daily cardio along the mesa, site relo

It was the 60s this morning with rain scheduled tomorrow, so Muffin and I headed out for some cardio.

There was a two-track leading away from that campsite nearest to the waterfall. There is a CLOSED TO MOTOR VEHICLES sign but the trail went for at least a mile. We’re going to see where it goes.

It was a steady uphill and I was blowing like a locomotive. About 3/4 the way to the highest point the two-track faded and it turned into just a cow trail. We walked to the edge to take some pics. With panoramas still on my mind I took the shots with care to stand in one spot. Muffin was not on board with this approach so she is duplicated in this pano:

up top

After that the cow trail faded and the last stretch was basically walking across a rocky field. Luckily there were no stickers or other problems. It came out where I thought it might; near the 2nd of only two camping spots I saw on the rim.

As we got closer I could see the site was empty and I wondered if I could break camp and get back over there before it got filled.

We walked past some kind of solar-powered instrument of some kind, stepped over a completely downed barbed wire fence and looked over the camp. Looked good, fire ring in place. Another 100yds to the gravel road and we set out with purpose. It took about 45mins to get back to camp, assisted by the gentle downhill.

My camps tend to be simple so I was moving in about ten minutes. The most time-consumng part was taking down the shadecloth awning.

heading over to the new site

We got to the new site on the ledge and it was still open; whew! I pulled up and started organizing. Within a few minutes a USFS pickup pulled into the site. It was a worker bee who had come to work on the instrument we walked past. He said it is an ozone meter.

Then a family on ATVs showed up with fence tools; they were going to be trucking in their cattle in the next week or two and were riding fence. Haven’t seen anyone in days and all the sudden I’m standing in a small crowd on the edge of a mesa at 10k’. Weird. They all finished their work left.

There are a couple nice things about this campsite on the edge of the Grand Mesa:

• good Verizon (my main account) and surprisingly-serviceable Tmo (the redpocket account)
• 10 OTA for the Pi-based DVR to feed on
• nice view

I don’t pick campsites because of nice views; if anything, it increases the likelihood other people will be around. I’d much rather have a practical site (good sun, good signal) than a nice view. But this one is pretty nice. Here is a panorama covering about 270deg:

You can see the newly-repaired fenceline, and keen eyes might see the ozone meter along near the ledge; it has a white upright pole.

plans

I think my replacement controller came in to General Delivery in Grand Junction today; tracking tends to stop so you can’t really tell. I have an Amazon package coming in to a Counter on Monday the 28th. I’ll likely come down the mountain Sunday evening, stealth in GJ and hit the USPS that morning. As soon as the Amazon package comes in I’ll head out to the next stop.

Not sure where the next spot will be. About 8-9k’ should be sufficient as temps are down somewhat. Maybe stop in the forest halfway to Denver; it’d be nice to have reliable package pickup in a real city like Denver.

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