Occupation of Independence

Upper Rio Grande valley of Colorado, a couple summers ago. It was so easy to decide what to do first at this new RV boondocking campsite. A large peak loomed over camp. Though not a "peak bagger" I just had to start towards it, because of the grand and grassy slope in front of the trailer. It wasn't a planar ramp. It was a steep ascension of rumpled folds, like a woman's green dress in a more gracious and elegant age. There are so many places like this in the national forests out West. But you can't see them because they are covered with the Stygian gloom of an overgrown silviculture. Why is this hillside free of the usual clutter -- did it burn some years ago? I had to walk up it, that first morning. While the dogs enjoyed their romp over the grass, I stared in admiration of the landscape: I was looking at the upper end of the Rio Grande, leading into the center of Colorado's San Juan Mountains, near Lake City. The hillside was so steep that,

Summer boondocking in the upper Rio Grande, a couple summers ago. If I had to pick my favorite moment of an outdoor-day, it might well the first one, when "night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountaintops." [*] That's how the day starts for us when I park with the RV's door and bedroom window facing east. Soon the high-country's sun hits the bedroom window with a soft pounce. Coffee Girl starts her day by walking from the foot of the bed to my head. She softly drops her head on my neck and holds it there. My official morning hug, I guess. Both dogs are impatient to get going. They prefer to hit the trail at sunrise. There aren't many wildflowers on today's hike, but they're nice. Hunters are probably the only people who have ever come up the volcanic ridge that we were walking on. Most hikers follow the brown signs and stakes. I loved the contrasts of grass and trees, ridge and cliff. Most of

Clearly, the San Juans are Colorado's best eye candy, in the usual postcard sense. The San Juans are newer than the other ranges and are volcanic, rather than folded or fault block ranges. Here was our first route in the San Juans: Stratified sedimentary layers I'm used to--but a green layer? How could a wind-blown seed find purchase on a slope like this? A motorist stopped when he saw my little dog in the BOB trailer behind the mountain bike. He was a serious amateur photographer and was studied up on nature. He thought the seeds would have been dropped by birds into the cracks or holes that even a steep slope must have. Probably so, but how did these plants or bushes propagate up there? We finished our ride and returned to find a Silverton couple saddling up two llamas, for an overnight trek up to an alpine lake.    They are members of the camel family, but don't have humps. Their hooves are more like a hard pad, with two-toes and funny toe nails.

When traveling I try to experience a book, rather than merely read it. With some luck a traveler's location can add something chemical and explosive to the book. This happened to me recently in Leadville, CO. I was camped by a national forest road that was on the race course of two separate races that featured the most amazing athletes. My mind drifted off to Greek Olympic athletes. I picked up a book on Greek mythology, and was amazed to find myself actually interested in that silly nonsense, for the first time. Other things contributed to this chemical reaction, such as monsoon clouds accumulating before their mid-afternoon schedule, and lightning strikes so close to my trailer that they sounded like a shotgun blast outside the trailer door. So I was willing to play along with reading about Zeus the Cloud-Gatherer and Thunderbolt-Thrower. If this seems too whimsical for the reader, remember that your mind and body are the same as the homo sapiens of a few thou

West of Leadville CO a couple summers ago. We started on the dirt road that leaves the Turquoise Lake paved road. What better way to start a day than to find yourself on a smooth, well-maintained road that ascends mildly but relentlessly to a high mountain pass! A mountain biker notices road texture more than scenery, no matter how "breathtakingly beautiful" the postcard scenery might be. This road seemed determined to give us a perfectly balanced ride. In particular I loved the variety of viewscapes . As the ride developed I felt an overarching sense of gratitude. Perhaps because the object of my gratitude was so nebulous, the gratitude seemed more transcendent than the alpine vistas themselves. Only a few gasoline athletes passed us. Do they resent us?  In their minds they are adventuring with mighty jeeps, big 'tars,' winches, fancy GPS gadgets, and all. Sometimes they even caravan--there's safety in numbers, you know. Then they pass a litt

To the casual observer, a full time RVer might seem to be wandering at random, at least on a daily basis. But on a seasonal basis that is certainly not true. As the summer progresses he moves upriver to higher altitudes. Doing so, all roads lead to Leadville, CO. This is the end of the road, altitude-wise. The city is at 10,150 feet. I had never been to Leadville before. A woman in the torrid lowlands downriver (at 7000 feet) told me it was ugly. But I sized her up as a fussy-female type, and consider her comment a positive recommendation. Indeed, approaching the city limits of Leadville there were mine tailings and dilapidated shacks with the windows boarded up with plywood. I was hooked. The first surprise was to see a large Mexican-American population. Apparently they work in construction in the ski resort, condo, and McMansion towns. They live in Leadville because they can. Are we really only a couple generations from the hardy men who mined around Leadville? The modern

Isn't it odd how the word, tourist, is almost universally applied as a pejorative, a slur? This is true even though most people look forward to vacations and holidays, during which they typically are tourists. In America it is even said that many people vacation as long as fourteen days, almost every year. The T word is used most negatively by those whose livelihoods depend most on tourism. The local yokels of a popular tourist area leave their own area, full of scenic wonders which they have become bored with, and vacation in other tourist areas that might be inferior to their home turf. Here in the upper Arkansas River valley I am, for the first time in my life, seeing tourism as a positive thing. Perhaps the key distinction is mass tourism versus outdoorsy, specialized  tourism. Consider for a  moment the mass tourist -- that motor-bound chowhound who tries to enjoy the wonders of nature by staring through his vehicle's window glass. Say what they will,

If you had to choose the western state that was most physiographically endowed, which would you choose? Many people might choose California, and I might agree, although I seldom set foot in that state. I have spent a large fraction of my full time RV years in Utah and Arizona. Great eye candy, those. But I never cared for the culture in either state. Let's just say that I feel no affinity for the LDS culture of Utah, nor the LA-style cities of Arizona, nor the senior-ish snowbird culture of Yuma. I haven't spent that much time in the eastern half of the Four Corner States, Colorado and New Mexico, until this summer. What an eye opener it has been. Presently the Arkansas Valley of Colorado is delighting me, day after day. It's too bad that this revelation took so long. Perhaps other travelers will admit to geo-bigotries about certain states, which tend to detract from their RV lifestyle. There is a relaxation that you feel in a culture that you are in harmo

The Little Poodle and I "paddled" upstream -- on the mountain bike -- along the popular Arkansas River, near "Byoona" Vista, CO. We saw one river rafting company after another. As luck would have it, we made it in time for their mass 'descension' of the Arkansas River. (If balloonists at the Albuquerque festival can have a mass ascension, then rafters in Colorado can have a mass descension.) It seemed like a documentary about the D-Day invasion of World War II. Actually it all happened quickly and smoothly. It has always been a poignant experience to watch people enjoying any water sport. I tried to connect with the water over the years, and nothing really worked. So I surrendered to my fate as a land mammal. The little poodle, not being a Labrador retriever, feels the same way. So we turned away from the river and biked into an area dominated by foothills of spheroidally-weathered granite. The road was actually just a dry wash of decompo

Driving from New Mexico to Colorado yesterday was fun because the differences were detectable. I had forgotten how large and agricultural the San Luis Valley was. I went into the Big R hardware and ranch supply store in Alamosa. It's funny how your first impressions in a town mean something. They had a sign telling people that the restrooms were in the northeast corner of the store. Information like that is useless to most of the human race. Who besides a few sailors or midwesterners navigate according to the compass? Looking the town over more carefully, I noticed more baseball caps than cowboy hats. Hmm? It was impressive to see a place out west where the agriculture was as serious as in the midwest. First day in Salida, CO: The little poodle and I biked into town this Sunday morning. The first building of significance was the LDS church. I groaned. Well after all, Colorado shares a long border with Utah. Downtown, near the Arkansas River, there was a real su