Uraling to the Grand Mesa National Forest

Today I rode again with Dan K.  Both of us on our respective Ural Patrols and we headed out of Hotchkiss to the Leroux Creek Road.  We took this road north towards the Grand Mesa National Forest a few miles away.

Once the road turned from pavement to dirt, it became quite wash boarded and the riding was quite rough at times!  You have to really want to camp in this portion of the Grand Mesa National Forest because the enduring of the washboard conditions was tough.

We did find some nice looking camp spots once we were within the national forest, most of the spots taken up by vehicles and campers belonging to hunters.  It was hunting season you see, not sure for what, but every man I saw, was wearing at least one article of clothing in bright orange.

At 9600 feet (almost 4000 feet higher than the altitude at Hotchkiss), the Aspen leaves had started turning color here and there, not a lot.  Then, we happened on a large copse of Aspen which had turned early apparently, so we stopped for pics.

Moving on, we finally made it to Bailey Reservoir.  After some narrow twisting trail riding, we got to what would be a prime camping spot; if only we could get the VRRV in there.  Impossible of course due to the trail conditions, it was hard enough for the Urals to make it through:

Retracing our route back towards the south.  We tried stopping at a few spots where there were as of yet meager offerings of Fall Colors.  Of all those stops, only the last one yielded lukewarm results:

Continuing on our way back, I decided to explore a side road marked as Oak Mesa Road.  It proved to be an easily Ural-able trail going up to the top of Oak Mesa.  The view from one of the stops wasn't too shabby:

Here, we posed the rigs about 250 feet further up the trail:

We didn't get much further up, there was a gate marking the beginning of private property.  Turning around, we did explore another side trail but bagged on it no even a mile in as it looked like it went a long convoluted way out of our way.

We got back to the fairgrounds with only one mechanical issue with Dan's rig but he easily resolved it.  

We rested the rest of the afternoon and even though we'd had a light snack provided by Dan, were quite hungry by 6PM when dinner was served in the community hall building.  

The drawings for prizes was conducted prior to dinner and Dan K. won a waterproof travel moto bag.  I won a BMW air pressure gauge and cap.  Not bad swag.

The weather was moving in as we ate, so it was hurried goodbyes after the final drawings after dinner.  A good day of riding overall, we'll see if we can sneak in one more short ride tomorrow before Dan K. has to drive home with his motorhome that he, like me, uses to pull a trailer hauling his Ural.