Sometimes the path to paradise is a bit rough. At least that was our experience at the beginning of this trip. But before I start rolling down the road trip, I need to give a big shout out to my Uncle John. Yes, uncle, not cousin as he likes to say when introducing me to others trying to shed a few years. John gave Aristotle a home for a few weeks at his ranch in Rifle and allowed Matt to send countless packages. Beyond hosting us for a few nights, we raided his barn and toolshed for tools while finishing up a few new projects on Aristotle. We also emptied his water tank to fill up with fresh water on our departure. Thank you, UNCLE JOHN!
So, to Trip Eleven…. Even advance planning cannot predict 25 miles of a dirt, rutted, washboard county road that was the “quick route” to our first stop. The jostling really put Aristotle to the limit. A drawer ran away from its track, the wardrobe door almost rattled loose, the coffee maker shook free from its “secured” spot and dumped water everywhere, and we found some random small parts rolling around the floor. We stick those in a baggy and someday we may solve the mystery. What should have been about a 40-minute drive on that 25 miles turned into about an hour and a half. Then came the taller parts of the Rocky Mountains, and just when we needed the trailer brakes to work… nothing. They worked before we stopped for lunch which, of course, was all uphill. On a positive note, we had plenty of time to do some preliminary troubleshooting while stopped on the quiet county road due some poor souls medical emergency requiring a life flight out of the national forest. The highway must have been the best place for the helicopter to land. However, back to us. Still no luck on the brakes so we pulled off twice and Matt spent an hour or two lying under the rear bumper trying to figure out the problem. Volt meter testing, fuse changing, and lots of cursing didn’t seem to help. Could we make it to the camp site? Were there dangerous downhill sections? Luckily a local informed us that the descents between us the campsites and Fort Collins wouldn’t be so bad, so we pushed our luck. And, luck is what we would need to find a camp site on what was now a busy Saturday evening. I was sure that we would have to scrap the first stop and head to Ft. Collins. Maybe it was luck, but the reality is it was goodwill of another camping couple to be willing to share a peaceful part of paradise.
This campsite is Skyline Campground, a boondocking site just North of Chambers Lake (GPS coordinates for our spot: 4038’50”N 105
51’30”W) in the Roosevelt National Forest in Colorado. It hugs the Laramie River, which is not terribly wide in this part. No cell signal, no wifi, just nature, some humans, and, generally, peace. I serenely watched a cute little bird body slam a beetle, during which time a hummingbird buzzed around my head, checking me out, and chipmunks searching for food all in the matter of minutes. While eating dinner one night, luckily inside Aristotle, we watched a brown bear amble through our campsite (maybe black bear?). Matt took a picture through our screened window, so it’s not great, but is proof! I will say the mosquitoes are abundant here. Somehow, they have adapted to 9,000 feet of altitude and nighttime lows of 40 degrees. But that 40 degrees certainly makes for wonderful sleeping weather!
Skyline is also near some nice hiking and mountain biking. I did a relatively short ride (6.5 miles) with Matt on a trail that ascended the forest and traversed some beautiful meadows with lakes. We would have stopped and enjoyed the scenery if it were not for the millions of aggressive, bird-sized mosquitoes that saw us as their last chance for a meal. “Knowledgable” people say mosquitos are bad flyers, but I swear a few swooped down as we descended some high-speed trails and lodged on the back of our exposed body parts long enough to get a good blood-meal.
The first segment of the trip highlighted that I am a bit out of practice in trip planning. Matt likes to say that we just roll down the road and don’t really plan that much. That’s because he doesn’t witness the hours and hours of planning that I do to research potential camping sites and routes for us to take. Given that I haven’t planned the trip in a few months, I forgot a few key rules of mine.
- Working from the road requires access to a cell signal or wifi within 20 minutes of our site. Many campsite reviews through the apps/online websites will indicate cell signal for different plans.
- It’s good to know where the diesel gas stations are on your route. We are about 60 miles from, what we have discovered, is the nearest diesel gas station. We have about 80-90 miles range left. It will be an interesting drive if we run out of gas and brakes. Had I planned ahead, we would have gotten gas enroute to the national forest.
- Like gas stations, know where all the dump stations are. Generally you can use AllStays app or Sani-dump website to find those, but good to do that identification early in case of no cell signal.
But, I digress. We had a wonderful few days at the Skyline, and then hit the road again for a quick trip to Ft. Collins to visit friends, then onward in a northern trek.
Feeling the groove of the road, we headed to the Wyoming side of Medicine Bow National Forest. Ever heard of it? No? I hadn’t either. All I can say is “Wow” another less discovered gem of a forest. Even in peak season, with a rash of COVID-bored seeking an escape to camp, we found a lovely boondocking site just beyond the road to Brooklyn Lake (happy to give you the GPS coordinates… just ping me). This area does have tremendous wind that acts as a training wheel for the aggressive, and rather prehistorically sized mosquitoes. But that did not dampen our experience.
This national forest has crystal clear lakes everywhere, many teeming with trout. There are endless trails that snake from one lake to another, through alpine forests, meadows exploding with ornamental flowers and grasses, and out-croppings of rocks with intermittent snow patches. I tested my recovering foot on a solo hike, while Matt, as usual, tried to kill himself on a 3 1/2-hour mountain bike ride. Enjoy the scenery.
Yes, the rocks were part of Matt’s route, and, YES, that is snow!
The weather started turning a bit, clouds, spitting rain… would it snow? Does it snow at 10,600 ft in summer (that was the altitude at which we camped… we hiked / biked higher)? We really didn’t want to find out, nor did we want to spin our wheels in mud while trying to maneuver around the campsite. Time to pull chocks and move north. This time to Black Hills National Forest. Just so you know, we were kind of rolling the dice on whether a nice spot would be found. It’s late Friday afternoon. It’s summer. It’s COVID-escape time. Every other vehicle on the road is an RV/camper (many with side-by-side ATV’s in tow). We figured everyone would be looking for the same idyllic camping spot that we were and our nervousness was rising. There are only a smattering of “known” boondocking sites in Black Hills, and the organized campgrounds showed no vacancy. Moreover, I read that many of the roads start out rough and turn into traps for adventurously naïve RVers. This was going to be an adventure, an adventure I’m not sure I wanted after a 5 hour drive.
We arrived around 5 pm and headed up a road only to find a couple of the “known” spots were taken. To tell you the truth, those known spots were not so great, essentially pull-offs on the side of a somewhat narrow dirt road. In fact there were only pull-offs, and we had to do a creative 10-point turnaround to get out of that area. Finally, after about 30 minutes of searching, we settled on a spot requiring a tightrope drive straddling large washed out portions of road. The short video that I took while Matt navigated the road belies the obstacles, but does look cool…
Now, here’s the view from the windshield…
We finally nestled into our serene spot next to a babbling creek, wedged between a few pine trees, tall grasses, a band of flowers, and a ton of cow patties, some bordering on the obscene. Really. I wondered if some of these cows only poop once a month. We traded the nuisance of mosquitoes for hop scotching around cow poop. Let’s just say I’m better at hop scotch than Matt. As a result, Matt tried to flick a patty away from our door so we wouldn’t inadvertently step on it, and instead stirred up a fresh scent and marred the side of Aristotle with fragments of poop. Still, it’s a lovely campsite. And we figured out that covering/marking the cow-patties with rocks and sticks was better than trying to relocate them! (GPS coordinates: 43.9945 -103.4528). In short we totally lucked out. Seems most of the folks camping in the Black Hills prefer organized campgrounds, and that, along with a bit of luck and patience, worked out in our favor.
A few days of hiking, mountain biking, and swimming in the nearby lake was about all the fun we could take. It was time to move on to what we hoped might be another amazing spot overlooking the Badlands National Forest. And the view did not disappoint (GPS coordinates: 43.890031, -102.226789). Of course, we are sharing the area with a lot of other people that wanted the same view. If you happen to want to camp here, take a look at the spot via satellite image. You will see that the one road into the boondocking area splits at the ridge. You can go left or right. We went right – wrong choice (not necessarily a political comment). Go left instead, head about 2-3 miles down the dirt road, and you will find some amazing spots without being stacked on top of other people. Regardless it’s a pretty unique landscape.
At this point we started to think about the exit home, so decided to do a quick route back to Carbondale and use that as our starting point for the next trip. This meant about two stops, as, while I am a driving machine, pulling a hefty load for more than 5 hours is a bit tiresome. After some deliberation, debate, okay… maybe a little arguing, we decided on an overnight in Douglas, Wyoming at a very clean, small park on a river. Highly recommend if you need an overnight. Not only is the park clean, with grills and picnic tables, they also have a much coveted dump site and fresh water. That’s like gold on the road!
The last stop (Big Creek Lakes Campground in Colorado) for this trip was a bit off the beaten path – or it was on a path that really beat us up! Again, maps don’t really say the whole story. Like the story of a washboarded road that rattles your teeth out, your cabinets loose, shreds your coffee mugs and creates a small disaster zone inside the trailer. Luckily we remembered to drain the toilet. I would say the spot at the end of the road was worth it, and it was quite lovely, but I’m afraid the journey to that spot was a bit more expensive than we would have liked. We spent the first hour at the campsite reassembling the closet, cleaning up bits of ceramic mug, and finding random rivets here and there. The good news… all wine glasses remained intact! Wine was much needed to relax after the drive. Wine, a bit of hiking, and some fishing rounded out our last camping spot on this trip.
So, we packed up and got back to civilization in Carbondale, Colorado. Aristotle and Plato will be spending a few weeks in Carbondale until our next adventure.
