Left the BLM site near Green Mountain Reservoir before 8AM so I could take a call with my financial guy while parked in the Safeway parking lot in the town of Silverthorne. Good 4G connectivity in town of course and business concluded, I uploaded pics and post verbiage for the last three days.
Next it was a short ride on the I-70 Superslab, heading west to exit 190 which leads one to Shrine Pass Road as well as a rest area for drivers.
I had previously found a likely boondocking spot but it turned out to be occupied by another RV'er and besides, it was a lot smaller and sloping than I remembered. Oh well, at the three mile mark from the exit, I found a nice big spot, you could put three RVs in here and still have some room between the units. For now, I've got it all to myself
You'll note the TV antenna is listing...some part broke near the base that is involved in holding it up raising it up. For now, I've fixed it using a block of wood to wedge it upright. All for nought on this site because even with the weboost cellphone booster, couldn't get any kind of decent connectivity (though two bars LTE were displayed).
No matter, I am less than a half mile from a nice spot near the previously mentioned candidate spot and I get great connectivity there for posting blog content and Internet access as needed. The camping site I'm on is good to go for voice calls however, so the family can reach me easily enough.
Less than a mile from my campsite
After the above pics, I decided to check FR781, there's a sign showing Lime Creek Road at the start, and it was a pretty easy dirt road (some rocks here and there to watch out for). It climbed for a few miles and I found several spots where I had Internet connectivity. I even found one spot by side of the road, near where the road is closed at the end, where I could conceivably park the URRV. Maybe next time if the easier and closer spots are all taken.
Coming down the mountain and back to the highway, I decided to get a pic of the Vail Pass sign and see if there was any mountain scenery worth capturing.
Turns out, not much besides the sign. I rode the ten miles west to the next exit, Vail East. From there it was frontage roads at less than superslab speeds (not Yagi's best medium) and about another five miles later, found a Conoco gas station in Vail West.
Tanked up, checked in with the family, and then headed on back to the campsite. Basically 19.5 miles from that gas station in Vail West to the URRV, not too bad. The rains which had started at noon (it even hailed for a little while since I'm camped at 11,000 feet elevation) turned to gray cloudy skies.
August 23
Woke up late, missed the pre-sunrise, but it felt good. Ran the heater overnight as it got into the mid-40s here at 11,000 ft altitude.
It was still feeling a bit "brisk" when I headed out, but wearing the windproof jacket liner helped a lot. I tried for both Sawmill Gulch and Wearyman Gulch trails but both were closed by the Forest Service due to a massive landslide and high water levels according to the signs.
I did spot the ruins of some old cabin structures off to the side, and stopped to take a quick look. Not much left but did find a painted stone left by a previous camper next to a fire ring near the structures.
So I kept on going the 8 miles to the small town of Redcliff.
Just before I got to the town limits, I passed by this cool looking VW bus conversion. Perhaps a future project for SonjaM and Roland and their Ziggi?
I wandered about the town a bit, noted several homes and stores for sale and not many folks walking about.
I like the look of the house in the center of the picture
Done with the tour of the town, I rode north for a short bit looking for some scenery off of westbound US24:
Returning to a eastbound heading on US24, I was soon at the site of Camp Hale. The home of the 10th Mountain Division, created in early years of WWII. It was the US Army's only division trained in mountain warfare and the area around Camp Hale was its training grounds. Here soldiers learned to climb mountain, become ski troops and apparently a lot of them would return to the US after the war to help start the ski industries of Colorado.
Not much left behind that one can see, just a big flat valley and blocked off areas where they've discovered asbestos contamination.
While tooling around, I stopped at one information sign to read and when I went to start Yagi back up, nothing. No lights, no ignition.
I took the seat off and verified connections to the battery were tight, next was checking the fuses. The TW200 has two 20 Amp fuses, one is a spare, both located behind the right side cover. Sure enough, the "active" fuse was dead. I put the spare fuse in and Yagi started right up.
Of course, now I had no spare and wondering what caused the fuse to break in the first place. I suspected the turn signal, which had been giving me trouble again. I rode over to a nearby ATV Guide/Rental place and spoke to their mechanic and got a spare 20 Amp fuse for a couple of bucks.
As I chatted with the mechanic, he mentioned I should try and ride up to the top of Resolution Mountain and he gave me some instructions on the route. Having the new spare fuse, I felt confident enough to try and off I went.
The road up, FR 702, wasn't too bad in terms of loose rocks/ruts and gravel. Just a couple of points that might be considered technical but otherwise no issue for Yagi. She got me to the top and of course, one was blocked again from going down the other side of the mountain due to landslides and high water. You can end up in Wearyman Gulch by this route you see.
So I turned around, not feeling up to the steep hike up to the real top of the mountain where one can see a square building of some sorts.
Not a bad view from near the top of Resolution Mountain
Tallest peak is Mount of the Holy Cross
I got back down the mountain with no issues, using first gear and engine braking on the gnarly parts and mostly 2nd gear for the rest to basically coast my way down to the valley. Got back on westbound US24, back to Redcliff, back to Shrine Pass Road and swiftly getting back to the URRV campsite. No issues, and didn't go into reserve on the gas tank with 84 miles on the clock! It's a 1.8 gallon tank and reserve means about .5 gallons left.
The rest of the afternoon was mostly cloudy and cool, with occasional spots of warm sun when clouds permitted it.
4 comments:
No ignition or no starter? Different circuits…
Not needing Internet really increases your options!
Hmmm, nice van conversion. Not sure if we have enough snow to justify changing specs of Siggy right now, though ;-)
True SonjaM, file it in case of a new ice age.
The one relay that’s easily found seems to be for turn signals....must delve more into circuit paths but yeah that one fuse rendered lights, starter.....
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