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tshelfer
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- Joined
- Sep 4, 2009
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- Location
- Centennial, CO
- First Name
- Tim
- Last Name
- Shelfer
We just dragged in from 9 days camping just below Monarch Pass. No bike, I'm afraid. I was in my Grand Cherokee, pulling my camping trailer. A very solitary experience. Yup, just me, my wife Jan, my daughter & son-in-law & grandson, my sister-in-law & niece, my Brittany spaniel Sadie, a half crazy schnauzer, and my daughter's 2 totally undisciplined husky mixes.
I'm too lazy to repost all the pictures, plus they're too dense anyway & won't upload. But here's a Facebook link where anybody can view the whole picture album:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2378718067227.2145995.1228894295&l=db9a41876d&type=1
A few notes. Monarch Park NF campground is at 10,500 feet, a couple of miles below the pass on the Salida side. Temperatures were 39-41 degrees overnight, and with daytime highs of about 70. Absolutely blissful after this miserable Texas summer. It's an expensive campground at $15/night, but it was worth the price.
Note the picture of my new buddy from Illinois (my apologies for forgetting his name). I hope he finds this thread; I gave him our url.
He traveled all the way to Colorado, camping on a KLR 650 (see picture) and was on his way to the Durango area to meet his son & do a little adventure riding. This was his dream trip, and he has inspired me to start planning my own Rocky Mountain ride on the V-Strom. Hey bud, if you find this post, pls email me at timshelfer@yahoo.com & let me know how the Cimarron Pass ride went.
Also, note the picture of the vintage Honda CX500, torn seat & all, parked in front of the Monarch Park Lodge. Turns out it belongs to the general manager. he commutes from Salida, and complained that this old bike (I'm guessing about '80-82 model) can "only" make 65mph up the pass. I saw a lot of cruisers that couldn't manage that in the thin air of 9000+ feet.
I did manage to find some trail time as the pictures show. Grass Lake was at 10,800 feet and the Waterdog Lakes were at over 11,000. Sadie, my recently adopted Brittany, did well on the trail. But she's a runner, so I mostly had to keep her on the leash - she's gotten lost too many times since I've had her.
But as the pictures also show, most of this trip was about family, and about giving my 14-month-old grandson Witten (named for #82 you-know-who) his very first taste of the great outdoors & the majesty of God's handiwork. It also gave my sister-in-law a good training opportunity in operating her Coleman camper (my brother died last August, & Debbie is learning to do a lot of things on her own).
The Grand Cherokee sucks gas (barely 14 mpg this trip) but screams up passes with a 3,000 lb trailer in tow. The only real limitation coming up a steep pass is tightness of curves & how much money I want to spend on gas. Coming home over Raton Pass, I passed a bandana-headed guy on a HD. He got ticked, gave chase, & tried to re-pass me. After a mile, he gave up. He caught me at a gas station in Raton & silently scowled at me. Oops, pardon me for incorrectly believing it was okay to pass on an interstate highway.
We left yesterday morning and drove straight through to Arlington. Fourteen hours to the minute. I'm happy to be home. But then again there's the heat, the humidity, the unpacking, the laundry, the 278 emails to deal with, the carton of snail mail to sort through, the foot-high grass in the front yard..... sigh.
I'm too lazy to repost all the pictures, plus they're too dense anyway & won't upload. But here's a Facebook link where anybody can view the whole picture album:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2378718067227.2145995.1228894295&l=db9a41876d&type=1
A few notes. Monarch Park NF campground is at 10,500 feet, a couple of miles below the pass on the Salida side. Temperatures were 39-41 degrees overnight, and with daytime highs of about 70. Absolutely blissful after this miserable Texas summer. It's an expensive campground at $15/night, but it was worth the price.
Note the picture of my new buddy from Illinois (my apologies for forgetting his name). I hope he finds this thread; I gave him our url.
He traveled all the way to Colorado, camping on a KLR 650 (see picture) and was on his way to the Durango area to meet his son & do a little adventure riding. This was his dream trip, and he has inspired me to start planning my own Rocky Mountain ride on the V-Strom. Hey bud, if you find this post, pls email me at timshelfer@yahoo.com & let me know how the Cimarron Pass ride went. Also, note the picture of the vintage Honda CX500, torn seat & all, parked in front of the Monarch Park Lodge. Turns out it belongs to the general manager. he commutes from Salida, and complained that this old bike (I'm guessing about '80-82 model) can "only" make 65mph up the pass. I saw a lot of cruisers that couldn't manage that in the thin air of 9000+ feet.
I did manage to find some trail time as the pictures show. Grass Lake was at 10,800 feet and the Waterdog Lakes were at over 11,000. Sadie, my recently adopted Brittany, did well on the trail. But she's a runner, so I mostly had to keep her on the leash - she's gotten lost too many times since I've had her.
But as the pictures also show, most of this trip was about family, and about giving my 14-month-old grandson Witten (named for #82 you-know-who) his very first taste of the great outdoors & the majesty of God's handiwork. It also gave my sister-in-law a good training opportunity in operating her Coleman camper (my brother died last August, & Debbie is learning to do a lot of things on her own).
The Grand Cherokee sucks gas (barely 14 mpg this trip) but screams up passes with a 3,000 lb trailer in tow. The only real limitation coming up a steep pass is tightness of curves & how much money I want to spend on gas. Coming home over Raton Pass, I passed a bandana-headed guy on a HD. He got ticked, gave chase, & tried to re-pass me. After a mile, he gave up. He caught me at a gas station in Raton & silently scowled at me. Oops, pardon me for incorrectly believing it was okay to pass on an interstate highway.
We left yesterday morning and drove straight through to Arlington. Fourteen hours to the minute. I'm happy to be home. But then again there's the heat, the humidity, the unpacking, the laundry, the 278 emails to deal with, the carton of snail mail to sort through, the foot-high grass in the front yard..... sigh.
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