17th – 24th June 2019
We left Ouray after a hearty brunch at the on-site cafe, headed north to the town of Montrose to restock the fridge and then on to our next stop, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. All in all this was a very achievable day’s journey of 50 miles. The park is one of the lesser known National Parks and off the usual beaten track, a fact made obvious by the distinct paucity of rental RVs. It is however a little gem. Known as Colorado’s own mini version of the Grand Canyon, it is a deep, steep and narrow canyon carved through solid bedrock by the Gunnison River, exposing 2 billion year old Precambrian rock. ‘Black’ describes the colour of the walls which, due to its shape, are in shadow for all but the middle of the day. Big Dave hauled us up the hill to the plateau-top of the canyon, guzzling through the small amount of fuel we had left. We had forgotten to fill up in Montrose, but were quietly confident (in a ‘fingers crossed’ sort of way) that we would have enough to get us to the next petrol station on our way out in the morning…surely?
We just had one night planned here, a basic National Park campsite with the sites hidden in amongst the low level trees and shrubs. The deer seemed completely unfazed by the presence of campers and we saw several wandering freely through the area. There were warnings about black bears, but at this time of the year it is the Musk deer that are to be feared, with reports of does attacking people to protect their fawns. Ok.
We filled our afternoon with a hike from camp, along the rim of the canyon to the park visitors centre, then along another trail that headed a short way down into the canyon, then back up again, then hit a linking trail that took us back to camp. This was a very pleasant five miles, very devoid of fellow hikers and gave us some great views of the canyon and river. We arrived home having avoided being savaged by any angry deer with a good few calorie credits under our belt. The evening unfortunately brought with it a cold breeze which cut short the open air portion of our evening and after our BBQ dinner was cooked, we headed in to eat and watch a DVD.
In the morning we headed back down the hill and nervously drove in a fuel efficient way to the next town, and the nearest petrol station. (Of course we got there without drama, but he is such a thirsty beast.) This was the start of our trip along a portion of US 50, a 3000 mile road across the middle of the country from Ocean City, Maryland to West Sacramento, California. Along its way it is mostly single carriageway and passes through hundreds of small old towns, revealing a real cross-section of rural life in USA. Time magazine devoted nearly an entire issue to it in July 1993. There is a portion through Nevada that is called ‘America’s loneliest road’ as it offers up miles and miles and miles of nothing but open road and views. It, and we, were headed in the same direction, so we decided to use it as our trail to follow for a while and see a bit more of the nitty gritty of the world as we rolled on. It did not disappoint.
We found our petrol station in a tiny settlement called Cimarron attached to ‘Jim Newberry’s Store’. It had one old fashioned analogue fuel pump and the shop sold a variety of things from rocks to cigarettes, and many dusty items in between. I had to step over an aged, portly dog who was lying on the welcome mat to get into the shop. He ignored me. Jim was in residence and holding the fort. He could have been anything from 55 to 75, although I suspect younger than he looked. I imagine life is fairly hard in Cimarron, Colorado. He was the third generation of his family to own the store, his grandmother having opened it 79 years ago. She must have been a hardy soul. Full of fuel, we continued east.
Our next stop was only another one hour’s drive from here, a camp on the shores of Blue Mesa Lake in a National Recreation Area. The lake is a reservoir created by a dam in the Gunnison River downstream from the Black Canyon and is a mecca for fisherfolk and other boaties. It was another basic campsite with no trees and a brisk warm wind blowing across the lake. Connectivity was also zilch. No TV, no cell reception and no internet. Being completely off line in a modern world is a bit disconcerting, but good for the soul. I don’t really need to know what’s happening with the UK conservative party leadership battle and the ongoing machinations of Brexit. Or what Donald tweeted today. Total US-Iranian diplomatic meltdown and the threat of nuclear conflict? Not important when you have a pleasant vista across a lovely lake to gaze at. And I definitely didn’t need to know anything that the Facebook algorithms might think that I needed to know. The only pertinent fact that would directly affect us was knowing the weather forecast. In our 48 hours here we, in no particular order:
1.Walked the half mile to the Visitors Centre to check the weather forecast. (Sunny and breezy to continue.) Then walked to the nearby boat ramp and marina facility to check it out. (Amazing, well maintained with toilets, showers, parking for about 100 cars and trailers and putting any NZ facility to utter shame) It also had a bar/restaurant which was sadly closed both days that we were here.
2.Walked down to the lake shore for a ramble. It was very rocky, with one small beach area, but with multiple areas to park and picnic and generally ‘recreate’. The lake which had been at historically low levels last year had had a major top-up from the melt water of this past winter’s massive snow pack, but still looked a distance from full.There were a few boats that had braved the wind and were out fishing.
3.Did a variety of small jobs, played a few games of scrabble (2:0 to Nick) and, wait for it, read some actual books. Nick might have had an afternoon nap, which was entirely justified given the slow pace of the day. Contrary to the weather forecast, it rained for a bit.
After two nights here we rolled on again. This time we had a reasonably long drive by our standards, but it was so quiet and scenic that it flew past without feeling taxing. We had a imperceptibly slow climb from 7,500ft to a 10,100ft pass over a distance of about 70 miles. Big D didn’t even notice. The road descended to a flat valley plateau at 8000ft and the roads became very straight. After a few 90 degree turns we arrived at our next destination, Grand Dunes National Park, or at least to our RV park just down the road from it. The sites were all in a single line, up on a ridge with amazing views of the dunes and the immense flat valley floor.
The dunes were created by the prevailing sou’westerly winds picking up sand particles as they blew across the San Luis Valley until it gets to the Sangre de Cristo mountains, where the sand is heaped up into these spectacular dunes, the tallest in North America. The brisk wind was a constant presence during our stay here and prevented all notions of barbecues, camp fires, awning use, open windows to windward, unguarded bowls of potato chips on picnic tables etc. We gained a bit of relief from the buffeting at about 10.30pm that evening when a very large motor home pulled up in the next space, casting a very welcome wind shadow over us and we slept much better for it. Connectivity was still non existent here.
The sun rose, and we surfaced a mere two hours later to start our day. It was a morning for a breakfast sandwich to fuel us for the hours ahead. (I can’t remember if I have written about the splendour that is The Breakfast Sandwich Maker yet. Perhaps it needs its own post) Our plan was to cycle the 3.5 miles into the park in the morning and then go for a hike. Getting there, down wind, was going to be easy. Coming home, not so much. We hurtled to our destination, joined the short queue of cars to get in to the park and left the bikes tied up near a bored looking dog at the visitors centre. First we walked about a mile to the Medano Creek.
This is the hotspot of the whole place at this time of year. In spring the meltwaters cause the usually dry and very shallow creek to flow again, often with pulses of water that cause little waves, like a downstream bore. People flock here to frolic in the water, equipped for what looks like a day at the beach. Cars discharge picnic packed cool boxes, sun shades, rubber rings, buckets and spades, dogs and excited children. It was mayhem and not at all like your usual dusty desert plateau at 8000ft surrounded by snow capped mountains. The other thing to do from this area was to hike up the dunes, the highest peak being 750ft. The hardy/crazy souls that were tackling this feat looked like ants from where we were. It must have been very heavy going: loose sand underfoot, hot sun overhead and fairly thin air. We opted out and walked up the creek in bare feet instead. The map seemed to suggest that this was passable for about a mile and a half up to another carpark, so we pushed on, leaving the crowds behind. The map was sort of right, but it was a bit sporting in parts where the creek narrowed and got a bit rocky. Eventually we rejoined dry land, put our shoes back on and completed the loop hike back to the visitors centre. The cycle home was a challenge due to the stiff headwind and our inadequate numbers of red blood cells for this altitude. We arrived at our site gasping, sweaty, and in need of a shower. That evening Nick took me out for dinner at the small on-site restaurant. To be generous, it was a very mediocre meal, but at least the beer was cold.
The next day we continued our journey eastwards. The wind had settled a bit, ramping the temperature up by several degrees and it continued to steadily rise as we gradually descended from 8000ft down to to 3000ft during the day’s drive. Today we were leaving the mountains and entering the lesser known flat plains of Eastern Colorado. I had always thought that Colorado was entirely a mountain state, but a huge swathe of it sits in the High Plains, the westernmost portion of the Great Plains, home to all of Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota, and to portions of Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Wyoming and Texas. In this area Colorado is sparsely populated, hot in summer and cold in winter and mainly given over to agriculture. This seemed mainly to consist of cultivating the land to grow animal feed, harvesting it and then feeding it to to the livestock who were being intensively farmed in stinking shadeless muddy corals. Modern farming seems to have lost the plot.
Our last stop in Colorado was at another State Park on John Martin reservoir, the largest body of water in Colorado. Our campsite was just below the dam of the same name, both named for the US Representative John Martin who in the 1930s advocated for legislation to allow the building of the dam as a flood control measure. He died in 1939, the year construction began. We were hoping that the Corps of Engineers had done a good job and that the dam would hold for the two nights of our stay here.
We navigated here with a good old fashioned paper map as there seemed to be an ongoing complete lack of 3G coverage here, despite getting cell reception back. Our first evening here delivered a spectacular electrical storm with continual rolling thunder for several hours. Luckily this hit after we had managed to cook and eat dinner outside. Each site had a small shelter under which we kept dry for another half hour, watching the. rain slowly douse the campfire before we called it quits and escaped inside.
The next day we explored the area around the reservoir and dam on our bikes. Half the roads were gravel, and it was windy again, but we managed to get 12 miles of cycling done by the time we got back for lunch and a lazy afternoon. That evening was more clement, but far less exciting and we sat out around the fire until dark.
Tomorrow to Kansas.