East Fork Campground, San Juan Forest

May 14-15, 2012

Monday -  We took a little drive this morning to check out the free boondocking sites.    There are several blogged about as being only a couple of miles up the Forest Service road from our campground.    The dirt road is fairly decent, so it seems doable with the fitty.    The scenery is unbelievable.   Each round of the road gives way to more pretty views.   The road runs next to the San Juan river.   We are about 100 yards up from the river, and then opposite us there is a mountain cliff that stretches majestically upwards for another 300 yards.    Breathtaking!

We passed a lot of neat campsites that would work for tenters.   Coloradans really are lucky they have these great free sites.   After about 4 miles, we came to a huge clearing.   There was a U shaped driveway from the road, back to the river, and then out to the road again.   Someone already had their Class A parked on one side.   The driveway was horrid in places, too rough for the fitty.   But luckily the plains were in decent shape.   We scouted a location and felt confident we could park the fitty and be set for boondocking.   

Since we were all loaded in the car anyway, we went for a little drive further down.   We crossed 2 or 3 spots where a creek ran free over the road.   No culverts.   At a particularly deep one, we parked the car and continued on foot.   It was a fun little hike with the dogs.    The road is closer to the river here, and we evaluated it for possible kayaking.   It looks FAST, and seems like it would be fun.    We will definitely check it out online.

Back at camp, we discover that the takeout for this section is at our campground.  Seems odd, since it’s an extremely steep hike up the precarious trail.    This section is listed as a 3-4, with warnings for watching for newly fallen wood.    As we were sitting there discussing trying the easier town section first, we actually saw some boaters go by.  One kayaker and one Cat.   So that’s good news!   If a Cat can make it, there’s got to be a clear route for kayaks.   Yay!

We were originally planning on leaving the campground and going to the free site tomorrow…but since it’s half price and we have the place to ourselves, we decided to stay 2 more nights.

Tuesday -  Cassie was acting strange this morning.   She was fine upon waking and she was as enthusiastic for her nummies as ever…but after eating she acted very stiff and was shaking and seemed in pain.    It was scary and sad.   I gave her one of Buddy’s pain meds and hoped she didn’t have something serious.   She was stiff and sore all morning, finally acting like her usual self after lunch.   We sometimes forget that she’s getting old too, so I think we’ll need to moderate her activity too

Had a fire this morning.   The daytime temps get into the upper 60s/low 70s, but the overnights are back into the 30s.    Luckily, the furnace is working.   Who knows what was going on with that in Santa Fe.   The campfire is great for keeping you warm while waiting for the sun to hit our campsite.

Not much went on today.    Got a few birthday well wishes, did some reading, did some relaxing.   Tomorrow we’re heading into town to look at options for dumping.   We will likely move to the free boondocking spot on Thursday, so we want to know our options for dumping our tanks once they fill up.