June issue.

Another campground that fit the bill Jumbo Lake Campground on Grand Mesa where we camped last year. Although we were stuck down at Robb State Park Island Acres, we spent many days up on the mesa exploring and photographing the area for the magazine. Jumbo should be perfect for the July-August issue.

For the September-October issue, I wanted a campground surrounded by fall color, and there’s no better place to catch the green and gold of a Colorado autumn than along the San Juan Skyway. The 236-mile highway loop runs from Ridgway to Silverton and on to Durango. From there, it goes to Cortez and back to Ridgway, passing the bygone mining towns of Rico and Telluride. Instead of a single site, we plan to feature a half-dozen small campgrounds along the way where leaf-peeping campers can bunk in Midas-touched splendor.

At our campsite at Ridgway State Park, we met up with some old climbing friends and fellow authors, Charlie and Diane Winger, who live in nearby Montrose. On our last Thursday in camp, they led us on a hike out of Ouray.

On the way back, we went to see the new Ouray Via Ferrata. Here, participants clip into steel cables for safety as they traverse Ouray’s box canyon gorge using ladders and steel-rod steps anchored to the sheer rock faces.

Charlie and Diane graciously agreed to be photo models for us on Friday. We shot from the cliffs while they traversed the route below. We’ve now added the Via Ferrata to our “must do” list for next year.

Instead of going directly home from Ridgway, we made a one-night final camping stop at Cherry Creek State Park, which lies about five miles from home. It’s tough to back the trailer into the driveway during periods heavy traffic volume. It’s much easier on Sunday mornings when traffic is minimal.

An added bonus of camping at Cherry Creek was that we could get a full-hookup, pull-through site for the night. With electricity, water and sewer connections, we could enjoy all the comforts of home before we actually got home.

Our trailer came with three, thin wardrobe closets complete with hanger rods. The one in the slideout next to the dinette we use as a coat closet.

I measured the length of the longest jacket we’d have hanging in there and installed a shelf at that length. About a foot below, I installed another shelf. The cubbyhole between the two serves as a storage location for a small space heater, rechargeable hand-vac and other miscellaneous things.

At the bottom of the closet is shoe storage. Fortunately, Dianne is not a shoe fanatic. We both can go for weeks with three pair of shoes – hiking boots, camp shoes and sandals/flipflops. A wire half-shelf in that bottom compartment adds a place for slippers.

Finally, strapped to the side of the closet is a large golf umbrella, which comes in handy if we have to work outside in a downpour. The entire project took only a beer or two to complete.

The trailer also has two shorter closets on either side of the bed. With rods across the top, they came ready for hanger-hung garments, but we needed a storage place for t-shirts, shorts, sox and skivvies. We’ve seen where other Micro Lite owners have added shelves and boxes into the closet. We stumbled on a drawer arrangement that works perfectly for us.

On a reconnaissance mission to the Container Store, Dianne found some customizable mesh drawer arrangements. Made by Elfa in Sweden, the parts are sold separately allowing us to put together a nifty set of drawers to hold our foldable clothes.

First come the frames. The extra-narrow (10 inches), closet depth (21 inches), 29-5/8-inch high frames fit perfectly in our closets. To protect the bottom, we added the optional plastic feet.

We opted for three single- and two double-height drawers. The single height work well for sox and dainties. The double-high ones are good for t-shirts and shorts. Optional stops allow the drawer to fully extend without pulling totally out.

To cap it off, we installed the optional white melamine top shelves, which provide a convenient space to store an extra blanket or more.

The drawers fit in the closet with the back of the top shelf touching the curving roof of the closet. Small blocks of wood screwed to the closet floor keep the shelves from shifting forward or from side to side. Remove a screw or two and the whole stack can be removed if necessary.

With the drawers anchored close to the bed side of the closet, there’s still room to hang a shirt or two on the closet rod. We added webbing straps at the bottom to hold the rotating “end tables” in place for travel.

Removable vertical webbing straps keep the drawers from sliding forward during travel.

We’re quite happy with our closet drawers. They’re extremely light weight and they allow us to pack quite a lot clothing into a small space. With the drawers opening fully, everything is handy including those things placed in the back. Dianne earned a beer for her drawer discovery while I consumed another putting ’em in.

Unfortunately, these Elfa products are hideously expensive. The retail price for what we installed comes to around $140 or so for each side. Fortunately, Elfa products are frequently on sale at the Container Store. We got ours at 30% off, which made them only bloody expensive.

We typically spend three-four months in the trailer every year, so the cost was worth it to us.

Going Again

I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited about an upcoming Micro Lite camping trip.

After having our eagerly-anticipated April expedition to Arizona cancelled, it appears the Colorado State Park campground for which we have late-May reservations will finally be open. We booked the spot months ago with plans to attend the Junior College World Series in Grand Junction.

Because of the Covid pandemic, there won’t be any baseball to watch. We’ll just have to be content with bike rides along the 22.1-mile-long Colorado Riverfront Trail system and doing some hikes in Colorado National Monument and the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area.

We won’t be making our usual burrito stop at the nearby Dos Hombres restaurant and my wife will have to forego her toffee sundaes at Enstrom’s in downtown Grand Junction, but at least we’ll finally be out camping!

We’re finally on the road

As Willy Nelson might say, “we’re finally on the road again.” We hitched Whitey to Tighty and drove to Colorado’s Grand Valley near Grand Junction for a week of camping at Robb State Park’s Island Acres unit.

The campground sits between the Colorado River and Interstate 70. For most of our trips, I try to make reservations as far in advance as each site allows, but this trip came about long after the six-month advance window opened.

Last February, the Covidemic had not hit yet and we decided, “hey, wouldn’t it be fun to attend the Junior College World Series in Grand Junction.” Our favorite campground in the area is Robb State Park’s Fruita unit, but since this is Memorial Day week, sites there for the week were unavailable. So, we settled for our second choice, where the only full-hookup sites available were close to the freeway.

We left Denver on Saturday morning, the first day of the three-day weekend. Normally, I would expect traffic to be heavy heading out of town, but it was little more than moderate. Gas stations and rest areas were all open, so there were plenty of bathroom stops available. Some folks, including us, were wearing face masks, but most were not.

We checked in for the campground at the entry gate where the attendant did not have a mask on. He asked us what our site number was, disappeared for a minute or two and came back, this time wearing a mask, and said we were all set. We drove to our site, leveled the trailer and set up our camp for our eight-night stay.

The campground is full, largely with families with kids all ecstatic to be out. I feel their pleasure. I doubt we’re the only retired folks equally ecstatic to finally be out!

Horsing around

To celebrate our first full day in the Grand Junction area, we hiked the Main Canyon Trail in the Little Book Cliffs Wild Horse Range and Wilderness Study Area. We ended up covering six miles, three miles up the canyon and three miles back. For a canyon lover like me, it was great to be back, once again walking between the folds of the earth.

And yes, we did see some wild horses.

Covid Camping

Unlike many Americans, my wife and I are taking this pandemic seriously. We support the mandated shutdown restraints, we don mask when we go to stores and we practice social distancing. We gather with friends on Facetime and Dianne attends church services on Zoom.

We are also, finally, out camping.

We cancelled a long-anticipated trip to Arizona in March when Colorado shut down the state park campgrounds we planned to visit on the trip south. We sweated whether we would be able to make a previously reserved camping trip to a Colorado park in late May. Fortunately, the state park campgrounds reopened on May 12 and we were able to make the trip.

Like everyone, we want to return to 2019 when the threat of contracting a potentially deadly virus didn’t loom in the air. Clearly, a lot of people think those days are here now. We stopped for a bathroom break at a truck stop where folks were packed belly-to-butt in line to pay for their snack purchases.

At the campground, the young man manning the entrance station only donned a mask when he saw that we had ours on. The custodians and campground hosts have masks around their necks, but I seldom see them on. Large groups of campers seemed to intermingle freely without even attempting social distancing.

On the other hand, social distancing was practiced on the trail into a wilderness study area we hiked yesterday. We and everyone we met backed off the trail to let other hikers pass by. It was a simple and safe thing to do.

For us who stay put at our campsite, social distancing is pretty easy. We’re farther away from the nearest fellow camper than we are from our next-door neighbor at home. While I’m not ready to cram into a bar or restaurant or pack elbow-to-elbow into a ballpark yet, I feel safe camping at a state park site where my nearest neighbor is 30+ feet away.

As long as some don’t ruin it for others, we’ll continue camping.

Pedaling on

The longer I linger in Grand Junction, the more I long to live here. Within a short drive, Grand Junction residents can visit their choice of cliffs, canyons and crags. It has minor league skiing (1,600 skiable acres at Powderhorn) and minor league baseball (Grand Junction Rockies). Hiking trails begin practically right out one’s door.

Today we explored another Grand Junction treasure – its bike paths. We drove to the other Robb State Park unit that has camping, this one in the town of Fruita at Grand Junction’s western end. From there, we bicycled five miles west to the start of the Kokopelli Trail, a grueling, 142-mile mountain bike route to Moab. We started the trail but didn’t make it all the way to that famed Utah hot spot before turning around and heading back to Fruita.

From there, we bicycled the Riverfront Trail along the Colorado River to the Walter Walker Wildlife Area, a place we learned that the resting fowl are active. Like the trail to Kokopelli’s Trailhead, the bicycling surface was wide, nicely paved in concrete and dotted with benches along the way for those in need of a rest.

Skiing. Hiking. Biking. The only thing missing in Grand Junction is a Mazda dealership. For now, we’ll use that as our excuse to stay planted in our domicile on the sunrise side of Denver.

Back home

We’re just back from our first Covid camping trip to the Grand Junction area of Colorado. It proved to be something of a Jekyll and Hyde sort of trip.

On the plus side, over our seven full days in camp, we were able to get out and hike 20+ miles on trails in Colorado canyon country. When not stomping down trails, we covered over 60+ miles on bikes, pedaling through parks and wildlife refuges along the Colorado Riverfront Trail.

On the downside, our campsite left much to be desired. It sat a few dozen yards from Interstate 70, treating us to a constant din of passing truck noise. There was little shade available to shelter us from the 90+ degree sun, but at least with full hookups, we could run the vent fans and/or air conditioner when we needed to cool off. To top it off, the pesky no-see-ums were beginning to come out, which made sitting outside a skin-swatting experience.

In the pre-Covid days, I always looked forward to stopping at Dos Hombres Mexican Restaurant in nearby Clifton for their spicy, green-chile smothered burritos. Dianne, on the other hand, maintained a burning desire to go to Enstrom’s Candies for one of their toffee and fudge ice cream sundaes. Taking advantage of curbside pickup, we were able to get burrito dinners to go. With takeout service and outside tables at Enstrom’s, my lovely wife was able to satisfy her craving for ice cream. (She even got one for me.)

We’re already looking forward t the next trip in two weeks. We’ll be heading to a Colorado State Park campground tucked in the cool conifers and miles from the nearest highway.

Unfortunately, we’ll have to do without burritos and sundaes.

Sometimes it’s good to revert back to the old ways. For us, that meant going tent camping, something we hadn’t done since 2016.

We bought our first trailer, a Rockwood A-Frame in 2013. We replaced it with a real trailer, a 22-foot Flagstaff Micro Lite, in 2019. Over the last eight seasons, we’ve spent 544 nights trailer camping, ensconced every night in a fiberglass and steel enclosure complete with microwave, refrigerator, air conditioner, furnace and nice soft mattress. We may call it “camping,” it’s really mobile motel travel in a cabin on wheels.

For our return-to-the-past adventure, we left the trailer at home and did things the old-fashioned way. We car camped in a Forest Service campground at 9,800+ feet in the nearby mountains.

We pitched our tent between spruce trees and cooked our meals on a white-gas Coleman stove. We slept on the ground in sleeping bags placed atop Therm-a-Rest pads left over from our backpacking days. Our bathroom was the communal pit toilet (outhouse) a hundred yards around the loop. It was just like camping “back in the day.”

The trailer is great for long stays in a single campsite, or for traveling for longer periods over a greater distance. Over the years, we’ve pulled our trailers from Colorado to California, Texas, the Northern Rockies and the Great Lakes. In 2017, we spent 3½ months trailer camping through every province of Canada. I wouldn’t want to do any of that bunking in a tent.

But we live in Colorado for a reason. We like to lace up our hiking boots in the morning and take off down (or up) a trail. We can do that from the trailer, but there are a lot of great places to camp into which our trailer can’t fit. Plus, prepping, hitching and towing the trailer to a nearby spot and then having to flush tanks, tow it home and shoehorn it back into our driveway is a hassle. For short one- or two-night stays, tent camping is so much simpler.

While we have a trio of multi-week, trailer camping trips penciled in on the calendar, we’re also planning to be doing more tent camping trips in the Colorado mountains and Utah canyons next year. Our next Covid stimulus check may be spent on replacing the decades-old, Korean-made tent given to us by Dianne’s parents.

And if Dianne allows me to buy a larger Yeti cooler to tote more beer, I may yield her desire and invest in softer sleeping pads to cushion our AARP-aged bodies. The ground, we’ve found, is definitely getting harder as the earth ages.

Two Weeks with Nary a Hookup

Back when Corona was a beer, not a virus, we had planned to head out on a three-week camping trip in the Black Hills of South Dakota where we would hook up with some of our old A-frame trailer buddies. When that trip got Covid-cancelled, we quickly booked space in a state park in southwestern Colorado.

The park sits beside a small, wake-free reservoir surrounded by scrub oak and ponderosa pine. Pit toilets serve as restrooms. We have no electrical hookup, no sewer hookup and there are only three water spigots shared by the entire campground, none of which are accessible by car.

Most of our fellow campers are in tents or small trailers like ours with nary a big rig in sight. Quiet and rustic, it reminds me of the campgrounds I frequented back in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

We’re here for 14 nights, the maximum allowed by park rules. In seven years of trailer camping, this is only the fourth time we will be spending a full two weeks in one campground. In the previous three, we’ve had a 30-amp electrical hookup and in two we had our own private water spigot.

Here, we will be recharging our batteries with a trio of 100-watt solar panels and filling our freshwater tank with water hauled in a jerry can, five gallons at a time. Used water will be carted to the dump station in our 25-gallon Barker-brand sewer tote, which we’ve named “Bob.”

After spending eight nights camped in a full-hookup site next to Interstate 70 a few weeks back, the remote quietness of this park is a refreshing change.