August 15 – Gunnison, Crested Butte, Carbondale
While at Dillon Lake, we had several people suggest that we go to Crested Butte, and so we headed south.
After staying for such a long time in a national forest campground, we decided we needed a night at a commercial campground with hookups (to recharge everything that is chargeable) showers and laundry. We decided to stay at the Gunnison KOA. It had some nice chainsaw carvings.
But most notably, it had a lot of farm animals roaming around including several goats, donkeys and horses, a very large pig and Norman the bull. (Norman was confined to a stall, which was just fine with me.) The goats and the pig like to hang out in the sandbox, near the sign prohibiting pets in the playground.
We had a quiet day and even got some work done.
On August 16 we headed out for the picturesque town of Crested Butte. The Butte itself is quite impressive and towers over the town. We walked around the cute downtown.
Someone in town does quite impressive metal sculptures, and we detoured to take photos of St. George and the dragon.
The popular campground near Crested Butte is at Irwin Lake, rather far into the national forest. For better or worse, the campground was full and we decided to join some other boondockers at a site below the lake with a spectular view into the mountains. (The cell phone camera is too wide angle to do justice to the view.)
This was our first real boondocking experience – camping on federal land where there are no facilities (although at this particular site there were clearly several established campsites with fire pits).
Boondocking means that we have to rely on the RV and its resources for all aspects of daily life – toilet, shower, cooling, refrigeration and cooking. Our RV seems to be coming through with high colors – the black tank is filling appropriately, the water heater runs on either propane or electricity and heats the water sufficiently for a nice shower, and the space does not feel too cramped. The air conditioner needs substantial power and therefore can run only if we run the generator, which is noisy and produces noxious fumes. However, the fan runs off the house battery and quickly brings the interior to outside temperatures if there is any air intake – typically we leave a window or vent open. Nights are cold in Crested Butte — one night it was 27F at about 2 a.m. and likely got colder later. However, we found that with a quilt, a knitted afghan and a flannel sheet, we are too warm in the tiny bed – we don’t need a heater until we get up in the morning. At Crested Butte, the outside temperatures increase very rapidly once the sun is up, and so we never used the heater at all.
Our refrigerator runs on the house battery. It works very well – sometimes our ice cream is rock hard. On a sunny day in the mountains, the solar panels are sufficient to keep the house battery charged. If we drive (which we did not do in Crested Butte) about an hour of driving fully charges the battery. When necessary, the generator can also charge the house battery, but as mentioned, it is quite noisy.
Speaking of electricity, we also need to charge up all of our devices, from the phones to the electric shaver. Anything that can be charged using a USB charger can be done directly from the house battery. We also have an inverter that sends 110V current to some of our outlets from the house battery. Of course, charging anything depletes the house battery so we try to do this when the sun is high.
When we have external power, I cook using our electric frying pan, our Instant Pot or the microwave. When we do not have power, I use our propane burners. However, when we got to Crested Butte, we had lots of left-overs that would be best reheated in the microwave. Fortunately, microwave cooking is fast. We turned on the generator for 10 minutes and supper was done. Our nearest neighbor was fine with this — he turns on his generator in the morning for a few minutes to run his juicer and coffee maker. We can get away from it all, but it seems we don’t really want to!
The campsite is at the junction of several hiking, mountain biking and off-road trails. We did a short hike up a hillside the first day and then we did a substantial hike the second day, trekking through woods, around a high lake and also along the road.
Again, there were lots of wildflowers — in fact, at some points the flowers were so thick I felt I was going through someone’s garden.
Our campsite overlooked several beaver ponds, which appeared to be excellent habitat for beaver (duh!) and moose. However, in the 3 days we spent there, we saw a single mule deer and no other mammals.
On the 18th we headed for Carbondale. The road is very scenic, winding along rivers and through mountains.
We stopped for lunch at a pretty waterfall (and almost got hit on the head by rocks dislodged from the top by some incompetent hikers).
The scenery en route is lovely.
Carbondale is another cute touristy town. It is dominated by Mount Sopris. I think we were ready for a commercial campground, but we stayed instead at a municipal campground (with power) conveniently located between the highway and the main bicycle path. The campground was also nestled under Red Hill, an impressive chunk of red rock. From there we were able to cycle into town along one bike path or into Glenwood Springs along the Roaring Forks River bicycle path.
On the 19th we cycled towards Glenwood Springs. This is quite an interesting bicycle path, which goes along the river.
The terrain is interesting – although the bicycle path appeared to slope gently, the side away from the river has steep hills – red, white and grey along different parts of the trail.
After about 9 miles of constant downhill, we decided to turn around. Oddly, the configuration of the hills makes it seem as if you are going downhill in the opposite direction as well. The slope is very gentle, so only the fact that the river flows towards Glenwood Springs makes it evident that you are actually climbing on the way back.
I was eager to climb the Red Hill (MushroomMountain). Because it was very hot during the day, we decided to get up early and climb in the morning before leaving Carbondale. Parking at the base of the hiking area is tight, but we were finally able to find a spot and then climb the hill. This was a short hike to the top, from where there is a great view over the mountain and Mount Sopris.
The area is apparently very popular with mountain bikers, but I think you would need to be very good to come down the steep narrow trails. (There are also some roads that although steep, are much more reasonable for biking and can be done using a car as well.)