I was cold all night long. My little feet were blocks of ice, so I curled them up as close to the rest of my body as I could, until my legs screamed to stretch out. I packed only two pair of socks for this trip, and I thought about them, tucked away in a duffle with my hiking shoes, probably in the back of the car. So close, but so far away. I eventually drifted off, too, fantasizing about the blistering temps we’ll endure later this weekend, in the high desert.
We woke up this morning to morning to more rain, but it cleared up by 8 a.m., so we dried out the waterlogged chairs and table in the sun. What a beautiful morning!
As we packed up the Teardrop and hitched it to the car, folks from a neighboring campsite rode their mountain bikes past and stopped to chat.
“Leaving so soon?” they asked.
“We’re on the move,” we explained.
From the looks of their campsite – which was crammed with an RV, a Honda CRV, a propane grill, an inflatable watercraft and various other toys – I figured they had moved in for the entire summer. No, they said: They had reserved the site for just full two weeks – the maximum allotted time, I guess.
If I could, I would have stayed there much longer, relishing the fresh, pine-scented air, and the snow-capped mountain views. But we must press on.
From Frisco, Colorado, it takes about 4.5 hours to get to Dead Horse Point State Park in Utah, following the most direct route. But Dad and I added a few extra hours to our drive by getting off the beaten track a bit.
In Frisco, we got back on I-70 West, then exited a few miles later to drive the Top of Rockies Scenic Byway. On state highway 91 we jogged south through Leadville – the highest incorporated town in the nation, at 10,152 ft, and one of the most historic towns in Colorado, its main street lined with old-west saloons and sherbert-colored Victorian storefronts.
We continued south, following the Arkansas River, then turned west and wound our way through the tiny village of Twin Lakes – a booming resort town in the 1880s and now just a narrow stretch of road with a small inn and a guy selling espresso and breakfast burritos out of his VW van. Still, somehow, every hipster with a Subaru Outback with a roof rack and a SUP within a 75-mile radius was parked on the side of the road there … I guess that guy’s breakfast burritos must be out of this world.
From there, we climbed up through aspen groves and pine forest, with snow-covered peaks towering on all sides, to Independence Pass and the Continental Divide. Dad and I kept oohing and ahhing, and we decided that this is one of the most scenic drives we’ve ever taken – right up there with Big Sur, the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Snake River in Idaho. We also decided that the Teardrop must be so happy to be back on the road. This is what he was born to do, and where he was born to go.
I'm not kidding: We took this selfie, then got back in the car, where Dad consulted our guide book and said, "Our route is supposed to cross over Independence Pass. I wonder if we've missed it."
From there, we wound back down the other side of the mountain range to Aspen, the bougie mountain town choked with high-end traffic. By this time, we were looking for a place to pull off for lunch, but the congested streets triggered our flight instincts. So we high-tailed it out of Aspen as fast as we could.
The scenic drive apparently ends in Aspen; the main road headed north out of town is a four-lane highway fronted by strip malls, auto body shops and park-and-ride lots. So, with no other options, that is how we found ourselves eating a quick lunch out of the back of the Teardrop in a crowded park-and-ride lot, directly under the approach to runway 15 at the Aspen/Pitkin County Airport – not exactly the peaceful, picturesque lunch break we had envisioned.
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Lunch in a parking lot. Charlie, Snowmass is just behind Dad. |
We got back on I-70 West at Glenwood Springs, and noticed that the landcscape had changed from mossy-green mountains to broad, sun-baked mesas. As the afternoon wore on, our energy was flagging. Dad and I had plotted a path to Moab on the scenic Colorado River Scenic Byway, but started to consider scrapping that plan and taking the most direct way possible.
But, it so happens that, while I was driving, Dad was texting with Colorado’s native son Corey Wall. That sentence, by the way, could have been written on any day, of any trip, in any year. On this particular day, without any prompting, Corey implored us not to miss the Colorado River Scenic Byway. So, we rallied. And boy, are we glad we did.
We exited I-70 and cut through the town of Cisco, Utah. And by “town,” I mean, “burned out trailer park.” Cisco is marked on a map, so Dad and I thought we would stop there for beer and gas. What we found is nothing more than a graffiti-stained ghost town in the middle of the high desert. The scene is so eerie and desolate that we wondered if we had taken a wrong turn. Not to worry: The road quickly descended to the Colorado River, and for thirty miles we followed Utah highway 128 as it threads itself between the muddy river and looming red sandstone cliffs and spires, our jaws dropping at every turn.
We pulled into hot, dusty Moab for beer and gas, filled our water tank at the side of a service station. Moab is absolutely caked with red dust – even the streets are covered in an inch of red mud. And, just like I remember from 2009, there is not a scrap of shade. I’d love to come back when it’s not 95 degrees out.
We drove another 30 minutes to Dead Horse Point State Park, which is situated on a sliver of mesa between two yawning canyons, a just a couple of miles down the road from the entrance to Canyonlands National Park. Our campground is perched right on the edge of the Shafer Canyon. Cowboys used to corral wild mustangs on this finger of land, using the steep cliffs on three sides as a natural barrier. Legend says that at one time, the cowboys selected the best horses from the herd, then abandoned the others to die on the waterless mesa, within sight of the Colorado River, 2,000 feet below.
Here on the Colorado Plateau, we are at about 6,000 ft altitude, and it’s almost 10 degrees cooler here than it is in Moab – in the mid-80s. The campground is covered in pinyon pine, Mormon tea and juniper shrubs, and each site has a little shelter that offers some relief from the scorching sun.
Unfortunately, the shelters do not offer relief from mosquitoes that are circling like turkey buzzards – and this has me scratching my head … and my arms … and my legs. We’re on the high desert, which gets 9 inches of rainfall annually. Where exactly are these mosquitoes coming from?
We had turkey and bean burritos and beer while we gazed out over the desert and watched bolts of lightning light up the horizon. We can also see gray smudges of rain in the distance, in every direction. Those storms are 40 miles away, though. So we’re not too worried.
Good night!
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