From Antelope Island we spent the night in Green River, Utah at Green River State Park. Lovely, big sites! We spent the next night at Valley Sunset RV Ranch in Delta, CO. Not bad for a very small campground, and it was inexpensive to boot! We then arrived into the Taylor Park area, our destination until tomorrow.
We are attending the Taylor Park UTV Rally, an annual get-together that has been going on since 2010 or so with a hiatus during COVID. It is a very casual affair. The rally provides access to a dry camping area (for a fee), an evening program with lots of door prizes, a few vendors of SxS specialties, and lots of people knowledgeable about the area. As usual, we chose to go out by ourselves after picking the brains of some of the experienced folks. We just drive a lot slower than most of the enthusiasts who have big, fast machines.
Thursday we drove to Tincup and then to Pitkin via the Cumberland Pass at over 12,000’. Fun little almost mining ghost towns with a few hearty residents. The pass had incredible views. There was so much dust though! It hasn’t rained, really rained, for a long time.
The day started with a lovely sunrise.
Tincup is only 6 miles from the campsite. They have had some bad experiences with OHVs I guess.
All the buildings I noted were out of log construction. Some were new, some very old, and some in-between. It was a busy mining town many, many years ago.
We left Tincup to head up a mountain valley. Beaver sign was everywhere. There are two dams in this picture.
Cumberland Pass is a famous trail. It can be driven in passenger vehicles, but it is probably best in an OHV. We climbed and climbed.
The sign said 12,015’ but my GPS said 11,980. Either way it was really hard to breath.
Pitkin is also an old mining town with only a few residents plus some rental cabins. Like Tincup it was mostly vintage log buildings, but it is larger than Tincup and more prosperous. There were two restaurants. We went to one with green chili burgers and huckleberry margaritas.
We came by via the Slaughterhouse Gulch trail. It was a bit rougher, but quite doable. Didn’t get many pictures because we were mostly just in the trees.
By Friday my sinus problems were getting serious. We left at 8:00 am and went to Tincup for breakfast at French’s. Lovely meal. We then headed up to the Texas Lakes trail. We had a bit of a false start when we encountered a water crossing we just didn’t think we were big enough for. We ended up taking an alternate but longer route. The pictures got fewer and fewer as I was feeling worse and worse. The combination of dust and no air was really getting to me. We did see a lot of mule deer this day though. It helps to be the first folks out and about. We saw 12 different deer in various little groups. I am going to post a really bad picture of one that was bedded down maybe 10 yards from the road. Please forgive how bad it is. By this time I just couldn’t get out of the rig, and the RZR vibrates whenever the motor is on.
Luckily I did get some GoPro footage. This is looking at the reservoir from near where we are camped.
Today (Saturday) I am even worse so no RZR riding for us! We took a big pickup truck trip up and past the reservoir then backdown the opposite side and into Gunnison on gravel roads. Really nice.
We leave tomorrow morning. My sinuses aren’t getting much better, but I am dosing myself with every type of allergy relief and cough medicine I can manage. I do fine if I don’t move, but walking around every a little bit starts me coughing again. We will be heading to Lake City to do the famous Alpine Loop, so I am working hard on getting better.
