Glamping at/near Green Mountain Reservoir, CO

Monday, Aug 19.

After meeting with our financial planner, I left the cesspool that is the Metro Denver area and headed for the mountains!

I arrived at the Green Mountain Reservoir area campgrounds shortly before noon and chose a site in the South Cow Creek Campground run by the US Forest Service, the sites aren't too close to each other and there's pit toilets and garbage dumpsters for our use.  Note, of the US FS sites around the reservoir, this is the only one where you can do reservations, the rest are first come first served.

After setting up camp and paying the $18 camping fee, I left on Fiona to circumnavigate the reservoir.

I must try and remember for next time, if you pick a site near water, look for mosquitoes.

I found a couple of other campsites that were empty so I'll probably try one of those tomorrow.

There's the settlement of Henney on the west side of the reservoir, not much there, didn't see a soul and there wasn't that many houses.  I think it's more of a weekend location for people who like to boat on the reservoir.  BTW, despite the signs on CO9 highway advertising Fuel, there is none available that I could find.

I then headed back south about 15 miles to the outskirts of the town of Silverthorne and found a gas station to fill up Fiona and the spare five gallon gas can for the generator and Yagi, the TW200.

On the way back I checked out Ute Pass Road and found some good candidate spots for tomorrow's morning light, more on that in future post.  I also found a large industrial complex which turned out to be the Henderson Mill.  Not sure what they mill there, my internet access is spotty at best and non-existent at the campsite.

I have to ride out to the campground's fee station to get enough 4G signal to check email/texts and to check in with the family.  I am liking this not having to have good cellular internet signal, it sure opens up the number of sites one can use.

Tuesday, August 20

Rode out on Fiona to check out the peak views from near the top of Ute Pass Road as planned:

I swung by the settlement of Henney to take a pic of this classy establishment's sign:

I got back to camp, did a short hike and found a local:

Displaced to the Elliot Campground across the reservoir, less people and I had found a nice spot beforehand and after checking, it was still available.  In fact, the whole section was available, so for most of the day, I had that section all to myself.

Hot day, didn't do too much riding in the heat, choosing instead to relax in the shade and read my e-book: Asimov's Foundation Series.  Read them way back in high school, enjoying them again.

Around 1700, it cooled off enough for me to head out and explore a couple of route.  First up was the road to the Cataract Lake campground, which turned out to be quite doable by RV but the sites were too small for Uma, the URRV.  You have to hike to see the lake and I skipped that as it was late in the day.

A view of my campsite from across the reservoir

Next up, I saw some Bighorn Sheep on the rocks across from my campsite.  I got in close and got some shots.

Then, after exhausting the angles and the sheep's patience, I headed back out to CO9 to explore County Road 381, just across the border into Grand County.  Turns out, it's an access road to BLM land!  The plan is to go there tomorrow.  I did ride Yagi a bit into the BLM land to check out conditions and it quickly became a trail that one shouldn't do alone so I stopped at this point:

Returning to the campsite, caught a pretty nice post-sunset cloud colorations:

Wednesday, Aug 21

Left the Elliot campsite around 9AM after a leisurely breakfast and packing up.  Didn't have far to go, just a couple of miles or so to the border between Grand and Summit Counties on CO9.  North of that is CR 381 which leads one to BLM land.  You have to negotiate unlocked gates but no big deal.

There's only really a couple of sites flat and big enough for RVs and luckily there was no one else camping there.  Could be because it's not a marked BLM camping site on allstays.com.  Got set up with no issues, did a garbage pickup detail and after lunch it was time for some riding with Fiona, my '99 Ural Patrol with the Beemer engine.

I rode the same road that I had ridden with Yagi yesterday.  But kept going all the way to the very top where it becomes part of the White River National Forest.  I got as high as the towers for the power lines shown on the maps.  Easy-peasy for the torquey R80 BMW engine on Fiona.

Coming back down it was time for pictures, I didn't even use the engine or gears on part of it; just relying on the brakes to slow me down as I moved down the rocky trail.

Managed to knock the left side muffler off, not once but twice in rapid sequence on some deep ruts.  The first time I managed to just bang it back onto the header pipe but the second one bent the mounting tab too much.  I zip tied it in place and Fiona sounded like Harley-Davidson motorcycle the last mile back to the URRV!

As you can below, the tab was bent forward, a little judicious tapping with the BFH straightened it out and I was able to put the muffler back on with no further issues.

I then rode a bit over 4 miles to check in with the family at the fee station for the South Cow Creek campground.  You get two bars of 4G LTE there for Verizon.  I must say I like the freedom that not having to have cellular access to the Internet all the time is giving me; but it does have some minor negatives as well.

Now enroute towards Vail area.