Wandering the USA: Colorado- Crested Butte, Gothic, and Grand Mesa

Monday, July 15, 2013

After waiting at the hotel room in Canon City all of Monday evening and Tuesday morning I caught up on my movie intake, watching a favorite, "Barefoot in the Park". It does surprise me how much I don't miss it at all, but when it's accessible, I just seem to fall into a trance. The hotel we stayed in was one block down from one of the 14 prisons in the area- did I mention that this town also has a prison museum?

Around 1:30 the Ford dealership came and picked all four of us up. The truck was done. It needed a new transmission pump seal. After thanking the guys there, we headed west on Rt. 50. We didn't get but 4 miles out of town driving up the mountain and saw fluid gushing out. The seal had blown. We pulled over quickly and waited over an hour in 95 degree heat.

A tow truck arrived and I sat in the middle with Dewar on my lap, and Pete in the passenger seat with Mandy on his lap. I have to say, they were ready, emergency room style, when the truck made it's reappearance at their shop. We then waited the rest of the day for them to repair again. Come to find out, the seal had been the wrong size. We crossed our fingers that no damage had been done to the transmission while we sat in the service waiting room. We also met and talked with a man that was an Ohio native. The staff and technician stayed late that evening and had it finished up by 7:30. With it being so late, we didn't want to chance leaving town with the dealership closed, so we decided on a close by camp spot at Red Canyon Park that night. There was no fee and the park was desolate.

Wednesday morning, Pete's self portrait that morning, while I slept.

Pete checked the transmission fluid and discovered it was extremely low, therefore the truck made a 4th appearance at the dealership. The dogs and I waited in the waiting room while talking to yet another man who was another Ohio native. There seems to be a lot of Ohioians transplanting themselves to Colorado!

By late morning we were off and headed to Crested Butte. We've been there and Gothic before and fell in love with the valley, mountains, wild flowers, trails, and many amazing restaurants. First order of go, was stop in and have a beer at the Gunnison Brewery. We found out there was a rodeo in town and thought about staying the night there, but sushi in Crested Butte was calling our names.

Upon arriving in Crested Butte, we decided instead of going to Lobar for sushi (which is THE best!) we would try Lil's Sushi Bar. We sat outside with the dogs and enjoyed a cocktail and very good, but not THE best, sushi. After dinner, we walked the town a bit.

Two years ago when we visited, we stayed at Cement Creek Campground. We loved this campspot, it was by a nice running stream and had plenty of room in between sites...but this boondocking thing, and not having a fee was catching. Therefore we found another trail in our 4x4 book marked as easy and that had camping along it. We took Rt. 135 north out of town and turned onto Slate River Rd and went up to Oh Be Joyful campsites. They were free, and if you drive a bit further along the trail, more dispersed.

We had to cross a stream at the very beginning of the trail right through the campground area.

The road was narrow in spots, with some branches reaching out attempting to scratch Big Red. We pushed onward and upward until we came to a spot that the road was washed out. Deciding to turn around, as we were descending we learned a valuable lesson- until we rig up something to tie the cooler down on the side shelf of the camper, keep it on the floor. I don't think we've ever moved so fast when that cooler came down and cracked open just enough to spew out the melted ice onto the camper floor. About 20 minutes later, after cleaning up. We pulled into a spot and set up. It was wooded, but about 25 yards away was a stream with a great view.

I dressed up Pete's pillow while it was waiting for it's case to dry. (From the cooler debacle...)

Thursday morning we took a short hike up to some wilderness area to view the Oh Be Joyful falls. The road leading past our site was the way up, driving or hiking, so as we were eating breakfast there was much foot and some vehicle traffic, even people on horseback.

Young Aspens were all over.

We allowed the dogs to cool off in the stream and Pete had to run in (boots on!) to save Mandy from getting swept down stream in the current. He didn't let wet socks and boots spoil his hike, he was indeed a hero that morning.

We passed a group of lady hikers that told us they had gone skinny dipping in the pool above the falls. Pete questioned doing that himself, the water was pretty frigid being glacier run off, he ended up staying clothed and dry.

After hiking, we went back to camp and enjoyed cheese, crackers, and red wine while watching the stream below us. After that it was nap time. We woke up, packed up and headed into town to another good spot to eat, The Last Steep, to have some fish tacos.

The road leading out of the camp area.

While at dinner, again we got out the 4x4 book to decide on a spot for that night. Wanting to stay in the Gothic area we took Gothic Rd. up past the town to look for a dispersed site. There are two small campgrounds along this road, but we wanted a dispersed site again. We drove all the way up to Schofield Pass not having any luck. Everyone had the same idea we did and spots were all taken.

It was dusk by this time, as we were coming down the west side of the pass we found a spot right as the road washed out. Looking at the map, I determined we were probably in Paradise Basin. As Pete was backing Big Red up into a flat spot, I heard a sound I had never heard before coming from the mountain on the other side of the road. That sound was wolves howling. We looked at each other and I asked him if there were, in fact, wolves in this area. He didn't know. Well, we heard howls all night long, that were definitely not coyotes. Cool, but kind of spooky.

The mountain in which we heard howls.

We drove down the same way we had come up the night before. I got some better shots that morning.

Emerald Lake just below the pass.

Part of the road was shelf like and usually has snow all the way through June.

Gothic wild flowers galore. I don't believe they're in full bloom yet. Maybe one or two weeks out.

We sadly left Gothic and one last time drove down to Crested Butte to eat breakfast and grab a shower at the hostel in town. Had a wonderful breakfast at McGill's where we asked our waitress if she knew if wolves inhabited the area. She called her husband, who is a forest ranger and he said there had been reports from farmers that they had spotted them and they had also picked some deceased ones up off of roads. Whether they were wolves or wolf hybrids, who's to say. They don't announce this to the public in fear of worrying them. Soooo, I am pretty positive that is what we heard!

Unfortunately, the hostel was not open for showers at the time we stopped in, damn! We would have to go at least another day without one.

We took Kebler Pass through Gunnison National Forest to hook up with the routes we needed to get to Grand Mesa. This is an easy, well graded stone road that offers gorgeous views.

Onto Grand Mesa. Driving out of the mountains and into more desert like environment is a bit bewildering. Like a cliche, we were following an old tan Buick Cutlas, the driver had a bowl cut and passenger wore a cowboy hat. I felt all we needed was a cattle gun and we would have a scene from "No Country for Old Men".

We ascended into more mountains and found ourselves on the largest flattop mountain in the world. It also holds over 300 lakes. All of the mountain flat summits at about 10,000-10,500 ft. with the exception of Mt. which is 11,330 ft. After stopping at the visitors center we got directions to a few different roads that led to disperse sites and also learned that they had reintroduced moose into the forest in 2007. Leaving there, we drove and found a nice open spot with a short walk down to a small stream.

Having our FIRST fire in Colorado, was exciting! The fire ban had been lifted in this forest. We enjoyed a good meal around it.

After dinner, Pete was cleaning up the pots in the stream when a huge 12 point buck approached him. He was frozen with awe. After Mandy was meandering her way down there, the buck spooked and ran off. Shortly after that I was in the camper getting ready to bed down for the night while Pete was putting the fire out, a beautiful big doe quietly walked up to our spot. She looked right at me through the camper window, only 12 feet away. It was a majestic moment. She hung around for the next hour picking around at shrubs, then walked quietly off again.

We had our breakfast then left fairly early Saturday morning. On our drive out, we got a few shots of some of the many many lakes.