Boondocking along Rampart Range Road

June 22, Monday

Martha had a mild case of "Shack Rot" so she asked to go camping in the Rampart Range Road area.  Not being one to deny my loving wife anything, I went and retrieved the URRV from storage and we were on the road by 3PM.

I managed to take a wrong turn and we lost about 30 minutes but we managed to get to the first campsite, #9, at 4:40PM.  The sight was more sloping than I remembered from the last time I camped there so we gave up and continued on down Rampart Range Road.

We got to site #13 and it proved good in terms of terrain but bad in terms of being really close to the main dirt bike trail.  Lots of dust and noisy dirt bikes but still, not too bad.  Note to self, best camping sites are on the east side of Rampart Range Road!

 Campsite #13

 An example of the dust clouds raised by vehicular traffic speeding

along Rampart Range Road

The foreground shows how close the main dirt bike trail is

to the campsite.

June 23, Tuesday

We woke to sunny skies and while I was prepping Yagi for a ride, Martha called out to me from the camping site across the road, #14.  It was a "mo better" site in terms of sun exposure, flatter and easier to maneuver in.  So while Martha sat in a camp chair relaxing and "holding" the site, I hurriedly packed up the URRV.  Just enough to move across the street, so it didn't take too long.

Martha went walking for her 10K daily steps and I set up camp again before I left on Yagi to go check out other camping site for future use.

 Campsite #14

I'd end up taking a left on Forest Road 507 and there were several more campsites there, all the way to #49!  I marked two that were nice and large for the URRV's future use.  I returned to camp and Martha as I had hit reserve on Yagi.  We relaxed the rest of the day away, reading and in Martha's case, doing some studying.

Sunset view, from a ridge north of the campsite, on the western

part of the road.

June 24, Wednesday

Did a little trail riding on FR 686 and FR868A, the entrance to which is just a short bit south of the campsite on the eastern side of the road.  Narrow but doable trail, lots of loose pea-sized gravel in parts but no big deal to Yagi.

 Along FR 686

Telephoto closeup of the southern metro area

Not much else got done but some minor hiking by me, more hiking by Martha to get her daily goal of 10K steps in.  The place was getting more and more crowded as folks started to come in for the weekend.  More cars careening down the main dirt road, trailing huge clouds of dust to cover the campsites next to the road.  Across the way, we had an older couple set up a travel trailer.  Unfortunately, with them came two youngsters who weren't capable of taking their ATV/dirt bike on the trails but were capable of seemingly endlessly circling the travel trailer within campsite 13.  I'm sure they created their own little dirt loop within, making it sure more difficult for the next and future campers.

Some notes:  Best campsites along Rampart Range Road are on the eastern side.  If camping by Rampart Range Rd, be prepared for dirt bike noise (why don't they seem to have a muffler requirement?) and large clouds of dust from idiots who can't seem to obey the 20 mph speed limit.  Definitely look into the campsites along FR 507, they're off the main road, and I don't believe there's nearby dirt bike trails to draw in the speeding bastards one finds on the main trails.

So, just a  short camping trip to help relieve Martha's case of Shack Rot.  Learned a few new things re this area for future boondocking and a new appreciation for more remote camping locations.