US-89. Return Trip Day 4. "Pa-Co-Chu-Puk-Ridgway"

Monday, July 25th 2016.  The goal for today is to ride from the Rocky National Park in Colorado to somewhere near Durango, Colorado, which is about 375 miles.  

I wake early to the sounds of the elk. I look out of my tent and there is an elk 5 feet away licking the camp grill, which is what they really appear to like to do. There are more elk on the hills than anyone can count. They are everywhere.

As I am standing at the picnic table in a very half trance contemplating cooking, Teresa from a campsite on the other side of the road and says “Can I ask you about some tips on motorcycle camping for my son?”.  Teresa says that her son has recently purchased a BMW motorcycle, as well as a car and is now attempting to motorcycle camp. I spend the next 20 minutes going over my gear and letting Teresa know the advantages of each piece of gear.  As we go over the gear, Teresa takes notes and in the end says "His birthday is less than a month away." Teresa is a very good listener, and I hope her son does not mind my recommendations.

I quickly pack up and I am on the road at 7:45 am. I head down to the town of grand lake and grab a second breakfast of egg a spicy burrito from a local deli. I ask the girl working the deli where a gas station might be.  She points out the window across the street and says “right there. It does not really seem like a gas station but it is.”  I look out and there were two pumps in front of a plain Jane building.

The next 2 hours traveling on the 40 through Winter Park is just divine. I go up over the mountains and then down the other side. I then hook up with I-70 West, which is a really incredible ride considering it is an interstate. At one point I go through the long Eisenhower tunnel that was built in 1973, and then descend rapidly for miles. I stop at a rest stop and Joy stops me and asks where I am going. Come to find out that she and her husband have only been riding for 2 years, but they have had 5 bikes and currently own 4. Joy has fallen in love with riding and seeing the sights after she retired from the school system. We chat for about 20 minutes about all kinds of things, before people pointing to rams on the cliffs got her better attention.

For about the next 5 hours the road just goes down hill in so many ways. The elevation gets lower and lower, and the temperature is getting hotter and hotter. At one point the landscape looks just like the desert around Las Vegas. I am getting very depressed because I was expecting to be riding in the mountains on my way to Durango.

I am on the road to Telluride on the 550, and thinking that I had waited too long to get a campground since it was now 4:40 PM, but then suddenly in front of me is a state park called Pa-Co-Chu-Puk-Ridgway and it has camping.

I immediately pulled into the park and asked the lady at the stop if they had any tent spaces available. She said “yes, I believe we have three left”.  I do the paperwork and pay her. then she tells me that it was a walk in campsite. I asked how far must I walk, and she said it was from where I was standing to a tree just 30 yards away. I say “that is not bad. Thanks”.

When I get to the parking lot,  I randomly choose number campsite number 286 on the pole, not knowing where it was. There was no camping slip on the post in the parking spot so I grabbed the site quickly, less anyone else grab it. I then see carts where people were loading their goods and transporting them to the camp spot. Great deal to have a cart, at least that was what I thought at the time.

I grab a cart and loaded my gear into it. I head over a bridge on a very rapidly flowing stream and then encounter a gravel path. I then find out that the path goes up a hill. I am pulling this cart, loaded with my gear from the motorcycle up a hill and slipping in the gravel. I finally make my campsite and I am totally out of breath because of the distance and the elevation. I swear the site must be a quarter mile away from the parking spot.

I unload my gear and go back down to the bike. I then ride about 8 miles in to Ridgway where I had a wonderful pizza rustica and a glass of local brew. While at the bar I talk to a couple and another local lady. One of the ladys was on a kick that nothing ever changes in the town. She says "You can leave and come back, and then in 15 minutes get all caught up with what changed while you were gone: which was nothing." It was an interesting conversation. Nice people.

I then ride 8 miles back to the campground and back up to the site, where I get the bike covered.  I then hike  back to the campsite crossing the steam and up the gravel path. I am exhausted and need to go to bed very badly.