I had been thinking about this trip for ages! You might recall some past trips where I mentioned it. The weather had always seemed to mess things up, but finally on July 11 I saw an opening with no snow / lightning storms and decided to go for it.
The first destination of the day was an inhabited ghost town in the center of Colorado called St. Elmo. It was about a 240 mile drive from Philmont and I left at 4 am. (4am seems to be the best time to leave for me). To get there I traveled north of Salina, CO then took a google maps “shortcut” to St. Elmo. Nearly the entire way is a remote road through the mountains and one of my favorites.
Before you actually reach the ghost town you have to go through a tight mountain pass on a dirt road. Most people who come here were driving these cool little racing Kubota type quads. Meanwhile…I just sported my Toyota Camry. Even thought the actual town is a ‘ghost town’ there were a lot of visitors! The main purpose of coming was to feed the chipmunks!
You can buy a bag of sunflower seeds for $0.50 each. The store was a really cool souvenir store with old mining relics, touristy stuff, and some snacks. Once I got my seeds I proceeded across the street to the main attraction.
The ground was littered with millions of sunflower seed shells. There were a few boards laid out haphazardly so you could sit closer to the ground. I chose one near the center and opened my seed bag. Immediately the chipmunks curiously came over so I had to guard the bag in order to not use the seeds up all at once.
What you do is hold a small amount of seeds in your hand and patiently wait for something to happen. After a moment or two a chipmunk scurried up my shorts, up my back, and down my arm to eat the seeds out of my hand. You see the claws there? They don’t hurt at all! In fact it sort of feels nice. Chipmunks are gentle when they are friendly.
I think this is mostly meant for kids, but as an adult I felt like I just HAD to come check out what the hype was about. Part of me felt like you shouldn’t feed animals because they will become dependent on you, but at the same time trying to be an activist at St. Elmo is a waste of time since the chipmunks have been doing this their whole life. Ok and that’s enough of that!
I also had the chance to walk around St. Elmo. There are a few people still living there, but all the miners are gone. There is a church, a few old abandoned buildings converted into museums, and plenty of 4-wheeler trails.
Next on the itinerary was to see the Hancock Ghost Town. It is about 5 miles south of St. Elmo on a very rough unmaintained dirt road through the mountains. I had scoured the google satellite map the day before to see if my car could make it up the road, but the research I did was a bit inconclusive so I thought…why not try? If it gets too serious I can just turn around!
The road to Hancock is a one lane road with a sheer drop on one side, a massive mountain slope on the other, and wonderful views of the landscape. It was very much a 5mph & avoid all potholes / rocks at all cost type of road. I got about 4 miles up before I decided to turn around. I was at a very steep but short hill and I was unsure if I could manage to go up it unscathed let alone get to the top at all. Plus it started to look like a rain storm was on the way. Rain storm + middle of nowhere + dirt road + potential snow + no cell service / gps = a bad idea to continue.
Turning around wasn’t as easy as you might think. Eventually I got it done and headed back down the road feeling a bit peeved that I couldn’t see Hancock and the Alpine Tunnel. (I almost never give up on a destination once I set my sights on it.)
The last stop of the day was the Curecanti National Recreation Area where I would be camping for the next two nights. Getting a hotel would’ve been really expensive and the nearest one was 50 miles away so camping it is! Plus you really get to enjoy the park more if you stay in it.
I was at the Elk Crossing campsite and next to me was a massive (what seemed like) $200k RV truck. Most people at NRA’s have RVs so they can camp in basically a second home. Kitchen, shower, living room, power, air conditioning / heat…you name it and it’s there. Meanwhile I just had my tiny 2 person tent with a simple rain fly and natural air conditioning / heat.
After setting up my tent I decided to get a bite to eat in the nearest city: Gunnison. I went to the Ol’ Miner Steakhouse and mmmm was it delicious.
Next I went to a hunting store that had literally any kind of stuffed animal for sale. Want to buy a taxidermied lion or polar bear? That would be $7000 please! (I mean an African lion, not the mountain lion in this picture)
There was also a moose nativity set lol.
On the way back, just 1 mile before my left turn into the campground, was an overturned semi-trailer blocking both lanes of traffic. After about 15 minutes people started turning around, but unsure how worth going the alternative route was I decided to stay put and wait. I was a bit anxious this would make me late to the 8pm ranger program at Curecanti the whole time. In the end I was stopped for about 45 minutes, but the alternate route would’ve been 3 hours!! Would you have waited an undetermined amount of time or tried to find a different way around?
Day 2
I got up at 6am on day two. The post-sunrise was awesome!
On my way to the Canyon of the Gunnison National Park I stopped to see the Dillon Pinnacles Vista. This was right before the really long construction zone on US-50 West.
To get to the south rim you had to follow a “Follow Me” pilot car through the construction zone. Since I got there really early there wasn’t that much traffic yet. Even so, it still took about an hour. Once I got to the canyon I was greeted with….a canyon!
It was really cool to stand at the edge of such a magnificent creation. All the hiking trails into the canyon were booked. Even when I got there as the park opened! I guess you need to wait in line in the dark to get a hiking permit for the south rim. Instead of hiking I decided to see some of the viewpoints on the scenic road.
Imagine looking into the Grand Canyon, but you can actually see some details at the bottom near the river. That’s what Gunnison felt like to me. The South rim (on the right) is a 63% grade trail and the North Rim (left) is a 93% grade trail. (Higher grade = steeper). Once I saw all there was to see on the South Rim I decided to head to the other side to try hiking there.
It took what felt like ages to get to the other side since I had to drive 80 miles to get all the way around. I added in a spot for lunch in Paonia, CO at the little small town restaurant Berg Harvest Mercantile and Cafe. The burger and Modelo I had were really good! I highly recommend this place if you are nearby. After lunch I continued south on a bunch of farming roads. Occasionally I had the chance to pass a house sized tractor but other than that the drive was pretty basic.
I think going from a nice paved road to a 20 mile dirt road always seems like I’m trading the comfort of civilization for the rustic touch of the rural backcountry.
Upon reaching the North Rim ranger station I realized that it was closed! Luckily for me they had left the stamping booth out for anyone who needed it. Such as myself. The North Rim visitors center is very different than the south rim. Think a mansion vs a tiny house.
In order to go hiking you need to first fill out your name, where you are going, and what time you leave on a white board in front of the ranger station so that people know where you have gone in case there are problems. The original plan was to hike the Slide Draw. It is a nice 1 mile trail with a vertical drop of 1620ft, a descent of 1.5 hours, and an ascent of 4 hours. I wasn’t going to do the whole trail. Maybe half of it to get a good BB8 picture.
The problem was that the initial drop was on a 97% grade. (The steeper the trail = the larger the grade). No problem I thought when looking at the website. This in fact was a major problem because about 50ft into the trail I decided to turn around because it looked too gnarly to me. I was the only one hiking that day, no rangers on my side of the canyon, it was 95F, and there were bears. Not a great day to hike solo on a very dangerous trail.
Instead I decided to try the SOB Draw near the ranger station. It had a vertical drop of 1800ft and would take about 2 hours to get down to the river and 3 hours to get back up. All the trails on the North Rim didn’t have markers so I had to be really careful how I went down and came back up.
The initial descent was mostly flat with an easy to follow trail, but when I got to the canyon edge all that changed quickly. I soon entered a “wash”. A wash is a place whee all the rain collects and flows down on its way to the bottom. So if it rained I’d be faced with an intense flash flood. From what it looked like in previous storms, the water looked powerful enough to move large rocks and rip trees out of the ground.
About 30 minutes into my descent I thought it was a good place to stop and take a BB8 picture. I’m sharing my selfie rather than the BB8 one since it is the cover photo for this blog. The way back up brought me back up roughly 500ft in elevation and made me quite out of breath. Next up was to go back to Curecanti NRA and my tent to rest and get ready for that nights ranger presentation.
On the way back I stopped at two overlooks: Hermits Rest Vista and Pioneer Point. Hermits Rest Vista overlooked a large lake and mountain range. While Pioneer Point was a stretch of river right before the Curecanti NRA dam. Both were totally worth a stop in my opinion.
When I reached my tent I discovered it was full of sand! What a surprise. I decided to not waste any time and just go to gunnison right away to find a tent brush. Walmart came up empty so I tried a Tractor Supply store next. The employees gave me a funny look since I don’t exactly look like a hardcore farmer. I wasn’t able to find anything that looked good, but not wanting to go back with nothing I bought a paintbrush. It worked out really well and now it’s part of my camping arsenal of tools. A short while later I went to the ranger program where I learned all about the Native American fox legend.
Day 3
At 6:15am I packed up my tent and headed out back towards Philmont. I hadn’t planned out much for the return trip, but that doesn’t mean that I was setting out to see nothing.
The first location was the Hidden Treasure Dam near Lake City, CO. It is a homemade dam out of wood and such. Seemed interesting on paper, but once I was in Lake City I saw that it was another Hancock Ghost Town style road, but for 15 miles. So I skipped it. Lake City is thought of as the most remote city in Colorado and it doesn’t take much to see why. It’s deep in the mountains.
Instead of stopping I continued on my way back to Philmont! The next 3 hours were spent navigating the hills and mountain passes of southern Colorado. On the way out of Lake City I briefly stopped at the Windy Point Overlook to see the nearby mountain peaks.
After that I made my way to the top of the pass where I had to stop again to take more pictures.
A short while after that I stopped again at the Spring Creek Pass. This road went back and forth across the massive Continental Divide Trail that runs 3100 miles from Mexico to Canada. Only the most die hard hikers attempt it! The next stop was Philmont which was about 247 more miles of driving.
On the way back I did a double take at an overlook sign since I was in the middle of a field. Like “what could possibly be here lol” I thought. Doing a quick u-turn I found a waterfall! It was really nice to sit down nearby and just enjoy it.
I ended up taking a nice selfie before returning to the road.
The last unintentional stop was the town of Creede, CO. It used to be a mining town back in the day. Nowadays it is a vibrant little place that does mining tours, car shows, chocolate contests, and more. Since it wasn’t in the official plan I didn’t know where to stop first so I headed to the information building. The woman behind the desk was very nice and told me all about the Creede art competition. I voted for the moose painting. I hope it won! Per her suggestion I headed to MJ’s Cafe for breakfast. The scrambled eggs, bacon, and diced potatoes I ordered were fabulous.
Next I went to the Creede Olive Oil Company where I got a bunch of different goodies. I got a few specialty balsamic vinegars: raspberry, blueberry, spicy mole (pronounced mole-lay), and a white balsamic. I also got a venom salt (really spicy salt) and a lime salt (for margaritas). Oh! Also a house made olive oil (olives from Tunisia). An expensive store for sure, but totally worth it!
The last thing of the day was the Bachelors Loop road. This brought you around all the different mineshafts from the great mining boom. It is a 17 mi long maintained dirt road. I started out by going up the road behind the olive oil store, but it proved way too steep for me so I proceeded up the back road first. There was a slim chance of seeing the elusive Colorado moose for myself and I didn’t want to pass that up.
The back road wasn’t too bad for a 2 wheel drive car such as my Toyota Camry so without much effort I made it. The real challenge was going back down. I shot a video of my descent for you to enjoy. There were a couple of road rules. First, any car coming uphill had the right of way. Second, have a good time. I edited out the swearing for YouTube, but all the muted parts are me going “darn, that stinks”. Backing up was tough and frankly a bit scary because my car doesn’t come with a backup camera or warning sounds. You need experience and bravery instead.
Here is a good example of this. Just before this moment I had to back all the way up that hill because someone was coming up it. Not too hard here, but just wait. (Ignoring the technical challenges the loop was really beautiful).
Here I discovered a moment of panic where I really wasn’t sure if I should continue down because the hill was so steep, but I really didn’t have a choice because the alternative was to reverse all the way back until I could turn around.
At this point I was in the final stretch. All I had left was the colossal first hill. The one I had turned around on in the beginning. It was super sketchy in places and I had to be really careful not to slide around while on my way down.
Overall it took me about an hour to do the whole loop and I had a great time even though I was a bit freaked out in some spots. Some people might say I’m crazy for trying this in a Camry, but I will never say no to an adventure without trying first. (Unless it’s on a road like the Hancock Ghost Town road.)
It was another 4 hours from the bottom of the Bachelors Loop to Philmont. I didn’t stop anywhere else and I managed to get back at the reasonable time of 8pm. I think that camping in a tent was a nice change to the hotel hotel hotel I usually do on trips. I absolutely must do a tenting trip again. That about wraps up this edition of Exploring The World With BB8. Hope you enjoyed it!
See you later!
Trip Stats
- Total estimated miles: 791mi
- Total actual miles: 889mi
- Most unexpected thing: needing a paintbrush to sweep out my tent
- Number of times I’ve had to re-write a blog because WordPress lied about saving: 2