Chapter 77 - Dinosaur National Monument and San Juan Mountains Four-Wheeling
Dave and Helen Damouth
www.damouth.org
8/6/2005 to 8/14/2005 (minor edits 2/18/2012)
See Photo Album for more photos from this trip.
Click for a simple printable version without pictures.
Helen's commitment to judge a flower show in Gunnison, Colorado, on August 14 was our excuse for this 8-day trip through portions of Colorado and Utah that we have not previously visited.
Sat 8/6/05: Packing up is still a slow process, but we're getting better. We didn't get underway until about 12:30 p.m. In spite of the elaborate checklists we've prepared, we forgot a couple of fairly minor items.
The trip from Golden to Steamboat Springs was routine, although traffic on I-70 was very heavy until we got past Idaho Springs. The motorhome is working fine, after sitting unused in our driveway for three months. We turned off I-70 onto US-40 just before Georgetown, and climbed up and over Berthoud Pass. It's a beautiful but familiar route, which we've traversed several times in the car, but never in the RV. The old ski lodge at the pass has disappeared in the past few months, removed by order of the National Forest Service after the ski area (operating on NFS land) ceased operation. The ski lifts had been removed several years ago. Large snowfields still exist on the peaks around us in the shaded north-facing valleys. The Continental Divide runs east-west through this area, and we followed the Fraser River North down from the pass until we reached Granby.
After Granby, the road was all new to us. The Fraser River joined the Colorado River just north of Granby, and here US-40 turns west, generally in the broad valley of the still-small Colorado, with lots of hay being harvested along the river and frequent cattle and horse ranches. At Kremmling, the highway turns north, leaves the Colorado, and follows the smaller valley of Muddy Creek up and over a low pass. On the other side of the pass, we descended the Yampa River valley to Steamboat Springs, where we planned to spend the night.
Steamboat Springs is an interesting town. The heavy tourist concentration seems to co-exist comfortably with a substantial local population. Lots of young people partying in the outdoor patios of the bars on Saturday night. Lots of fairly grungy buildings and businesses along the river, although a short block away, most of the main street (Lincoln Ave/US-40) has been fixed up pretty for the tourists.
A rodeo was underway at the fairgrounds, so the town was crowded. We had intended to overnight at the local Wal-Mart parking lot, but the lot was small and crowded and an adjacent, mostly empty parking lot had prominent "no overnight parking" signs. The only RV Park, Steamboat Campground, was expensive and full (we got the last site - an overflow site right along the highway with 30-amp electric but no water or sewer, for $37 including tax. The place used to be a KOA and still looks like one - log cabins, lots of kid things, big swimming pool.
The Yampa River Botanical Garden was a pleasant surprise. It's large, with an interesting and creative overall design, and apparently lots of green thumbs among its employees and volunteers - nearly everything was thriving and well-tended. There are quite a few unusual plants. The garden is in a low, relatively boggy, area along the river. But they have added low artificial hills on which they are growing plants and trees which prefer a drier environment, including some excellent alpine rock gardens and xeric demonstration gardens.
Sunday 8/7: In the morning, we drove to Fish Creek Falls trailhead and hiked up to the falls. The upper trail is a pleasant, relatively flat trail, smoothly paved to provide wheelchair access. It leads to an overlook on a hillside providing an excellent view of the 160-foot falls. Only about 40 feet of the upper part of the falls is free fall. The rest cascades down a steep ragged cliff face. The creek runs vigorously all year and is the water source for the city. The trees are a mix of juniper, gambel oak, Colorado spruce, and an occasional ponderosa pine. Another trail, which we only walked part way, goes along the creek, and is rough and quite steep in places. It leads to the base of the falls, where people were clambering partway up the falls through a jumble of boulders.
We returned to the campground in late morning, stopping briefly at a City Market for a newspaper and a few groceries, then packed up and got on the road around noon, heading west on US-40. West of Steamboat Springs, the mountains gradually diminish and the terrain becomes rolling hills, cut by occasionally steep-sided river valleys. The road is generally close to the Yampa River until just west of Dinosaur National Monument, where the road diverges south as much as 13 miles from the river to avoid deep, narrow canyons. The green grass gradually disappears and the terrain becomes more desert-like as we descend toward the Utah border and the Green River.
Green River Campground in Dinosaur National Monument had quite a few empty spaces (late Saturday afternoon - surprising). And this doesn't count a whole bunch of closed spaces. All the nice shady sites, under big cottonwood trees, were closed because of danger of branches falling - the cottonwoods need pruning. There are around 90 sites total, but at least a third of them were closed. We chose a site on the river bank, turning an acute corner to pull frontward into a narrow site designed for back-in. It took a lot of back-and-fill to get in, but gave us a nice view of the river and Split Mountain out the big front window and the dinette window. This park cost $6/night (with no hookups) with our Golden Age pass.
Green River
Campground
viewed from Blue Mountain Road. Our motorhome is visible on the
riverbank.
(Click the
photo or the above
link for a larger image.)
Evening View From
Our Campsite
(Click the
photo or the above
link for a larger image.)
(Click the
photo or the above
link for a larger image.)
We set up camp quickly and headed back to the Quarry Museum in
the Jeep, getting there about 4:30 - plenty of time to see it
all before the 6 pm closing. This is an architecturally
interesting building that was constructed to protect a steep
cliff face on which about 2000 bones have been partially
excavated then left in place. This includes a couple of nearly
complete large dinosaurs. Much of the equipment used in the
excavation has also been left in place, giving the impression
of an active excavation site. A ranger gives a brief talk every
half hour or so, explaining the history and significance of the
site. Many almost perfect, complete, dinosaur skeletons were
removed from here, beginning about 100 years ago. None of these
skeletons are now at this site. Many went to the Carnegie
Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, which organized and
funded the original excavations. Others are now in museums all
over the world.
In the evening, we drove the 12-mile paved interpretive route called "Tour of the Tilted Rocks" running along Cub Creek Road from the museum to the homestead established by Josie Bassett in 1914. She was from a local and prominent cattle ranching family, but apparently liked solitude. She independently built a cabin and several outbuildings in this remote canyon, raised and butchered cattle, pigs, chickens and geese, planted an orchard, canned the harvest from a large vegetable garden, and lived a relatively primitive 19th century life here up until she died at age 90 in 1964.
Dave, Reading the Tour
Guide At "Tour of the Tilted Rocks", Stop #1
(Click the
photo or the above
link for a larger image.)
We had a bit of time left in
the evening and explored our
way up the jeep trail which is a continuation of Blue Mountain
Road. The map said
"4-wheel drive only", but the road was in good condition and we
never engaged 4WD except on the way down, when we used the
extra engine braking of 4WD low-range in the steepest
downgrades. The road was interesting, the views increasingly
spectacular as we gained altitude, so we kept going in spite of
the late hour, and got all the way to the top of the mountain.
As we climbed the west side, we were in a typical juniper/pinon
pine "forest" As soon as we came to the top, where the land
began sloping gently down to the east, large ponderosa pines
abruptly appeared. Slightly further to the east, the mountain
drops precipitously in a steep escarpment all the way down to
the valley floor. At dusk, near the top, we startled several
huge jack rabbits - I don't remember seeing this animal before.
We also saw quite a few cottontail rabbits, tiny by comparison,
sharing the same general area. At just about sunset, we started
back down. Fortunately, this high west-facing slope didn't get
fully dark until we were all the way down and back on
pavement.
8/8: We drove about 160 miles today. First, we drove the Harpers Corner Scenic Drive, a paved 52 mile (one way) interpretive route, with an informative booklet keyed to numbered signs along the road. We enjoyed spectacular scenery and interesting information about the human history, plant and animal life, and geology of the area. Then we branched off on an unimproved road which descended steeply from the plateau down to Echo Park, a level area along the Green River near where it is joined by the Yampa River. This pretty spot, surrounded by high sandstone cliffs, has the remains of another historic homestead, and a nice campground (but don't even think about bringing a typical motorhome or trailer down that road. A 4WD truck with slide-in camper, or a small 4WD class C motorhome could probably handle it).
Steamboat Rock,
at Echo Park
with rafters stopped for lunch.
(Click the
photo or the above
link for a larger image.)
Returning partway up the
Echo Park road, we then branched off to the east on Yampa Bench
Road - also unimproved. Somewhere along this drive, we saw
motion in the brush along the road, and stopped to watch a
small flock of sage grouse foraging about 20' from the road,
completely ignoring the car. This was a new species to us -
larger than most grouse, and a mottled gray color which blended
well with the surrounding foliage.
Yampa Bench,
from Echo Park Overlook
looking east. The road we'll drive is faintly visible in the
larger picture, at the near right-hand edge of the bench.
(Click the
photo or the above
link for a larger image.)
The geology is fascinating.
There are several large faults
in the area and the land fell in huge blocks. The Yampa Bench
is an intermediate block over a mile wide and perhaps 30 miles
long, with huge cliffs rising to the upper plateau to the south
and dropping to another lower plateau to the north. As we
proceeded east along the generally smooth flat bench, roughly
paralleling the Yampa River canyon (but high above it), we
occasionally had to cross steep erosion canyons that extended
from the high plateau down to the river - the road
switchbacking steeply down into the canyon and back up. The
bench is mostly covered with a uniform growth of pale yellow,
almost white, mature grass, with very little of the sagebrush
and greasewood that dominates elsewhere.
Occasionally, a side trail led to the brink of the cliff to the north, providing a panoramic view of the river canyon. Some of these branches were accessible with the jeep, others only on foot. We followed this bench east for about 30 miles.
Harding Hole
from an overlook on Yampa Bench Road
(Click the
photo or the above
link for a larger image.)
The road was labeled
"impassable, even to 4WD vehicles, when
wet". So we got a bit nervous when a big thunderstorm started
rumbling, a bit south of us. Apparently, the fine silty clay on
this bench turns into a gooey, slippery grease when wet. The
storm passed by well to the south.
Toward the end, the cliff to the south gradually diminished to rolling hills, so that when we finally turned south, it was a gentle climb. Heading southeast for another 10 miles or so on slightly improved gravel roads brought us back to US-40, on which we completed the loop back to our campground, getting rained on briefly along the way. At this point, back on good paved highway, we would have appreciated a hard downpour to wash off the car. Back at the campsite, we found fine red dust piled an inch deep on the rear bumper of the jeep. While walking the river bank in the evening, we saw deer tracks but no deer. We frequently see a young cottontail hopping around our campsite.
8/9: Time to move on. We packed up leisurely, stopped in the tiny hamlet of Jensen to buy the minimum amount of high-priced diesel fuel that would get us back to civilization, and took US-40, then SR-64 southeast to Rangely, Colorado, where we turned on to SR 139 and followed it all the way down to Grand Junction. It runs due south, mostly through rolling near-desert, approximately 15 miles east of the Utah border. Douglas Pass, cutting through a range of craggy mountains a bit more than halfway along the route, is interesting - a steep, relatively narrow (but otherwise good) road with lots of switchbacks. At Grand Junction we filled up with diesel fuel and continued southeast to Montrose along US-50. We set up camp in Country Village RV Park, eight miles south of Montrose in late afternoon.
8/10: A rainy day, and we were lazy, so we hung around the RV, read, did odd jobs, and Helen fitted a puzzle. We spent a pleasant evening at a good steak house with Don Robertson.
8/11: One of our reasons for coming this way was to spend a little time with Don Robertson, a longtime RVing acquaintance. Don is work camping for the summer at this RV Park, and has also been working as a mountain driver, taking groups of tourists through the back roads of the San Juan Mountains in a strange looking custom "jeep" - a high-clearance 4WD vehicle with seats for around 10 passengers mounted on an open flat bed behind the driver, covered with a canvas rain canopy but usually open to the sky unless heavy rain is encountered. In light rain the canopy is left off and poncho's are issued to the passengers so they can continue to look up at the scenery.
Today, we drove to Yankee Boy Basin with Don. He is an Alpine Host - and this was the day for his weekly visit to his assigned remote area, to replenish literature, pick up trash, and just be present to answer questions for the tourists, campers, and hikers. Along the way, we picked up Daisy to help out. She is a fulltimer who is currently a campground host in one of the first (lowest elevation) camping areas along this road. She lives full time in an Airstream trailer, which she tows with a '97 Dodge diesel.
The weather was awful - raining off and on, with low clouds. But the basin was beautiful. We took lots of pictures, enjoyed the clouds as they exposed and hid various high peaks, and studied many flowers. There are still lots of wildflowers at this elevation (11,600 ft.).
A Rainy Day in
Yankee Boy Basin
(Click the
photo or the above
link for a larger image.)
Blooming Monument Plants were
frequent. This showy and unusual plant has flower stalks up to
8 feet tall with a basal rosette of leaves up to 3 feet in
diameter (although most of the ones we saw were somewhat
smaller). It lives 20 to 80 years before blooming, then dies.
The plants in an area tend to synchronize their blooming, so
that once every few years a meadow may be covered with these
blooms.
(Click the
photo or the above
link for a larger image.)
The mountains here are very
jagged, with immense vertical
cliffs. The road was relatively easy - a few spots where care
was required and the tires had to be carefully placed relative
to big ruts and holes in the rock. While stopped at a trailhead
in the basin, I met a guy who lived in Michigan for many years
(Zeeland) and was a Michigan Tech alumnus.
In the evening, Don invited us to attend a going away party for a staff member (work camper) from the RV park. We had hamburgers, potato salad, chips and salsa, and a special cake. We met quite a few people, but I've already forgotten most of the names. Derrell Miller was there. We met him at an RV Club get-together in Kansas in 1999.
8/12: Drove about 150 miles today, with Don as a guide. It's really nice to have his advice while I try to learn the basics of four-wheeling. He's driven nearly all of these roads multiple times with tourists. The rain we got yesterday had really dumped in the mountains above Ouray. The streets and adjacent properties were littered with logs, rocks, and mud that had washed down two streams into town. Huge piles of debris were visible at the side of the road in the middle of town, moved out by bulldozers to make the road (barely) passable.
We started by going up Corkscrew Gulch from US-550, south of Ouray. After crossing Hurricane Pass (12,407 ft.), and stopping to enjoy and photograph beautiful blue Lake Como (the lake is at 12,308 ft), we descended California Gulch to the ghost town of Animas Forks at 11,200 feet. Mining began here in 1873 and continued until 1917. By 1883, the population grew to 450, the town had a newspaper, published at the highest printing plant in the history of the United States, and was briefly the County Seat, housing the County Court system. One man who didn't like the outcome of his trial promised, "I'll take this to a higher court!" Responded the wry judge, "There is no higher court in Colorado."
(Click the
photo or the above
link for a larger image.)
(Click the
photo or the above
link for a larger image.)
In the early 1900's, this was the site of a large stamp mill
which serviced the nearby mines (producing gold, silver, lead,
and zinc). By 1920, all mining had ceased and it became a ghost
town. There has been some effort to preserve a few of the old
houses. One house is a two-story Victorian with a bay window,
looking out of place in this primitive setting. "Preserve"
means not much more than keeping the shell from falling down -
new tin roof and a bit of structural reinforcement. The remains
of some of the mine buildings still stand, although the stamp
mill was salvaged and moved elsewhere, leaving only the
concrete foundations. We ate lunch here, then took CR-110 to
Silverton, coming out right in the middle of town after passing
huge tailings piles which have been to some extent reclaimed,
with an effort to clean up the ground water. The outflow
streams from many of these areas are bordered by brightly
colored rocks - covered with deposits of metal oxides leached
from the tailings.
(Click the
photo or the above
link for a larger image.)
From Silverton, we drove north,
turning east on Brooklyn Mine Road
a few miles before Red Mountain Pass. This road is a bit
north of Ophir Pass road, which is north of the S. Mineral
Creek road where we have camped. The Black Bear road was
visible after we climbed a bit. We trended north, roughly
paralleling US-550, but on the
east side of the mountains. This road became US Basin Road,
and eventually returned to US-550. Don had not been on this
road, so it was pure
exploration. He had heard from a friend that it was a fairly
good road, and indeed we had no problems.
After returning to US-550, we stopped at Red Mountain Pass to read the interpretive signs about the mines in the area and the reclamation efforts. A strange helicopter with a narrow single-seat cockpit and dual contra-rotating blade drive shafts that were close together and tilted out slightly to each side, with Canadian tail numbers, was busily shuttling pieces of pipe from a flat spot across the road up and over a mountain to the west - someone said to a mine. The long lengths of big pipe were hanging 100 feet or so below the helicopter, forming a huge pendulum, so the copter maneuvered very slowly while he got pointed the right direction and got himself and the pipe up to speed. A subsequent web search suggests that this was a Kaman K-1200 K-Max, although I found no mention that this model will operate at such high altitudes (we're near 12,000 feet).
(Click the
photo or the above
link for a larger image.)
We returned to Montrose along US-550, getting back around 4 pm
- tired from a long bumpy day. The wildflowers along the
high-altitude routes we traveled were prolific and varied. We
spent a lot of time studying them with guide book in hand, and
trying to get good photos.
The jeep scraped bottom lightly on a few occasions. I'll have to crawl under and inspect it, but I doubt if there's any damage - the contacts seemed gentle. None of these roads were a problem for us - the jeep could handle worse. We always had plenty of traction, and, with careful driving, always had enough ground clearance. These roads receive a bit of maintenance annually, since tourism is the major industry in both counties we were in (San Juan and Ouray). Commercial jeep tours and rental jeeps are a big business, and these back roads were busy with tourists in their own 4WD vehicles. I was surprised at the amount of traffic on a weekday.
8/13: After a lazy morning, we packed up and moved to Gunnnison - about a 90 minute drive east along US-50. We'd been warned about construction along this route, but we found the road freshly paved and the workers absent on this Saturday. It's a good two lane highway, although occasionally with little or no shoulder.
We stopped at Elk Creek Campground, the largest of several Curecanti National Forest campgrounds on Blue Mesa Reservoir and in the adjacent canyons. The reservoir is the biggest body of water in Colorado, and this campground is roughly 10 miles from the east end. About half of the sites (loops A and D) can be reserved, but in loop A, at least 1/3 of the sites were available (on a Saturday afternoon). In the evening, a few more sites filled, but there were still some sites available. Nearly all sites would accommodate our 33' motorhome and toad. We chose site 34, on a hill with a great view out the front window of the water and the mesas to the north and south. Sites 32 & 33 are also very nice, but have an 8pm curfew on generator use (close to amphitheater). Other nice sites - All odd-numbered sites from 37-47, 32, 36, 38, 20, 21, 22. These are all in loop A, which is closest to the water and farthest from the highway. We're far enough from the road so that traffic noise is faint and unobtrusive. Occasional boat noise on the reservoir is more of a problem. We had a nice view of the night sky, except low in the S and SE. We did not check out the other loops.
Elk Creek NFS Campground
Curecanti National Forest, overlooking
Blue Mesa Reservoir
(Click the
photo or the above
link for a larger image.)
After setting up camp and eating lunch, Helen drove the jeep to Gunnison to check the flower show venue and pick up some information. There was quite a bit of rain in late afternoon and evening and once during the night, as a procession of small thunderstorms passed through. So star viewing was limited by partial cloud cover. Dave took an early evening hike along the bluff above the reservoir, going east for a mile or so to the high point of the north shore in this area.
8/14: We packed up and moved 15 miles to Gunnison fairly early, parking the motorhome along the street adjacent to the County Fairgrounds while Helen spent several hours (it took much longer than expected) judging the Top O' The World Garden Club Standard Flower Show. The show had good entries in design and horticulture.
We got back on the road in mid-afternoon, heading east on US-50 and then northeast on US-285, a pretty drive along roads we've traveled before. We arrived back in Golden at dusk.
On this trip, we drove 819 miles in the motorhome in nine days, averaging about 9 mpg. The jeep accumulated an additional 440 miles.
We had Internet connectivity via free WiFi at Country Village RV Park, via cell phone at Dinosaur National Monument and downtown Gunnison, and no connectivity at Elk Creek Campground. We didn't check connectivity at Steamboat Springs.