Grama Goes Camping

For the last couple of years Kiefer’s Grama has watched us go on trip after trip. This year she told me that I needed to take her on one of these trips before she gets too old to do it. So, we did.

My family has gone to Ouray CO many times since we bought our first Jeep back in 2013, but it has been a few years since we have been back. So I thought the Ouray area would be a great place to go on an extended weekend with Kiefer and my mom.

This trip was going to be different then most of my trips as we were going to be base camping. Knowing that I would be dropping the trailer off and leaving it in one location meant I needed to find a really nice location and I could put a little more effort into getting the trailer there since I’d not have to get it back out for a few days. As such, I digitally scouted a location about 4.5 miles up Imogene pass on the Ouray side.

I’ve ran Imogene several times in the past, but never with a trailer in tow. My biggest concern on this portion of the trail was not the terrain, but meeting traffic coming down the mountain. Not only is the trail narrow and hard to pass on, but they would also have the right of way. This all added up to the possibility of me having to back the trailer down the narrow trail some distance. Luckily, I only had to do this once and for a short distance.

On the other hand, there was a section of the trail were the terrain was an issue. It was a pretty tight and steep switchback made up of a large section of rock with good sized holes in it. Both the Gladiator and the OGT Expedition 2.0 have the suspension and clearance to make this climb, but at 11, 031 feet I was not sure the Gladiator had the power to pull the 3,500lbs trailer out of any of the deep holes if the wheels dropped down in to them. If I could not make it up this section of the trail, I’d be in a really back situation with very few options to get out of it. I wanted to enjoy this weekend, so I decided not to try and push it.

This meant I had to back the trailer down to the last switchback and get it turned around and headed back down hill. As this little maneuver took some concentration, I failed to get any photos of it!

Headed back down I decided to take the little wooden bridge over Imogene creek instead of the water crossing I took on the way up (the easier of the two water crossings). The bridge was very narrow and we were just able to make it across. The trailer wheel came off the bridge right at the corner.

We went back down a ways to an area that appeared to have a couple of campsite options. When we got there a father and daughter team that saw us going up commented that they thought it was a little ambitious for us to try going further up. It also turned out that they were just packing up camp and their spot was nicely suited for our trailer setup. It was a little close to the main trail, but the traffic was not too bad most of the time.

The benefits of the site far out weighed the occasional traffic though. The Imogene creek ran down two sides of the site, giving my son a great place to play.

There were also two waterfalls in walking distance, one of them visible from the campsite.

The closest waterfall made for the perfect background to get some family photos, something we have not done in many years.

On this trip I used my intervalometer to take the pictures of us instead of the built in time on the camera. I did not know it until I got home and started processing the images from the trip, but my son was having fun with the camera while I was getting into position!

Using the intervalometer is a great little trick I picked up from Adventure Taco. If you like good trip reports and great photography, you should definitely go check out his site. I get a lot of inspiration for trip ideas over there.

Being in the Ouray area it is impossible to not run any of wonderful trails in the surrounding mountains. Most of the trails are easy enough for any 4×4 pickup truck and the views are spectacular no matter which ones you do. For this trip we knocked out Corkscrew Gulch, California Gulch, Hurricane Pass, and the ghost town of Animas Forks. For a cool 3D virtual tour of this part of our trip, check out our Ayvri track.

Many years ago on a trip to this same area, we passed through a large heard of sheep grazing along the California Gulch. This year we again saw hundreds, if not thousands, of sheep grazing in the same area. This time we also got to see the shepherd and his working dogs. It was really neat to watch them come across the mountain in long lines that looked like a train, and then to gather up into a big flock.

On this trip, Kiefer and Grama made a game of finding shapes and faces in everything from the clouds, to the rocks and even the brush growing near camp.

After a full day of exploring on the trails, it was time to settle in for the evening, a slightly chilling evening! Grama was very thankful for the furnace on the Expedition 2.0 trailer.

Even with it being just four days after the full moon, I was hoping that our remote location, the high mountain surrounding us, and the colder temps would give me a good opportunity to photograph the Milky Way.

The mountains around Ouray are very, very dark and the peaks block out almost all light pollution form the few small towns near by. They also block out the moon until it gets higher in the sky. All of those things are great, but they also limit the amount of time you can see the Galactic Core as it will get blocked from view behind a peak before it actually sets.

It turned out to be great conditions for the Milky Way. In fact, it was so clear and the Core was so bright, you could just make out the darker “fingers” with the naked eye.

With an enjoyable weekend behind us and many new memories to look forward to, there was nothing left to do but pack up and head home. But first, we had to make our way down the mountain and past the astonished onlookers as we traversed some serious terrain with the Gladiator and OGT trailer.

Hopefully we can get another trip in with Grama before she “gets too old”.