2018.10.10 - South Fork, CO to Cortez, CO
Wednesday, 10.10.2018 - South Fork, CO to Cortez, CO - Our first look out the window this morning showed snow dusting down to just about highway level. The town of South Fork is at about 8,100 -ft elevation. John found local road contitions posted on the Colorado Highway website which had cameras throughout the state, including two on Wolf Creek Pass. At 7:30am, the cameras east and west of the summit showed packed snow. Bad ju-ju for us. The option of heading back to Alamosa, then south into New Mexico, then west again from Chama, NM would be at least 4-hours extra driving with two mountain passes to cross. Check-out was noon, so we decided to see how things looked then.
At noon, we pulled out and headed into town towards the pass. Message boards outside town called for all commercial trucks to chain up. We checked Colorado chain laws and confirmed we were not considered "commercial". After seeing a number of RV's and bob-tail trucks headed up, we decided about 12:30pm to go for it. The climb was fine with a fair deal of traffic carefully climbing thru active snowfall. The road remained fairly packed with snow, but it was well tracked and mostly slushy. Towards the top (10,550-ft elevation), it turned more packed, but the road was freshly sanded so traction was fine. When we got to the top and started down the west grade, we got behind a Budwiser truck that was crawling down in a very conservative manner - FINE with us!! On the way down, we passed a semi attempting to climb up the west grade without chains. With at least another mile to go before hitting the top, he was seriously "crabbing" his way up and appeared to be losing traction - bad news for him given chain requirements clearly posted. 9-miles later, averging about 10-mph, we were finally at the bottom and were in rainy conditions with no snow. Even though it was a slow crawl all the way down, I was very appreciative of the "beer guy" and his common-sense pace!
I've got to say that the west side of Wolf Creek pass, east of Pagosa Springs, Co is one of the prettiest mountain areas I've seen. Even in the rain, it was beautiful and would, undoubtedly, be well-worth coming back to see (and hang around). We stopped for lunch on the west end of Pagosa Springs, then headed on in the rain thru Chimney Rock and on to Durango where the sun finally came out. We both commented that Durango had changed a lot since we had last been here over 30-years ago.
We continued on towards Cortez, following the path of The Old Spanish Trail for much of the way. Just after passing Mancos, CO we passed by the entrance of Mesa Verde National Park and decided we may return tomorrow for a quick stop since it was so close to Cortez. We arrived at the Sundance RV Park right off Main Street in Cortez and were settled in by 3:30pm. We took a walk into town and decided to eat out since there were a number of restaurants right around the RV park. We passed up Jack and Janelle's Country Kitchen (right next door) and settled on Jimmer's BBQ instead. Although they were OK (the shrimp lniguini was way too lemony), they didn't have anyting at all for dessert. On our walk home past the Country Kitchen, we noticed a pretty good crowd eating there and saw later on their website that they had a pretty decent menu, including desserts. Oh well, they open at 6:30am for breakfast if we feel the need to try them out.
Tomorrow is a short day (126-miles to Monument Valley), so we decided we'd hit the Mesa Verde Visitor Center tomorrow morning (10-miles backtrack) before heading west towards Utah.
At noon, we pulled out and headed into town towards the pass. Message boards outside town called for all commercial trucks to chain up. We checked Colorado chain laws and confirmed we were not considered "commercial". After seeing a number of RV's and bob-tail trucks headed up, we decided about 12:30pm to go for it. The climb was fine with a fair deal of traffic carefully climbing thru active snowfall. The road remained fairly packed with snow, but it was well tracked and mostly slushy. Towards the top (10,550-ft elevation), it turned more packed, but the road was freshly sanded so traction was fine. When we got to the top and started down the west grade, we got behind a Budwiser truck that was crawling down in a very conservative manner - FINE with us!! On the way down, we passed a semi attempting to climb up the west grade without chains. With at least another mile to go before hitting the top, he was seriously "crabbing" his way up and appeared to be losing traction - bad news for him given chain requirements clearly posted. 9-miles later, averging about 10-mph, we were finally at the bottom and were in rainy conditions with no snow. Even though it was a slow crawl all the way down, I was very appreciative of the "beer guy" and his common-sense pace!
Our "Beer Truck" Pacer - this Bud's for you !!
I've got to say that the west side of Wolf Creek pass, east of Pagosa Springs, Co is one of the prettiest mountain areas I've seen. Even in the rain, it was beautiful and would, undoubtedly, be well-worth coming back to see (and hang around). We stopped for lunch on the west end of Pagosa Springs, then headed on in the rain thru Chimney Rock and on to Durango where the sun finally came out. We both commented that Durango had changed a lot since we had last been here over 30-years ago.
We continued on towards Cortez, following the path of The Old Spanish Trail for much of the way. Just after passing Mancos, CO we passed by the entrance of Mesa Verde National Park and decided we may return tomorrow for a quick stop since it was so close to Cortez. We arrived at the Sundance RV Park right off Main Street in Cortez and were settled in by 3:30pm. We took a walk into town and decided to eat out since there were a number of restaurants right around the RV park. We passed up Jack and Janelle's Country Kitchen (right next door) and settled on Jimmer's BBQ instead. Although they were OK (the shrimp lniguini was way too lemony), they didn't have anyting at all for dessert. On our walk home past the Country Kitchen, we noticed a pretty good crowd eating there and saw later on their website that they had a pretty decent menu, including desserts. Oh well, they open at 6:30am for breakfast if we feel the need to try them out.
Tomorrow is a short day (126-miles to Monument Valley), so we decided we'd hit the Mesa Verde Visitor Center tomorrow morning (10-miles backtrack) before heading west towards Utah.
Comments
Post a Comment