July 8 - 18, 2006:  Gunnison/Ouray/Moab

Magnificent scenery, non-stop togetherness and awesome camping made this trip a home run.  This was our longest trip yet with the babies.  I wasn’t at all sure how it would go, but thanks to Tracey’s low expectations, we got through it, had a great time and made some memories.

Every time I go out west, I am re-amazed.  The terrain is always more dramatic than I remember.  This year, we wanted to camp again, but wanted to try something new.  2 years ago, we rented a class C RV and loved it but it was pricey.  Last year, we tented and agreed never to do that again.  Too much work.  This year, we decided to try renting a popup camper.  1/3 the cost of the RV and far more convenient than a tent.  It’s great to have counter space, running water, a frig and lights.  I found a great dealer, Roberts Sales, in Denver and reserved it and made all the camping reservations last January.

My favorite piece of gear this time was our new Scheel’s cargo carrier, $80.  Had looked at $400 Thule and DPS cargo boxes, but this thing holds just as much for a fraction of the price and bulk.  With 3 kids, even our beloved minivan fills up, and this thing (plus our Thule classic up top) was essential.

Day 1, Saturday, 7/8/06

We left home at 3:00 am.  Put the kids in the car in their pajamas.  We were in Lincoln, NE before Tracey woke up.  Made it to the RV dealer by 1:15.  Still not sure how we made such good time.  Picked up the camper in the rain and headed for Chatfield State Park south of Denver where we got used to setting up the rig and Tracey made dinner.  That evening, Quinn and I played horseshoes and I made a ringer.  Not to be outdone, Quinn then threw one that landed upright.  Honestly.  When we walked over to take a picture, it fell over from the vibrations of our steps.

Day 2, Sunday, 7/9/06

In the morning, our trip began for real.  We took US 285 over Kenosha Pass and I was stunned by the expanse of South Park.  Big country.  The Dolomite cliffs outside of Gunnison are in-your-face geology.  Creationists cower as this plain, wide-open book tells the story of ancient volcanoes and massive tectonic uplift.

We made it to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and found our campsite filled with big puddles.  The campground host, Jim Haines, told us just to choose any open site, so we moved to B5.  Jim is one of those guys who’s perfect for the job, congenial and capable.  Later, when he made his rounds in his utility truck, Tate yelled, “Hi, Jim”.  Tate was a constant source of joy and other attitudes.

After one failed attempt (Quinn went kerplunk when a cable broke) I succeeded in putting up the hammock.  Wild turkeys and ptarmigans (or partridges, I'm not sure) roamed the area.  Tracey got things organized inside the camper and we headed out for the Rim Drive.  I was happy to hear Tracey gasp when she first saw the Black Canyon at Tomichi Point.  I don’t think people realize how underappreciated Black Canyon really is.  We drove to Painted Wall as well.  Its massive granite cliffs and thick veins of quartz convey an austere grandeur that is unmatched.   Quinn had been at the top of the Empire State Building with his mom only weeks earlier.  I was excited because we were planning to hike to the bottom and back the next day, equivalent to taking the stairs at the Empire State Building up and down twice.  Just had to check it out with the ranger first…

These are from our Big Trip Out West in 2001.  The canyon hasn't changed much, but Quinn has:

That evening, we had supper and relaxed with s’mores and stale jokes around the campfire.  Quinn used the word ‘shit’ like he was an adult.  Oh, and Tate regularly says ‘Oh, damn’, but his tone is so sweet it sounds anything but profane.

Day 3, Monday, 7/10/06

I got up before the others and did a dawn hike to the rim:  still, quiet and filled with ethereal light.  I walked along a hanging side canyon.  Due to low rainfall, the side canyons lag behind the main canyon in depth and empty into it high up on the cliff walls.

We had cereal and did the short rim hike to the Visitor Center.  The ranger said the hike to the bottom of the canyon was doable, but informed us of the hazards.  Some older folks overheard us and advised me to do it early in the morning and take lots of water.  “Always take good advice” is something I live by, so we did.  It rained that afternoon, so we lazed about in the camper until the babies woke up, then did the East Portal drive to the bottom of the dam.  Man, I’d been to Black Canyon twice before, in 1980 and 2001 and had no idea the bottom was accessible at all, let alone by car.  16% grades but only 20 minutes.

Day 4, Tuesday, 7/11/06

Early next morning, Quinn and I took off for the Oak Flat trailhead.  “River Access” marked the way to the Gunnison Route, the easiest trail to the bottom, but far from easy.  1/3 of the way down there’s a chain to help you descend through talus, but the scree doesn’t end there.  It’s loose rock most of the way down from there.  This required us to take turns traversing sections, then getting up out of the way so the other guy could come down.  This prevented the bottom guy from getting beaned (killed) by falling rock.  It took us 2:45 to reach the bottom instead of the estimated 2 hours, but I wouldn’t go any faster, particularly with kids along.  This cautious approach was a bit draining and reduced the fun factor.  I found out that I like hiking as long as I have sure footing.  Risk is no fun to manage.  I’d rather just exert and gawk.

At the bottom, we snacked, took pictures and celebrated reaching the halfway point of our hike.  10 minutes later, we were climbing out, which was much easier than going down since we knew the way.  We saw an exquisite spider web.  The silk was so fine as to be invisible except for those segments that were at just the right angle to refract the sunlight.  These segments together seemed to form a sphere of butane blue lines.  Visual ecstasy.  We saw two more farther up.  Tracey was waiting for us at the Visitor Center.  We got out with no injuries, not even poison ivy.  Well worth the effort, but not a hike I’d do again with kids.  Too much caution required to be safe.

We packed up the camper and headed for Ouray, our main destination with 3 nights of camping scheduled.  As we pulled into town, we had a Wally World moment:  the municipal hot springs was empty.  Of water.  I tried to deny that my heart was sinking and Quinn nearly had a meltdown.  Tracey immediately saw the humor in the situation.  We made camp at Amphitheater campground and after some checking, we found that the hot spring would reopen Thursday at 10 am, so we headed for the Weisbaden Hotel for Plan B.  They had a small outdoor 102 F. pool and an indoor Vapor Cave, which was a real cave with flowstone and a very hot sort of Turkish bath.  I loved it, but a thunderstorm blew up forcing us inside where the kids were very disruptive of the serene atmosphere, so we got out of there within an hour, just happy to get showers.

We had dinner at the Silver Nugget, strolled the shops, got some ice cream and headed back to camp.  Amphitheater is our all-time favorite campground.  A stunning view and the respectful, peace-seeking National Forest clientele gave it an elevated feel, sort of a natural retreat, a church for pagans.  I was in heaven.

Day 5, Wednesday, 7/12/06

I had a hike planned for the morning to the Chief Ouray Mine and Upper Cascade Falls.  The abandoned mine equipment and the waterfall made good goals for the 2.4 mile hike.  Our favorite gear for the trip were our Kelty kid carriers.  Tate and Macy love riding and it’s just so intimate to be carrying your kid out in Nature’s glory.  The rhythm of your gait and the heft of their bodies on your back is like walking as one.

We saddled up and headed out.  And up.  All up, which was almost okay except for the thinning air and the loose rock on the trail.  Hiking is supposed to be fun, so we turned around about 2/3 of the way up.  We headed into town and had the brakes checked at Timber Ridge Service.  They had started squeaking and we learned that our front right brake pad was gone at 34,000 miles.  Great service station with great people, so we made an appointment to come back Thursday morning.

That afternoon, Tracey did laundry while I took the kids to the playground.  While the clothes were drying, we headed for Box Canyon, which was a real winner.  Cheap, city-run attraction with excellent steel walkways so you could really get up close.  At the bottom, there’s a spring that feeds the Municipal Hot Spring.  It’s all heated by a magma chamber under the whole area.

That evening, we met some campers and Quinn played with their boys, which was great.  I held Macy by the fire until she fell asleep, then after everyone was in bed, I stayed up and looked at the stars.  Saw a meteor burn up, ending a 4 billion year journey.  The moon, waning, rose over the cliffs and stood watch over our campsite. 

Day 6, Thursday, 07/13/06

The next day, our new friends, Gary and Roseanne, made pancakes for everyone.  DELICIOUS.  Nothing like coffee and bacon in the morning while camping.  We drove down the mountain and dropped off the car and walked a few blocks to the hot spring.  Still closed.  Argh, now it’ll open at 4 pm.  Ever flexible and positive, we headed for Lower Cascade Falls, an easy hike at the end of 8^th Ave in Ouray.  Glorious.  Then, still killing time, we hiked to the Baby Bathtubs, a beautiful water-sculpted streambed near the campground.  Tate loved the water, but it was hard to rein him in and keep him safe in that environment.  Tracey fell (with Macy on her back) and scraped her foot, but Macy was fine. 

WELL, we finally got into the Ouray hot spring at 4 pm, and they charged half price, and Quinn’s buddies Mitchell and Zach were there, so it all worked out great.  I floated on my back, looking up at the cathedral walls surrounding Ouray just as I had done 5 years earlier.  I was filled with gratitude at the course of my life and for Nature’s glorious, healing, embracing example.  When I rose, I hugged my wife and three kids, feeling like the luckiest man in the world.  Then, I went to pick up the car.

Day 7, Friday, 7/14/06

It was time to move on to Moab.  I love the desolate, dramatic beauty of the canyonlands of Utah, so I was pumped.  We packed up, took on water and headed first for Telluride.  I had read on the internet that the gondola was free in the summer and was one of the area’s real steals.  We got a parking place on the street (!) and rode the gondola up to St Sophia and Mountain Village with good views of the town and its swanky homes.  

After a little shopping, we kept going toward Moab.  On the map, this stretch was blank, seeming only to keep Moab and Telluride from touching each other.  But this turned out to be one of my favorite drives.  We drove down a LONG valley, at least 20 miles, following a mesa.   Then the road ascended the valley wall and after some hairpin turns, we were on top.  Found out later on google that we had driven through Paradox Basin, a collapsed salt anticline remaining from an ancient seabed.

While in Ouray I had juggled our schedule, omitting the Moab loop, to have more time at Glenwood Hot Springs to make up for the Ouray hot springs being closed, then I juggled it back and cancelled our Fulford Cave adventure instead.  SO, we arrived in Moab without a campground reservation, but I had spoken with a ranger at Arches National Park and she advised to me to take Hwy 128 to Castle Valley and choose a site.  There are 10 National Recreation Area campgrounds along this stretch and we got lucky and got a site by the Colorado River in the first one, Goose Island.  Immense Navajo sandstone walls shielded us from the evening sun as we set up.  It was beautiful but we had noisy neighbors, so we decided to get up early and get a site in Arches for the next night.

One of my favorite things on the trip was Matrimony Spring, an unmarked pipe sticking out of the cliff a mile from our Goose Island campsite.  I only know the name because the campground sign mentions it as a source of water.  A local guy who'd gotten water from it for 20 years didn't know it had a name.  We visited it 5 or 6 times, filling up our water bottles and washing our feet.  What a delightful, free gift in the middle of the desert.  I read later on the web that there's a legend that those who drink here are destined to return to Moab throughout their lives.  Elsewhere, it said that there are dinosaur tracks in the rock just to the right of the spring.  You can bet I'll find them next time.  You might be able to see them in the 2nd pic below which I found on the web.  They look like bird tracks, since they were made by pterosaurs.

Day 8, Saturday, 7/15/06

We went straight to the park and got a spot, but Devil’s Garden campground is 18 miles into the park, so we drove there to claim our campsite.  On the way, we stopped at Balanced Rock.  Not primarily to see Balanced Rock.  We only stop when Tate or Macy need to get out and it just worked out this time. 

Once at the campground, we chose site 18 with a great view of the surrounding formations.  We noticed we were low on gas.  Liz, the campground host, was very nice and said they had some gas for emergencies.  No charge, but she said I could make a donation.  Their can had only a gallon in it, so I offered to take it and get it refilled.  Perfect arrangement for everyone.

On the way out of the park, we stopped at Delicate Arch, Utah’s signature image which appears on its license plates.  Didn’t hike up close due to the extreme heat, so the pics aren’t stellar.  With Google Images, it’s not really necessary to take photos of such famous things anyway.  I try to shoot mainly people.  No one cares about landscape photos.

Since it was so hot, we did some sightseeing in the car.  Dead Horse Point State Park was next on the itinerary and boy, was it worth it.  270° view of the Colorado near where the Green River joins it.  John Wesley Powell came through here in 1869, but I bet he never got up on the mesa from where he was, 2000 feet below on the river.

We were only a few miles from Canyonlands National Park, so we used our National Parks Pass and did the driving tour there as well.  We were going to just get out at the viewpoints, but someone told me not to miss Mesa Arch, a 20 minute hike.  Quinn and I left Tracey napping in the car with the babies and headed out in 106° F. heat.  Well worth it.  Mesa Arch was Quinn’s favorite thing on the trip.  It was a window arch at the top of high red cliffs, so it framed the canyon below.  You could easily walk over the top of it, like this guy, but not I.  Fear of hitting the ground at high speed.

During our hike, Quinn asked me about dark energy.  He loves physics (doesn't everyone?) and listened deeply as I told him about the latest WMAP microwave data that tells us that the universe is at least 73% dark energy, which we don't know anything about.  This is like not knowing about water.  I told him it'd be bigger than a Nobel prize if he figures it out, since he'd be explaining more of the universe than all of science before him.  That appealed to him.

On the way out of Canyonlands National Park, Quinn cried, "THANK YOU" when I stopped the van to watch a dust devil.  We watched in amazement for several minutes.  It was fascinating to think that these things might be all around us, invisible until they catch some straw or dust so that we can see them.  Intriguing phenomena that conjure the mystery of the unknown west. 

We were all fatigued from the heat, so we headed back for Moab.  Got ice cream and gas, then broke down the camper at Goose Island and towed it to Devil’s Garden in the park.    Once there, we all cleaned up.  It was the first time we’d had running water at a campground so we took advantage of it.  It cooled down dramatically a couple hours after sunset.  Quinn and I stayed up while I rocked Macy to sleep.  We didn’t light a campfire so we could see the stars better.  The sky was rich with stars, thousands more than I usually see.  The Milky Way was bright and Jupiter was in the south.  We saw a shooting star, then Quinn went to bed.  I stayed up for awhile because quiet moments are rare when you camp with kids.

Day 9, Sunday, 7/16/06

We all slept well.  It was great to have all the windows open with only mesh screens separating us from the desert night.  It was almost like sleeping outside, but without the fear of nocturnal critters skittering across you.  We drove a minute or so to Devil’s Garden trailhead and headed for Landscape Arch.  At 306’, it’s the longest arch in the park.  180 tons of rock fell from it in 1991, so it might fall completely in our lifetime. 

Moab was the trip’s apogee and it was time for us to head east, but the fun wasn’t over.  Next up was Glenwood Hot Springs, the largest outdoor natural hot spring in the world.  On the way, we stopped in Parachute, CO to see my 3^rd cousin, Alberta Payton and her husband, Wayne.  We’d corresponded but never met, so it was nice to see them.  They took us to a nearby cemetery where we visited the grave of my great grandmother’s sister, Clara Barnes Evan, 1843-1912.  She’d homesteaded in Nebraska in the 1880s, then moved to Battlement Mesa, CO. 

After hitting the Walmart in Rifle, CO for diapers and formula (and more ice cream), we rolled into Glenwood Springs in the late afternoon.  Unlike Ouray, this time the hot springs pool was full of people.  My favorite thing is the hot, hot pool where the water really melts you.  Tate figured out how to paddle around in his life preserver and we all had a great time.  We then went to our campsite, 18 miles south of town, BRB resort.  A dumpy, forgettable, but functional place on a rushing river. 

Day 10, Monday, 7/17/06

In the morning of our last day in Colorado , I had a great spelunking tour planned at Fulford Cave , south of Eagle, CO.  We skipped that and stopped in Vail instead.  Not much going on in Vail in the summer and the gondola is not free as it was in Telluride.  So we strolled a bit and headed through Glenwood Canyon and over Loveland Pass (actually the Eisenhower Tunnel).  We made it back to our first night’s campground, Chatfield State Park , in Denver in the early afternoon.  This gave us time to go down to the beach and let the boys swim while the girls went shopping.

Tracey made a fabulous steak dinner with potatoes and onions as a thundershower blew up.  We were ready to take shelter but never had to leave the camper.  We had a great meal in the popup together and it was a nice ending to our trip.

Day 11, Tuesday, 7/18/06

We returned the popup and hit I-76.  Quinn watched movies, Tate made phone calls, I jammed to MP3s, Tracey watched The Chronicles of Narnia. Not a bad drive at all and the babies tolerated the time in the car better than we thought the would.  At 2625 miles in 70 hours of driving  this was our slowest trip on average, probably due to frequent stops for the little ones and the mountain roads.  We got home at 10 pm and I couldn't wait to see what our garden had done while we were gone.  In the morning, I found these guys welcoming us home.