Displacing to Mushroom Gulch Road, near Buena Vista, CO

Tired of the crowding we'd seen and experienced, and with mounting evidence of even more inbound fifth-wheeled/SxS-laden campers, we displaced away from Taylor Park this morning.  In turns out, this area is a widely known and reported on as an area for OHV explorations.  Too popular for me, I doubt I'll be back.

Someone must have spotted us packing up because no sooner had the VRRV left the campsite but two fifth wheel trailers where positioned at the mouth of the access road to grab the spot!

Although there were six large fifth wheel rigs ahead of me trying to leave the area, I saw more rigs and cars and SxS/ATVs roaring inbound in clouds of dust.  It was almost a traffic jam.

At the turn off towards Cottonwood Pass, I turned left and all the damn rigs kept on going towards CO 135.  Martha had gone ahead towards Buena Vista to get some groceries.  I saw her CR-V parked at the pass summit.  She apparently spotted me and filmed the VRRV as it made its way down from the summit.

Pics by Martha of the Cottonwood Pass Summit area:

I cruised on through to Buena Vista and got onto US24 heading east out of town.  I turned onto County 307's eastern entrance and soon turned left onto County 308 aka Mushroom Gulch Road.  Found a nice, almost level campsite.  It's part of a long narrow group sized site but there was only one other rig at the other end from me.  It also looked like someone had left a portable canopy to "hold" a spot but not sure.

Here's a couple of shots of our campsite.  It's quite better, in terms of surrounding environment, than the Taylor Park site!  Not as great a view but the lack of people is so much better.

After lunch, before which Martha had rejoined with me, she relaxed in the VRRV while I went on a recce ride with Yagi, my TW200 to scout out possible future campsites.  There turned out to be several more site, some large, some small, most all doable by the VRRV.

County 308 provides access to this wide open valley/meadow area....quite nice.

The site we're in has no cell signal so it's definitely a Starlink site!

Short Hikes for Wild Flowers and Mountains

Martha and I took the Honda CR-V the 45 miles or so to Crested Butte, CO this morning.

Our first stop was the Brush Creek Trailhead, which is a few miles from the city of Crested Butte itself.  The skies were overcast while we were on the trail and the distant mountains and hills were quite hazy due to the Canadian Wildfires' smoke.

Here's Martha's point of view of the same trail's offerings:

As you can see, the flowers are a little bit past "peak" bloom.  The Crested Butte Wild Flower Festival was last week so I guess they timed it right this year.

We next drove through the traffic morass that was summer traffic in the cities of Crested Butte and Mount Crested Butte (Ski Resort) in order to get to the historic town of Gothic.

Crested Butte

The town used to be a ghost town I think, but now is quite revived with the operation of the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory.  Apparently started as a place for college kids to study in the 1900s, now more of a research effort.

We drove right through town and to a nearby trailhead overlooked by Mount Gothic's regal rock formations.

Mount Gothic

Martha's take on this trail:

On the way back, the Moose Cow and Calves we'd seen on the way into Gothic were still there.  I stopped safely off the road, unlike the idiots who decided to block the narrow road, to allow Martha to walk towards the moose's location about 2 tenths of a mile away.

Momma Moose

Can you spot the calf?

Once I could tell Martha was done with pictures, I drove up to her and picked her up.  The lane of traffic heading towards Gothic was blocked with parked cars while their Touron passengers continued viewing the moose.

Fortunately, the outbound to Crested Butte lane was open for us to leave the area.

We drove back to camp, to find we had new neighbors.  Oh well.

Then, the techno-crap music started.  We thought it was the new neighbors and tried to tolerate it for a while, no good.

We walked towards our new neighbor but it turned out the noisome bass noise was actually coming from further away!  So we continued onto that campsite and encountered a bunch of teenagers with no apparently adult supervision.

We asked the kid who walked up to us to please turn down the music.  Nurse Martha has her suspicions about the level of impairment evidenced in the kid's eyes.  Still he and a nearby girl agreed to lower the volume.

It took a few minutes for the noise levels to come down but they finally did.  We're hoping things will stay quiet but if not, we do have connectivity and the County Sheriff's number!  

So, an imperfect end to a good day of wild flower hunting.  Such is apparently camping in Colorado during the school summer vacation period.

Now Boondocking near Taylor Park Reservoir, CO

I left the Westcreek area on Sunday, the day was going to be rainy and cold.  Besides, Martha had called the night before and reported the battery once again dead in the 2014 Honda CRV that we use as a towed vehicle when camping.

I was home by noon or so and determined the alternator was putting out a charge so it had to be the battery.  I'd had it checked very recently, as mentioned in the previous post, but it wasn't taking a charge.  It had been on a charger overnight.

A quick run to Walmart and I removed the battery in the Auto Center parking lot.  It was very hot to the touch!  I was barely able to hold it in my hands to carry it inside to exchange it for a new battery.

The clerk said it was probably leaking on the inside.  I don't know for sure, I do know I'd never had a battery be so hot before!   Anyways, $120 later, I had the new battery installed and all should be well.  It was a six year old battery.

Today, Monday, July 22.

Martha and I left home with the CRV in tow around 9:30 and were in the Taylor Park Reservoir Area about 4 hours later.  We tried a couple of spots, lost some time trying to level the VRRV in the second spot with no luck.  The third spot proved doable in terms of leveling though some work might be needed later on.

The weather was quite nice in the afternoon, sunny but not hot.  Here's a shot of the camp as I worked to set things up.  Definitely a Starlink required site, we were barely getting a 3G signal otherwise.

We'll be exploring the area over the next few days.  Martha also wants to check out the Wild Flowers in the area near Gunnison, CO.

Tuesday was a lazy day for us.  Bonus: The two nearby campers left by 1PM so we have the area basically to ourselves!

Sunset was meh:

Boondocking near Westcreek, CO

I finished the replacement of the stator and pulser assemblies on Yagi, my TW200 on Wednesday of this week.  The work went pretty smoothly though slowly as it was something I wanted to get right the first time.

I almost misrouted the wire harness connected to the stator but caught my error fast, thankfully I'd taken pictures as I went.

Old and New Stator with associated wire bundles, as you can see, my crappy repair attempts were, at best, suspect and unreliable.

old

new

I carefully replaced the cover, with new gasket, ensuring I routed the new wires correctly out to the CDI module.  Once everything was buttoned up, Yagi fired right up!  

Later in the afternoon, a test ride went fine, no issues with ignition or the engine running.  I would do one more test ride on Thursday, again no issues.

Today, I left the crowded cesspool that is the Metro Denver area with Yagi on the front cargo rack of the VRRV.  Destination was dispersed camping near Westcreek, CO.

The area is basically north/northwest of Woodland Park, not far from where I was camping last on Rampart Range Road.

I was to meet with a neighborhood friend, Bob W., who was coming up with his camping trailer and his Yamaha dual sport.   I've ridden with Bob W. a few times, even once while in Moab, UT when we were camping near there.  LINK

I got to the area first and found us a pretty good spot with a view:

As you can see, it was an overcast kind of day but warm, in the 70s.

After setting up camp, I did a police call and found the area not too full of litter.

Then, a quick ride to check out the neighborhood:

Umarang, my VRRV, from the next door campsite

The sun came out briefly....

Bob W. showed up sometime after 1PM and his rig was setup and leveled by 2PM.

Tonight's sunset, I hope its a good omen for good riding this weekend with Yagi and Bob W.