Internet and phone connection has been sketchy, at best, where we have been at. You hit a decent sized town and you can get online, but where we've been camping... Forget about it.
Our first campsite was at 9200 ft elevation near Granite, CO on Low Pass Gulch, which feeds into the Arkansas River. What these people call county roads wouldn't pass for a cattle trail in Oklahoma... I understand there is only so much space to build a road on the side of a mountain but jeez! A single lane dirt road with several blind spots and no pull-offs to let opposite direction traffic pass for miles is just crazy... I'm not backing up!
This is a view of the Collegiate Mountains (not sure which ones) from near our campsite. The dirt road you see is a County Road in Chaffee/Lake County.
My younger son, Aaron, and I hiked up to the tree-line on the surrounding mountains. Starting at 9200 feet makes it a lot easier, but still a bit breath-taking (pun intended) for someone who lives most of his life at 700 feet above sea level.
This view is from our hike up. Below you can see my truck and my other son, Gary II, near our campsite.
This is a view from just below the treeline at about 10,500 feet.
We camped here for two nights and woke to frost both mornings. No major wildlife sightings even though the mountains are covered with Deer and Big Horn Sheep droppings. Did see a few rabbits and chipmunks. The morning we left my jugs of water had ice in them and it was snowing on the mountains to the West of us.
Snowing on the mountains to our West.
From there we headed South to Point Bar. Point Bar is just South of Salida, CO on the Arkansas. It is a joint venture between the BLM, Colorado State Parks and The GPAA (Gold Prospectors Association of America). You can camp for free and actually mine for gold there.
It is a cool site and we actually found some gold. It is much warmer down here at 7000 feet. I have been sleeping on top of my sleeping bag for most of the night. The weather has been good for the most part. No heavy rain, but it has clouded up and sent us a few drops every day not allowing it to get too hot.
We ran into a couple of guys that we met at Low Pass Gulch yesterday at Point Bar and they informed us that it had been snowing in Leadville (elevation approximately 10,500 ft.) the night before (May 31st)... and I thought March snows were bad...
We're taking a break from camping for today and tonight to let my weary old bones rest and get caught up on some e-mail and other online stuff... Plus the Rattlesnake we encountered at Point Bar yesterday kinda freaked Aaron out... It was cool and he wasn't moving very fast, but it didn't stop him from showing his fangs and shaking that rattle at the top of his tail. Probably should have killed it, but I figured he was there before me... (Sorry, didn't have my camera with me to get a pic).
Here are a few more shots of the mountains for you to enjoy...
A view of some of the Fourteener's (Mountains with 14K+ feet of elevation)
One more majestic view of the Colorado Rockie Mountains
