Cortez, CO - How High Was That Pass?

It’s moving day so we’re packing up and getting ready to get out on the road. Before we did, however, we met two of the Park Rangers who were checking the campground. One had a pie plate in his left hand and a stick in his right hand, hitting the pine branches above him and shaking something into the plate. He told us that these were pinon pines and that you could eat the nuts just like walnuts. He gave us several, I popped them into my mouth. Oops, just like walnuts, you also need to take off the shell before you eat them. Well, lesson learned. Here’s what they look like on the tree and in Gary’s hand - just in case you ever have a chance to shake pinon nuts off the pinon pine.

We have to climb a pass called Wolf Creek Pass which is 10,800’ up. After that there are some, what look like on Google, fairly tight switchbacks to get down the mountain into the valley. Sometimes we flatlanders wonder about these without much reason. We have spoken with several people who live in the area and they all say this it is fine - they also say that there has been a lot of work on it recently to make it that way, that it used to be a bit ‘challenging.’ They all said that the tunnel had made it much better. We also met another RV’ing couple in a convenience store along the way who had just come over the pass. She said she had watched a You-tube video on going over the pass. That certainly had never occured to me: to go to you-tube and watch a video of driving over Wolf Creek Pass. Another lesson.

So, we chug up towards the pass. Then we hit the CLOSED tunnel with a sign telling us to go around it. But, there were no guard rails, we were in the outside lane and the slope down was a straight 600’ or so. Oh, boy.

Next we hit all the construction along the road. Lanes were closed and semis were coming at us.

Then the rain hit. Those raindrops were as large as those wet snowflakes we get in Iowa which make a 2” diameter wet splotch on your windshield. Then the lightening brightened the sky.

Oh, and did I mention that the runaway truck ramps were closed? Look at the upward grade of that one. I sure wouldn’t want to be driving along the highway when a runaway truck hit the top of that grade.

And, did I mention the switchbacks?

And, then we were going down. So much for Wolf Creek Pass. Gary handles the gears and the brakes like a champ.

Of course, I had torn holes in the dashboard with my white knuckled response. Well, finding a diner with hamburgs and ice cream and a deck overlooking the river sure helped to dull my nerves.

We got to our campground about 5:00, hooked up and had dinner. We’ve got full hook-ups here: electricity, water and sewer. Whooo - eee. Looks like laundry time.

We also have to charge up all of our tech equipment which runs on batteries: computers, iPads, smart phones and also charge up the batteries we have used in the cameras, etc.