Taylor River Area

June 23-25, 2012

On Saturday, we went for a drive up the road from the Taylor Reservoir.   We wanted to scout possible boondocking sites to move to.   There were several nice spots with decent roads and privacy.   However, Missy was NOT feeling it.   She wasn’t a fan of the scrub-bare mountain top views.    I thought it was okay, especially for being free.   But she really didn’t like the area, so we headed back to camp.    I then spent  a lot of time researching new spots on the internet.   I looked at the Crested Butte area, because that’s where OBJ is and we really liked that when we visited a couple of years ago.   There are 2 forest service campgrounds in the area, and ZERO private campgrounds.   I found that to be strange.   The first non-rv friendly town in Colorado.    One forest campground didn’t have sites big enough to fit us.  The other had 6, and they were all first-come-first-served.   I was nervous about making plans to head for that campground without the possibility of a private campground to go to in case it was filled up.    But, we weren’t inspired to move anywhere else, so we decided to leave for Crested Butte the next day.

Sunday- I had a lot of anxiety about the full campground scenario.   So I thought it would be worth it to check out the nearby campground to see if the scenery was more to our liking.   Well, not just the scenery.  We were looking for some place with trails for hiking and/or biking.  Lakeview didn’t have any.   I made the arduous 5 mile drive down to Lottis Creek Campground (another one of the 7 or so Forest Service Campgrounds in the Taylor River Area).   What a difference!    Going back down the mountain, just passing the reservoir, and things changed dramatically.   The area was gorgeous, more trees to enjoy and majestic mountain cliffs.   I checked out the campground.  It’s got about 26 sites in 2 loops.   All with electric.   Luckily, this campground is newly renovated from last year, so it’s not set up for reservations yet.   First Come-First Served!   Yay.   There were lots of sites we could fit in.   One loop had great shade, but that meant limited mountain views.   Plus it was next to the main road.   The other loop had hardly any shade, but that means great views!   No shade is less of an issue when you have electric to run the A/C.   Plus, there was a trailhead right at the campground.  So, even though the privacy is sparse, this will make a great home for the next 2 weeks.  Yippee!   I’m so glad I decided to check this out.   I went back to camp and told Missy we only have to move 5 miles.

 We decided to spend one more night at Lakeview.   We had thought that the campground would clear out with most people leaving on Sunday.   That meant we’d get the place to ourselves to enjoy the quiet forest ambiance and relax in the shade and breeze.   But…strangely it was just as busy with new arrivals on Sunday.   And one mean group left their generator running all day while they were away fishing.    Bummer.

Monday-

5:45 am.   I am slowly awakened by a repulsive smell.   I realize one of the dogs has had an accident.   Yuck to the power of 1million.   I had to get everything cleaned up and scrubbed, so there was no chance of falling back asleep.   I decided to have a fire since I was up so early.    One (and only one) benefit to being so crudely awakened that early was that I got to enjoy seeing a herd of deer move throughout the campground.    This forest has zero undergrowth, so you can see clearly for several hundred yards.  This herd had about 8-10 members, some males with nice antlers.   It was very neat to be able to watch them for about 15-20 minutes.

We stayed at Lakeview until lunchtime.  Then we had an easy packup and hookup for our big trip.    We topped off our water tanks, since we have the chance.   We probably wouldn’t run out in the next 2 weeks, but since water is available we may as well load up.   The trip to Lottis was our easiest yet!    We should make a point to only move 5 miles at a time in the future.  :-)  We picked out our site…one of the 2 at the very back, furthest from the road.   There are TONS of chipmunks around.  It sucks, because there is a barb-wire fence bordering our site.   It’s to keep the cows out(!)   I guess the forest service leases grazing rights to ranchers.  So the ranchers drop their cows off many miles down the road and then the cows move on their own to a mountain meadow.   This fence is concerning, because it wouldn’t be unlike Cassie to try to go dashing under it in pursuit of a chippie, and rip her flesh open in the process.    We’re going to have to keep her on leash pretty much all the time.

We got ourselves setup in our new home.   We’ll be here for 2 weeks.   We hope to make day trips to Crested Butte and Gunnison.   We might also check out the Cottonwood pass, which is the shortcut to Buena Vista.   We’ve heard it has some serious switchbacks, so we’ll need to check it out to see if our RV can make it.   If it can, we’ll save 60 miles on our way to BV.  (Missy is holding out hope we’ll be able to kayak the Ark…she wants to check out the play park.    Of course in MN, there had been 100 year floods raising my hometown rivers to previously unseen levels.    So sad about the destruction there.   Why must it be feast or famine with water levels?)   The sun here was, as expected, wicked hot.   It got into the 90s.  We escaped into the A/C for most of the afternoon.   Once the sun started behind the mountains, I took the bike to check out the trail.    Disappointed!   It’s for expert bikers only.   Lots of rocks to avoid.  I just can’t summon the skill to maintain speed to steer.    Oh Well.   It should be good enough to hike these trails.    Since I got skunked riding the trail, I went ahead and checked out going on the main road.   It was fun to be able to ride on blacktop instead of dirt.   I only went about a mile before turning around and heading back.    I think riding on the main road will be a great option for some exercise while we’re here.