Colorado Adventure and FJ Summit July 11-20th

FurthurOnTheFly

Glamping Society
Since we will be using our spot for tracking on our adventure I wanted to put a new post up here in this section for anyone who is interested. We are leaving tomorrow to do some backcountry exploring through southwestern Colorado before heading to Ouray for the second ever FJ National Summit, where we will also be meeting up with Lance and Mike from Disabled Explorers! Here are our plans:

Friday(July 11): leaving in the evening, will probably spend the night in Flagstaff

Saturday: Flag to Dolores and up on to Jersey Jim Lookout trail. Camping up there the night.

Sunday: Run remaining JJ/Gold Loop and on in to Mesa Verde spending several hours there. Then on in to Durango and up to First Notch Trail. Either spending the night there or completing it and heading up to Devils Mountain for the night.

Monday: Out of the forest and up around to Creede to run Stony Pass/Cunningham Gulch. Spend the night somewhere on this trail.

Tuesday: Finish up Stony Pass/Cunningham and head in to Ouray via Silverton sometime in the afternoon.

Just wanted to post this up in case anyone was looking to waste time before the Summit and aren't going to Moab.

We will be monitoring CB 16, HAM Simplex 147.555, and whatever area repeater we can happen to find. If you are in the area, hit us up(KE7PQW)!

Our Spot Tracking
 
S

Scenic WonderRunner

Guest
Awesome!

Stony Pass is next on my list the next time I'm out that way. I need to stick my toe in the headwaters of the Rio Grande.......just so I can say I did!


Be Safe!

God Bless!



.
 

FurthurOnTheFly

Glamping Society
Thanks man! I'm so excited I could leave now! :elkgrin: I'm a major history/geography nerd so just the fact that I will be where the Rio Grande starts is amazing to me.

Hit us up the next time you are in AZ!
 

FurthurOnTheFly

Glamping Society
Colorado Adventure Day 1:

After spending most of Friday running around to get last minute items, we finally got the truck loaded and headed off to spend the night in Flagstaff. We had been warned by Heidi's mom about an accident on I-17, but there is always an accident on I-17 so we figured we wouldn't be sitting there for too long....hmmm. After passing Table Mesa Road traffic came to a dead stop and this is where our nightmare began.

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After sitting, crawling for over 2 hours we got close to the second exit at Black Canyon City. We'd had enough time to search a few maps and figure out a way to get around the mess, if only we could make it to that exit! We finally cut across and drove up the emergency lane, along with several other people who'd had enough, and made it to the exit! We took our little detour and ended up hitting dirt sooner than we had expected. We connected back up with the I-17 and finally made it to Flagstaff around 945p.....4 hours after we left our house.

We had plans to meet up with Jeremy, AKA Tacozona, at the Flagstaff Brewing Company at 8. Obviously that didn't work out, but Jeremy has the patience of a saint and was more than happy to still come down and meet us for a late dinner and drinks. Unfortunately Flagstaff Brewery was no longer serving food, so we headed across the tracks to Beaver Street Brewery. Josh and Jeremy instantly bonded over nerdy computer talk and the fact that they both went to U of A for computers, and Heidi enjoyed some of the best pizza and berry beer she's ever had.

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We chatted it up until almost midnight, parted company, and headed off to the Flagstaff KOA to spend the night.
 
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edgear

aventurero, Overland Certified OC0012
Miss R2FJ said:
We had plans to meet up with Jeremy, AKA Tacozilla
:hehe:
I like the new nickname!!
It was cool meeting up with you guys. Next time hopefully out on the trail somewhere. Have fun up at the FJ Summit & all of the other adventures on the way.
 

Hltoppr

El Gringo Spectacular!
Have a great trip! If you'll be in Flag on the way back, I'd love to meet ya'll!

-H-
 

FurthurOnTheFly

Glamping Society
tacozona said:
:hehe:
I like the new nickname!!
It was cool meeting up with you guys. Next time hopefully out on the trail somewhere. Have fun up at the FJ Summit & all of the other adventures on the way.

Oh ya sorry man, it was a late night typing away....its a good name though! ;)
 

FurthurOnTheFly

Glamping Society
Colorado Adventure Day 2

Saturday night at the KOA brought heavy rains and wind throughout the night. We didn't sleep much, but the tent survived it's first major storm. We had never stayed at a KOA before, so it was an interesting experience. It looked like there were quite a few people there who had been staying for a while, which we just couldn't understand because the campsites were right on top of each other. At any rate it worked well for a one night stay, and the facilities were nice. We then said goodbye to Arizona and headed out toward Gallup, NM. On the way we ended up following another couple headed to the Summit from California! After a quick lunch we headed north towards Cortez, Co.

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The road to Cortez was very long and very straight, with not much to look at. This left us a lot of time to wonder....why DO people live here?

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We finally made it to Colorado around 4 and headed straight through Cortez towards Dolores for our first camp of the night. We headed up the Jersey Jim Lookout Trail and on to the Gold Loop.

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Soon we were surrounded by tall pine and aspen, random running streams and beautiful mountains. We finally found a wonderful camping spot just off the Gold Loop.

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Well, it was wonderful to look at, but not so wonderful to sit in...there were millions of mosquitoes! We ended up spending about an hour or so sitting in the attached changing room on our RTT because that was the only place to escape!

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Finally, the sun went down and we started a fire which helped keep the bugs away. After dinner and a long day of driving it was time to crash for the night.

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FurthurOnTheFly

Glamping Society
Colorado Adventure Day 3

We woke Sunday morning after a restful evening with no thunderstorms, only to continue to be harassed by the swarm of mosquitoes from the night before. We decided to duck into the changing room one last time, down some breakfast and pack up quick!

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Back on the road we continued down the Gold Loop Trail, around Burro Mountain and eventually connecting back up with the Jersey Jim Trail. All along the trail there were amazing views and bizarre areas of huge rocks that looked like land slides from a previous time. The trail was clear through these portions, so we figured the slides must have happened some time ago.

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Along the trail was the Jersey Jim Lookout, an old fire lookout that has now been restored. It is maintained by a volunteer group who now rents it out for up to 2 weeks per visit during the summer. It has heat and electrical and an outhouse! We were impressed and decided this might make a nice vacation getaway in the future.

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We concluded our time on the trail by checking out the Mancos Overlook, and hunting for a local geocache….and a hunt it was! After romping around in the brush for a half hour we finally found it, and were off to the town of Mancos. It was almost noon, and although we had planned to visit Mesa Verde National Park with the rest of our day, we decided because of time to head in to Durango instead. This ended up working out great for us, as we were able to go to a local ACE and pick up some much needed provisions, have lunch, and catch up for an hour at a local internet café. Durango is a wonderful town!

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We headed out of Durango in the afternoon in search of our next trail: First Notch. This ended up being quite a fun little trail, very scenic with a 5 mile section through a very tight road that didn’t seem to get much use. We encountered just enough to keep it interesting for us, with some fallen trees, rocks and mud...along with some of the natural wildlife.

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We were hoping to find another beautiful camping spot along First Notch, but didn’t really see anything as good as we’d had the night before. We decided to finish the trail and drive another 3 miles down the road to Devils Mountain Trail. As we made our way up the rocky shelf road we finally found a great spot, apparently used by hunters in the fall, secluded amongst the pine and aspen with a huge fire pit. We were able to get some hammock time in before dinner and settling in for the night.

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suntinez

Explorer
hi hi Heidi/Josh ...

Hey your truck sprouted a RTT since I last saw you, cool.

Did I miss the link to your SPOT? Enjoy your trip looks like a great time, nice wildlife - hah!! :cow: Thanks for posting.

I can't imagine that many FJs all in the same place, sounds like major madness to me :)
 
S

Scenic WonderRunner

Guest
Sweet!

I wish I knew a girl that would do that with me!


Know One...............?!!!!!!!!!!!!!

............hehe


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Have Fun...................!
 

FurthurOnTheFly

Glamping Society
Hey you guys!

Linda, too bad you couldn't make it down here with Lance, its been raining but fun. He is leading a trail tomorrow that we are gunning on so it should be an adventure. And yes, I've never seen this many FJ's in the same place...its madness!

Mark, its kind of funny because thats the only time I've ever been able to get Josh to share the hammock with me! He says it "too uncomfortable" so its mostly been a single swinger! :jump:
 
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