Colorado Cruiser: 2019 Sept Mountain Man

2019 Sept Mountain Man - Day 3

I took a break from the tough work of riding in a UTV

Last night as I went to sleep, I decided to try running the tent heater all night to see what it would be like. I left it on its lowest setting and made sure I had enough ventilation open, checked the CO alarm, and cleared everything far away from it, then went to sleep.

I woke up at 2:00am and checked the indoor/outdoor thermometer. It was 35 degrees outside, and 55 degrees inside the tent. The heater was keeping it 20 degrees warmer. I hadn't been cold the previous night, and with the added heat, I was very warm and even had my arms out of the sleeping bag some of the time.

I struggled a little falling back to sleep but eventually did.

I woke up at 5:30. I didn't lolligag today because I had to cook breakfast. The heater was already on and I left it on while I got up.

I rolled out of bed rather than sitting up, so my legs didn't cramp. I did a few stretches and exercises to warm my muscles up, then I got dressed and drove up to the latrine.

I stopped on the way back to pick up a bunch of small sticks where we'd cut firewood. We left thousands of twigs and small branches so it only took a couple minutes to pick up a big bucket full.

Back at camp I loaded the Solo Stove with a bit of paper towel, some strips of fat wood, and a bunch of twigs, then lit the paper towel. I barely waited for the fat wood to catch before I loaded 4 larger pieces of wood on top.

I started pulling food out of my trailer, tent, car, and wherever else I'd stuck it. I can often remember seeing the stuff I need, I just cannot remember where it was that I saw it, so I run around from place to place, over and over till eventually I pick up whatever was covering it and find it. Today was no exception. Eggs, potatoes, bacon, onions, all right where I expected. But the hot sauce, spatulas, spices, and a few other things took another 20 minutes to find.

Every so often I'd check on the solo stove or just stand by it to warm up. It was plenty warm by the time I had to start cutting things up and freezing my hands.

I made breakfast burritos with enough for everyone to have two and they seemed to go over well. At least no one complained of being hungry when I was done.

After breakfast I continued writing the Day 1 blog. I started in the shade of my tent, but my hands quickly got cold, so I moved out into the sun. It was warmer than yesterday and felt really good with the sun on my back.

While I sat there I also thought about what I wanted to do. I've been going non stop for nearly 3 weeks now, first with the 2 week motorcycle ride, then with catching up at work and prepping for this campout, and now with the campout itself.

I finally decided I wanted a real break for at least a day. I decided not to go on today's 4x4 ride. Instead I would go lookup some friends that have a cabin here in Taylor Park, and maybe go to Crested Butte to see the fall colors there.

I went to tell DaveW that I wouldn't be riding with him, and told a couple other guys that might want to ride in my place.

Then I got the drone out and flew around a bit trying out sport mode (scary) and some other features of the drone. I practiced smooth flying, controlled decent and got a few other fun videos.

When I heard the engines start up I swapped batteries and prepared to get a video of everyone leaving. As they took off, I waited a bit, then followed them with the drone. I even kicked it into sport mode but it's actually hard to follow someone in sport mode. After just a minute or two I stopped and let them ride away, then turned the drone around and came back.

I put the drone away and sat back down to finish the blog. Sitting there in the sun, typing the blog was very relaxing. I even put the laptop down for a while and took a short nap, listening to the birds, the sussurous of small animals in the grass and, of course, the gentle whine of ATVs in the distance.

I typed and typed until I was finally finished. It took 2 hours to get everything written. Doing these blogs is a huge investment in time, but I really enjoy going back an reading about fun trips. There's always little things I've completely forgotten and it brings back the joy I had the first time to re-remember them.

By now it was nearly 11:00, so I put everything away, closed up my tent and because the wind was really blowing, I closed the other tents as well and picked up everything that looked like it would blow away.

Then I hopped in the Highlander and started the drive out. I don't think I was much faster leaving than I had been coming in. It took almost 30 minutes to go 5 miles. After the road we were on yesterday, this really wasn't a very rough road, but it still shook the highlander as I went over some of the bigger bumps.

Once I reached the main road, I turned left. Just a couple miles later it turned into a paved road, then a couple miles after that I stopped at the Taylor Park general store. I didn't need anything, but I'd never been here before so I wanted to see what it had to offer.

It reminded me of the stores in Yellowstone. Eggs, drinks, sugar, tents, propane, live bait, snacks, etc. Just an eclectic bunch of items that they have been asked for over the years.

There was good cell service by the store so I gave my friends a call. The phone rang non-stop for many minutes before I gave up. Then I looked up their address, it wasn't far. I drove over to the house, or what I hoped was still their house. No one answered the door. So much for that part of the plan.

I had already planned to go into town, so I headed that way.

The canyon that leads from Taylor Park to Gunnison is really beautiful. In places the canyon walls are steep with nice rock formations and in other places it is gently sloped with large stands of evergreens and the occasional patch of aspen. It follows a fast running stream and the fly fishermen were out in force. Every little pullout was filled with cars and men pulling on waders or stringing their fly poles.

Some stretches of the stream had a fisherman wading out in the middle every 20 yards or so. I don't know how they kept from tangling into each other's lines or why they'd bother with so many people around.

Once I reached the main road I turned South toward Gunnison. I wanted to pick up some mushrooms for tonight's dinner. I'd forgotten them and it was only 7 miles to town from here. I got my mushrooms then decided to go to McDonalds for lunch. Not that I'm a huge McD's fan, but I really really wanted a nice clean salad after all the protein and carbs I've had this week and they always have good wifi.

My salad was great and so was the wifi. I uploaded a few pictures to facebook, answered a few emails, and called my wife.

After lunch I headed back North. The highway up to Crested Butte runs up a small valley with large stands of Aspen on the surrounding hills. I went almost all the way to Crested Butte and saw very little fall colors. I guess it was just a bit early, so I turned back toward Taylor Park.

I enjoyed the drive up the canyon again but didn't stop at the general store.

Just as I got to the Texas Creek turnoff a Quad pulled up on a trail to cross the road. It was DaveB just finishing their ride. My camera wasn't ready, so I didn't get any pictures of him.

I turned behind him and a few minutes later I saw Jayson come up behind me on his quad, then Thad in his, continuing to function, Razr. I pulled over to let them pass, then stopped to get a video of DaveW but he never came past. I waited 3 or 4 minutes before giving up and continuing on to camp.

It was only 4:00 so I didn't need to cook dinner yet.

Everyone started pulling out their rifles and pistols to do a little target practice. I had brought a black powder rifle and a shotgun, but I'd forgotten to buy clay pigeons before the trip, and I'd also forgotten when I was just in Gunnison. So, instead, I got out the drone and carefully took some video of everyone shooting at anything that moved.

Not really. They defined some shooting lines, some targets, and were very good about gun safety. The shooting didn't seem to last very long, just an hour and a half or so.

I started gathering the stuff for dinner at 5:00. Another round of "Where did I put that?" ensued but eventually I found everything.

The wind was really blowing and stealing all the heat out from under my griddle. DaveB suggested I pull my trailer over to act as a wind block and that really helped.

I was cooking zucchini mushrooms onions and bacon for one dish. Potatoes onions and bacon for another dish, and pulled pork sandwiches as the main dish.

I started by rendering all the bacon till it was half done, then storing some of the grease to use in cooking the rest. The zucchini takes the longest. I have to cook it until it looks nearly burned, but all those dark brown spots is the best part. I wimped out and stopped about 20 minutes too soon. I felt it was taking too long to get dinner ready so I stopped before it was really read and started the rest of the meal.

The food was all good, but the zucchini would have been better if I hadn't flinched. No one complained and there was only about 1 helping of veg and potatoes left when everyone was done.

I picked all the bacon out of what was left, then fed the rest to the dog.

The rest of the evening was spent watching the fire and laughing. It's not hard to laugh when you get a funny bunch of guys that like each other, around a camp fire.

I didn't fully clean up after dinner. I was tired and ready to relax by the fire.

There was still at least half of our firewood left, and DaveB was determined to burn it all before the night was over. Including a bunch of evergreen branches they had to trim earlier in the day.

Geoff decided to Kaia (the dog) some of the left over pulled pork. We all watched as he tried to get her to speak and shake hands. Then Ben got up and showed us just how many tricks she could do including crawling, spinning, waiting, and a few others.

Every 10 to 20 minutes, DaveB would get up, walk over to the log pile and grab another massive log and chuck it on the fire. The fire was growing faster than it was burning logs off, and as it grew, everyone would scoot back a bit, then a bit more.

When we arrived at camp, it had 2 big logs positioned for sitting around the fire. We weren't using them because we all had chairs. But soon we'd backed up against them and couldn't go back further. So I got up and rolled the one behind me out of the way so I could move back in increments.

Eventually I was a good 15 feet back from the fire and still sweating. My face, stomach, and legs were hot but my back was freezing cold so I finally pulled the chair back another 10 feet and just stood up so I could play like a rotisserie and slowly turn to keep all sides warm.

And still DaveB fed the fire. Chris too started adding logs in the hopes of getting it all finished. I thought for sure we had stayed up till 11:00pm, but when I checked the time on the last picture, it was only 9:15 when we called it a night and went to bed. Some wild and crazy guys we are.

I did get some interesting action shots as they would toss those big logs onto the fire. The mass of embers shooting into the sky was pretty cool.

For some strange reason, DaveW left one single log when he went to bed. We asked if he was going to burn it and he just said No and walked off.

I stayed for a few more minutes, then headed for my own bed.

Jayson's hammock camping setup