Colorado Cruiser: Mountain Man

I heard Andrew get up a couple of times to stoke the wood stove through the night, but it finally went out sometime in the early morning. The temperature in the tent might have gotten down to 40, but I doubt it.

At about 7:00, he lit a big propane heater that warmed the tent up to near 70 degrees. I was cooking breakfast this morning, so I got up quick. I couldn't even see my breath in the air. I could really get used to this kind of camping.

Outside the tent it was very cold. The mountain east of our camp blocked the sun keeping the whole camp very cold. Everything was wet from dew and my fingers quickly got numb.

My plan for breakfast was allot of bacon, omelettes, hot chocolate, and orange juice. I diced all of the fixings before we left so I just needed to cook them before I could make the omelettes. Don't ever put raw ingredients in an omelette and expect them to cook with the eggs, they won't.

My butane cook stove had a little bit of trouble. It was so cold that the butane was coming out as a liquid rather than a gas, so I had to warm the canister a bit before it would work right. I got all of my cooked while DaveB cooked the bacon strips, then I started taking orders for omelettes.

I had everyone take a bowl and fill it with whatever they wanted in their egg. I had bacon, ham, sausage, mushroom, green onion, saute'd onion, bell pepper, and cheese. Then I'd crack 2 or 3 eggs (depending on what they wanted) and cook the omelette.

It took me about 20 minutes to make 9 omelettes and everyone seemed to like them.

By 9:00 everyone (except me) had their quads loaded and ready to ride. I've had one child's wedding this year and have another coming, so I decided to forgo the $400 quad rental. I waved goodbye to everyone, then cranked up the music and cleaned up my breakfast mess.

After cleaning up, I decided to do a little target practice with my black powder rifle. I like black powder because it's a more slow and methodical way of shooting, rather than just jamming in ammo and pulling the trigger.

For each shot I have to:

1) measure out the gunpowder (55 grains)
2) pour the gunpowder into the barrel
3) place an oiled patch of cloth over the end of the barrel
4) place a lead ball onto the patch (.54 caliber)
5) use a bullet starter to pound the ball and patch into the barrel
6) use the ramrod to push the ball all the way down to the gunpowder
7) tamp the ball tight to the gunpowder
8) put a percussion cap onto the nipple of the gun

All of this takes me about 2 minutes for each shot, plus eating a piece of beef jerky or grapes, or just sitting and enjoying the cool breeze.

Finally I can cock the rifle, aim at the target, breath slow and steady and pull the trigger gently until it fires.

The first 10 rounds were fairly wild and all over the target. Then I started controlling my breathing better, paying attention to how I was holding the gun, and relaxing a bit. The next 10 shots were all grouped in the upper left hand corner of the target.

After 90 minutes I was ready for something else, so I put everything way and decided I should go for a drive. I unpacked most of the food for dinner to leave at camp. I was sure I'd easily be back by 4:00 to cook but I thought I'd leave the food just in case. That was a good call as you'll see.

I drove the 17 miles back to the paved road, then continued south through Taylor Park. I wound through some canyons and small towns till I reached the main highway between Gunnison and Crested Butte where I turned left (south) toward Gunnison. It was a short drive into town where I gassed up and bought a case of water bottles for camp.

I headed back North toward Crested Butte. That's a small town with a ski resort. I've only been here once before, and all I did then was drive up and take a few pictures of fall colors, then drive right back out. This time I took my time and drove around town a bit. The main street is much like Breckenridge, or Estes Park. It's like with little shops and restaurants. I thought I'd grab a quick lunch, but there was absolutely no where to park. I wasn't really very hungry, so I decided to skip it for now and get lunch later.

At the end of the road, a sign pointed me left for the "Scenic" route. I was hoping it was the road to kebler pass, and it was.

Just a few miles out of town the pavement ended. But just for a couple of miles, then the pavement picked up again. I wonder why that short stretch is dirt. Maybe they have avalanches and it's just not worth repairing pavement every year. Who knows?

The road climbed and the aspen trees grew more and more yellow around me with the altitude. I stopped quite a bit to take pictures, but sometimes I just had to point the camera out the window because there was nowhere to pull over and the road was very busy.

The pavement lasted for about 12 miles. I turned around shortly after the pavement ended because I didn't want to be late getting back to prepare dinner. The return trip to Crested Butte was almost like a whole different road because I noticed different views and mountains.

I stopped at the top of Kebler pass, but there was no sign commemorating the location or altitude. I was very disappointed about that.

Back in Crested Butte I easily found a parking spot because the lunch rush was over. I grabbed a slice of pepperoni pizza at Savage pizza (or something like that). It was such good pizza that I even ate the rim.

By now it was after 2:00 and I needed to hurry back to get dinner ready. I punched the longitude and latitude into my iPhone app and asked the GPS to route me back. Just a few miles out of town, the GPS directed me to turn onto Concrete Creek road. This wasn't the way I'd come out, but looking at the map showed the road leading almost directly to camp, much shorter than the 60 miles it would take going the long way, so I followed it.

The road turned to dirt after 3 miles, but it was a well maintained road and there were many cars driving, so I figured it was a major road and kept going.

After 6 miles the road narrowed to 1 lane but it was still a nice road. At 9 miles the road crossed the river and began climbing up a hillside. I stopped to look at the road, and while I looked, a group of offroad motorcycle riders came down the road and stopped by me. I asked what the road was like and they assured me it was pretty good and I'd be fine if I knew how to drive well.

So I kept going. The road wasn't bad, but it wasn't maintained. There were lots of ruts and bumps but it was obviously well used and clearly defined.

After 15 miles I began to cross small streams and larger rocks began to protrude here and there. I passed a big camp with several tents, cars, and ATVs in it, so I knew I had some fallback if I needed it.

After 23 miles the road was mostly rocks with large bushes to each side, and the road began to ascend a bald hill. I looked at the GPS which said I was only 5 miles from camp, but I looked at that rough road and thought to myself "I have no business being on this hill". It was very hard to turn around because I was so invested in the road by now, but I slowly backed around and headed down.

By now I was well past 4:00 and too late to cook dinner. But I figured they were capable of feeding themselves and stopped worrying about it. And once I stopped worrying, I could drive slower and take more care to miss rocks. I was amazed at how high I'd climbed. It hadn't felt nearly so steep as I came up, but it sure was tricky going back down.

It took me nearly an hour to backtrack to the highway, then another 90 minutes to reach camp. They had cooked dinner and were getting ready to go looking for me when I pulled in.

When I told my story, Andrew told me that the road I was on couldn't possibly have connected to camp because our road dead ends only 3 miles on. So the GPS app (made by garmin) was leading me to a dead end anyway. The roads haven't connected for years. I've since looked on google earth and sure enough, I can't see where the roads connect. I'd have climbed to the top of that bald ridge and been stuck there.

But most of the guys also said they couldn't have stopped when I did. They'd have driven to the dead end before giving up, so I guess that's something.

I ate my pulled pork sandwich, corn, and potato salad with everyone else around the camp fire. They told me about their adventures on the quads and the views they'd seen.

I stayed up till nearly 10 looking at the stars and talking before crawling into my sleeping bag, safe and sound.

Flipping an omelette. I didn't drop a single one