Trail riding near WyoColo and a Recce of my next campsite.

Friday, Jul 31

Long day in the saddle with Yagi but so worth it in the end!

Spent the morning checking out a couple of forest roads that start from the vicinity of the hamlet called WyoColo.  An obvious combination of Wyoming and Colorado, located near the border of the two states.  Sort of like OreIda which I always thought was just a name for a potato products company but I found later is located at the border of Oregon and Idaho, hence OreIda!

Anyways, the trails took me through portions of the Medicine Bow National Forest which have been heavily logged in the past.  I didn't see any recent cuts but lots of evidence of old cuttings with wood debris and torn up land almost everywhere you look.  Kind of depressing, I kept telling myself it was probably a culling done to stop the spread of the Pine Beetle infestation.

I rode FR 898 all the way to the Pelton Creek Campground to check it out but it was closed.  I also tried a few miles on the road to Fox Park.  Here's a view of Medicine Bow Mountain from Fox Park Road.

I got back to CO 127 and took a national forest access road which ended up dumping on the road that leads to the North Sand Hills Rec Area!  As I was that close to Walden, I decided to go there to get more gas for Yagi (got 80 miles on 1.06 gallons MPG) and a stop at the hardware store for some self-tapping screws to fix the ramp on the trailer.  (Broken welds)

Leaving Walden, I went back to Cowdrey and took the road towards Independence Mountain to check it out, so glad I did.

Less than ten miles later, I think, I went up BLM Road 2504 which was narrow and steep and gravelly in parts.  Still, Yagi, made it up with no issues and I went to the very top for pics:

Wandering around the top, I found possible campsites!  They even had 1 bar of LTE signal at them!  I saw a couple of guys working on BLM signs and asked them; they believed camping was OK as long as its on National Forest or BLM land.  There's STL or State Trust Land close by where camping is prohibited.

I checked out a less steep and smoother road, Jackson County 7B which also leads back to the main road and I believe it's quite doable by the URRV.

I went down and back up to the top on County 7B to make sure then descended one last time today on BLM 2504 for pics:

Riding back to my campsite, I debated the urge to displace immediately to these new sites on top of the mountain but ended up deciding to wait till at least Sunday.  I may go back on Saturday to  see if the sites were taken or not.

I am curious to find out how busy the present area I'm in gets on the weekends.

Finally, the windy conditions (mostly in the afternoon) here in southern Wyoming have led me to try tying down via tie-down straps the apex of the support arms for the awning when deployed.  First time ever doing this so not sure how it'll work out.

It's been doing OK in the mild winds of today since I put the straps on, but it's been less than an hour as I type this.

Before, strong gusts of wind would cause the support arms to rock making me worry about the base they're attached to and making some rather disconcerting noises.  It would almost always cause me to roll up the awning, even when the winds weren't really that bad!

Now, the support arms don't move at all, only the awning material itself, which should be OK.

I'll report when the winds are strong enough to rip the screen door from my hand though I think by that time, the awning will be stowed away!