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4-wheelin' (plus 2 trailer wheels) around Colorado

Joined
Sep 4, 2009
Messages
13,467
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2,822
Location
Centennial, CO
First Name
Tim
Last Name
Shelfer
The wife & I took a nice – and much needed – vacation to Colorado. We imported relatives to stay in the house & take care of my mother. And about noon on a Wednesday, off we went.

Driving into the late afternoon New Mexico sun.
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By Thursday, we were camped at Beaver Lake, an old favorite NF campground on the Cimarron River, southeast of Montrose, and situated on a dirt road 8 miles from Owl Creek Pass.
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Here’s Beaver Lake.
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A trip up & over Owl Ears Pass. The road’s not bad east of the pass. On the west side (toward Ridgway), it gets pretty cruddy. But the scenery is magnificent.
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Look familiar? In John Wayne’s “True Grit”, the gunfight scene was filmed right here at Chimney Rock.
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Our second day there, I was bopping down the dirt road and encountered this accident that had happened just a minute earlier. A fellow on a KLR was steaming too fast around a curve, and met a motorist coming the other way. There was no collision, but the rider lost control and took a nasty fall, gashing his left leg up something awful. Had he been wearing proper riding pants, it probably would have been just a bruise instead. ATGATT, fellow.

I took this pic through my windshield right after I had picked up the bike and moved it out of the road.
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The bike’s nose cone was gone & the handlebars were pushed out of place. But with a bit of work, it was actually quite rideable.
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While others tended the rider (who couldn’t move), I drove down the road and found a rancher who could place an emergency call. It was an hour after the accident before the Montrose EMTs were on scene.
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Then a Colorado state trooper arrived. I was looking at him….. and darned if he wasn’t the same guy who gave me a speeding ticket near Montrose back in June!
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But back to the fun stuff. Here are some critter pictures from around the lake. Dragon fly.
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Red winged blackbird on the fly.
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Some kind of thrush, I think. Calling Meriden for proper identification….
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Circling hawk.
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Your basic campground scavenger.
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Then we moved on to a longtime favorite spot, Cement Creek NF campground near Crested Butte. I’ve been coming here since 1961 when I was a kid.
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The view from the campground is sensational. I took this selfie of Jan & me standing right in front of our campsite.
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Here’s a shot of the creek.
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When we got home yesterday, I was chatting on Facebook with Rob Vaughn. We were both surprised to realize that, while we were at the Cement Creek CG, Rob & his wife were in a guest cabin a mile down the road from us. I should put a TWT sticker on the Jeep.

Along the highway toward Crested Butte.
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We drove up past Crested Butte and took the road over Ohio Pass, and down to Gunnison. Drew, sorry I got confused & turned us around when were here back in June. Next time you & I go, I’ll carry a map.
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The Jeep gets stinky gas mileage (14mpg when towing), but is otherwise a nice tow vehicle, and definitely a get-anywhere vehicle when we decide to go exploring.

All pictures were taken with my almost new Nikon D5300 camera and Sigma 18-250mm lens.
 
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Very nice pictures oh King of the Camp Grounds. Looks like you two had fun. Not as much fun as remodeling but it will have to do.:rofl:
 
We had fun, Drew. Only problem was that two of the three campgrounds we hit (Beaver Lake and Cement Creek) no longer had water. Apparently the Colorado Water Board has gone through the NF campgrounds, condemned many of the water systems, and is making it prohibitively expensive for them to be fixed. So from now on, I'll probably have to travel in Colo with water tanks full.
 
You always take such great pictures! The dragon fly is my favorite.
 
I shot about 40 dragon flies before I got that picture. I have blurry dragon flies, dragon flies with their wings in motion, dragon flies in the edge of the pictures as they outran my pan. Tricky little buggers, they are. Hummingbirds are worse, though - note the absence of hummingbird pictures.
 
Great pix! Thanks. Pretty rough lick for the klr guy. Way too many cars, trucks, jeeps, quads, horses around there to be flogging it around a blind dirt corner... but folks do it anyhow.
 
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I shot about 40 dragon flies before I got that picture. I have blurry dragon flies, dragon flies with their wings in motion, dragon flies in the edge of the pictures as they outran my pan. Tricky little buggers, they are. Hummingbirds are worse, though - note the absence of hummingbird pictures.


What shutter speeds are your shooting with for dragonflies and hummingbirds?
 
Great pix! Thanks. Pretty rough lick for the klr guy. Way too many cars, trucks, jeeps, quads, horses around there to be flogging it around a blind dirt corner... but folks do it anyhow.

You called it, RG. It was totally the rider's fault - he was on the wrong side of the road on a blind right-hand curve. Even without the approaching vehicle, he still might have been in trouble, given the dirt & gravel, and riding on 80/20 Shinko tires.

I can't visualize how it happened, but when I got there, he was lying in the road barely right of center (for his direction of travel); I think he may have crawled there. The bike was 6 feet from him, just left of center, lying on its left side, and facing 90 degrees left. I won't describe the gash around his knee, but it was ugly, and his lightweight cammo pants were torn thigh to ankle. Decent riding pants with any sort of knee pad probably would have minimized the injury.

Even for my minimal First Aid knowledge, I thought the others assisting did everything wrong. He was still wearing his helmet when I arrived and they encouraged him to take it off, which he did. They helped him prop his head up when in fact, the head should stay low and the feet be elevated to help prevent shock. But he was conscious and chatty, so I just kind of stayed out of it. What was done right was to not let him move another inch. We didn't even know for sure his leg wasn't fractured, much less any more serious injuries. But I'm sure he spent at least 2 nights in a hospital and had probably 20 stitches.

Lucky for him, a local dirt rider happened along, who was meeting some buddies to camp near Owl Creek Pass. He ran up to his camp, arranged for a truck/trailer to come for the bike, and they took it to a local shop to be kept until the rider could deal with it. That at least saved him a $250 tow and a couple of days' impound fees.
 
What shutter speeds are your shooting with for dragonflies and hummingbirds?

You gotta love digital photography where that info is actually stored for later reference. The dragon fly was taken at ISO 320, 1/500 sec, at F6.3 (lowest available). Since I was shooting in 'P' mode, I was taking fastest available shutter and, with scudding clouds, 1/500 was as good as it got at that moment. It occurred to me a minute later to kick the ISO up to 1000, but I never got a well centered shot after this one.

The water picture was taken on a tripod, ISO 100, for 1.3 seconds. I had a neutral density filter on, but I don't recall how many stops it added (and I'm too lazy to walk to my camera bag and look).
 
I forgot to shoot their picture, but I met a group of mixed Europeans (French, Belgian, German) who borrowed the Beaver Lake outhouse before heading up Owl Creek Pass on their way to Telluride the "hard way." They were on rented BMW GS1200s, some riding 2-up. They knew what they were doing, but half an hour after they left, a torrential rain moved in. Given how steep and rough and loose-rocky it is on the west side of the pass, I really worried about them. Hope they got down without any mishaps.
 
We had fun, Drew. Only problem was that two of the three campgrounds we hit (Beaver Lake and Cement Creek) no longer had water. Apparently the Colorado Water Board has gone through the NF campgrounds, condemned many of the water systems, and is making it prohibitively expensive for them to be fixed. So from now on, I'll probably have to travel in Colo with water tanks full.

That is going to make tent camping even more fun. :doh:
 
Here's an offer, Drew. If we do this again, wanna cheat & stay in motels all the way? Call it a one-time splurge. I've always wanted to do a Colorado trip where I wasn't pitching a tent every afternoon and shivering every evening.
 
Here's an offer, Drew. If we do this again, wanna cheat & stay in motels all the way? Call it a one-time splurge. I've always wanted to do a Colorado trip where I wasn't pitching a tent every afternoon and shivering every evening.

Humm I do have three in mind. One in Los Lunas,Chama,and one in Gunnison. I don't know camping was really fun for me. My tent only takes a few minutes to set up. Now using the space for other stuff might be cool. Could carry more food stuff or pick up a few more souvenirs. It is something to think about. Might be able to get by with just the side boxes or only the top box.
 
Really, it's more the idea of convenience. I love camping, but just once it would be fun to never have to set up and break camp. Also, as you mention, we'd carry a lot less. If I weren't carrying camping gear, I'd be carrying about half the weight and bulk, meaning the bike would be that more fun on extra twisty roads. More expensive - but something to think about.
 
Really, it's more the idea of convenience. I love camping, but just once it would be fun to never have to set up and break camp. Also, as you mention, we'd carry a lot less. If I weren't carrying camping gear, I'd be carrying about half the weight and bulk, meaning the bike would be that more fun on extra twisty roads. More expensive - but something to think about.

Might be able to get a tad better fuel economy also. Plus as a bonus we could stay up till 3AM every morning playing video games.:rofl:
 
Great report. On a side note, Tim I referenced your ride report and the mention of Colorado 149. Did that after 92 today. 149 is pretty much as you advertise. Great road. Thanks.

Now I have to commit some of these campgrounds to the memory bank.
 
Hey Tim,
Looks like a great little get-away you had....

Dragon fly and blurry flowing creek for me.. :photo:


.
 
It's a shame we were camping a mile apart and didn't know it. Great pics.
 
Great report. On a side note, Tim I referenced your ride report and the mention of Colorado 149. Did that after 92 today. 149 is pretty much as you advertise. Great road. Thanks.

Now I have to commit some of these campgrounds to the memory bank.

Thanks, Sean. 149 is Heaven on wheels to me. I'm still catching up, so haven't gone back and reviewed your Southern CO thread, but it's on my list.

It's a shame we were camping a mile apart and didn't know it. Great pics.

Rob - Fate is weird, and I've had many encounters or close encounters up there. We were once visiting with some other Texans in a campground near Creede, and suddenly realized that our dogs, a couple of Brittanies, were litter mates.

Hey Tim,
Looks like a great little get-away you had....

Dragon fly and blurry flowing creek for me.. :photo:


.

Thanks, Scott. There's about a galaxy of difference between your and my respective levels of picture taking. I'll take all the comps I can get.
 
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