We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us.

~John Muir

After driving across the high plains for several days, we finally saw the sharp peaks of southern Colorado reaching for the hazy skies (fires in Wyoming brought smoky skies for our first few days in CO). The mountains at last…for many reasons, much more aligned with our spirits than the flat lands. Our main concern was that was a weekend, and, like us, people were flocking to these spiritual landscapes for relief during these trying times. Would we find a campsite? Melissa had picked a couple of areas in the Spanish Peaks, Bear Lake and Blue Lake, that had Forest Service campgrounds and some limited dispersed camping. The campgrounds were full, but a campground host recommended driving up a nearby rocky road and finding a spot. We passed one camper as we climbed until we reached the end of the road. As it was getting late, we settled for this less than ideal, but still beautiful, spot. The next morning as we headed out, the other camper had his truck hood up and, as we slowed, asked if we had jumper cables. Indeed, we did, and he was happy to have his engine running again (it would have been a long bike ride down to the campground fro assistance).

Our next stop was a beautiful area in the Rio Grande National Forest. We drove some back country roads looking for an isolated site but there were a lot of large RVs with 4-wheelers scattered throughout the valley along the creek. So, we took one of the high roads and found a pullout with a view through the trees of a nice peak with golden aspens illuminating its lower slope.

After passing through Durango, our route entered the San Juan Mountains and the glorious golds of fall aspens were a constant. Melissa steered us to what turned out to be one of the rockiest roads I have ever been on, Old Lime Creek Road, in San Juan National Forest. At about 3 miles we passed a small trailhead to Spud (actually Potato, but the locals call it Spud) Lake. We passed by hoping to find a secluded campsite and paused to ask a vehicle coming the other way about road conditions farther along as I was beginning to squeeze the steering wheel a bit too tightly. The driver, a local, said the road got worse and was mainly one lane with few good places to turn around. That convinced us to look for something back behind us. We both wanted something special since it was Melissa’s pre-birthday night campsite. We passed a small side road with huge ruts from when the area had been muddy. Melissa walked down it as I walked ahead on the main “road”, looking for a site. When we got back together, she thought we could make it past the giant ruts and camp in a grove of aspens on the side road. We carefully pulled in and set up camp and climbed a short hill above our site to a rock outcrop with a fabulous view of the surrounding peaks. This would do, indeed it would. The sunset and sunrise were fabulous and everything was perfect except for the mice that invaded our truck cab during the night. For some reason, this was the trip of the mouse, with several mice coming into the cab at night over the first several campsites…as much as I hated doing it, we ended up catching 5 mice total over several nights in a single trap I had brought along (the truck has had issues with mice ever since I accidentally left a bag of bird seed in it for a few nights in our driveway a few months ago).

The same local that told us about the roadway also mentioned that the trail we passed was an easy 1-mile hike to a beautiful lake, so we headed up there the next morning. It turns out it is a very popular trail for locals and by the time we got out a few hours later (we walked all the way around the lake) several cars were parked at the trailhead and along the road (many people gave up driving the extremely rocky road all the way to the trailhead and parked a half mile or more down the road).

Next on our itinerary was a forest service road described as one of the most beautiful in the region – Last Dollar Road. Ironically, it runs through many vast private holdings where the ranches and homes look like their last dollar (if they even have one) is a couple of orders of magnitude greater than ours would be. Melissa spotted a young coyote hunting in the open near the road so we stopped and watched it catch a couple of rodents.

She also spotted the only Elk we saw on the entire trip emerging from the brush on a private ranch along the road.

All along the road were groves of beautiful aspens in their prime fall colors. And there were lots of people out enjoying it and camping in the best spots. We kept going, hoping for a place with a view. We came through a pass and then headed down what was the steepest dirt road I have traveled and eventually popped out to an opening in the trees with a wonderful vista of distant mountains. People had obviously camped here before even though it was basically just a flat spot on an expansive talus slope. There was a small area at the edge that had solid ground and some trees where we set up our table and chairs. Like most of our campsites thus far, the talus slope was above 9000 feet in elevation, so temperatures dropped quickly as the sun slid beneath the peaks.

With so many crevices and hiding places among the field of rocks, it was a perfect habitat for small mammals (uh-oh, more mice), especially the ubiquitous chipmunks. There are 5 species of chipmunks in Colorado and everywhere we had camped, we had chipmunks that apparently had no fear of humans. While taking in the view at this site, one came up and touched my shoe, not in an aggressive way, but just curious. They can be tough to tell apart, but I think the ones we saw here were Colorado Chipmunks, Neotamias quadrivittatus. We commented on how this was also perfect habitat for one of our favorite western mammals, the Pika, but we had not heard their distinctive alarm call as we set up camp.

At breakfast the next morning, Melissa spotted one of the little rock lovers scurrying nearby. It sounded its shrill alarm and was answered by several others scattered down the slope. The place was full of Pika!

The end of Last Dollar Road takes you through Telluride, a beautiful small town that we both decided we could live in (if we came into large sums of money). Melissa’s research had found another location a short drive away that looked promising, one with open meadows and views of high mountains. The narrow road started off a bit hairy with steep drop-offs, but it wasn’t nearly as rough as some we had been on, until we finally took a rocky side road. We passed a public-access corral that had an unoccupied RV parked next to it and then we drove up a rutted path to the top of a knoll with an incredible vista. This would be our home for a couple of nights (one of the peaks in the picture below is even called Dunn Mountain!).

After setting up camp, we were visited by one, then two more, Gray Jays (aka camp robbers). Formerly called Canada Jays, these birds are known for their boldness in approaching humans and carrying off food or other items from your camp. They hung out with us for a while, hopping around on the ground, then on our table and chairs, and the top of the truck. One even was temporarily confused when it got inside the back of our truck through the open tent screen. They checked in on us several times during our stay, no doubt hoping we would be a bit careless with our food.

In addition to the jays, we had a ton of Dark-eyed Juncos, a couple of Coyotes, several raptors, and a small group of Mule Deer sharing our space (or vice versa I suppose). But no Elk, and this place just looked like great Elk habitat. After deciding to stay another night, we hiked up behind our campsite where we found plenty of sign. Elk season would start in a couple of days, so maybe they were all hiding back away from the roads due to the increase in human activity as hunters starting scouting the area. This spot had an incredible feel to it – wildness, openness, beauty, exactly what we had hoped to find on this journey.

Next stop, the dry, dusty canyon lands of the Utah desert.