S‘23, Ep. 3- Pagosa Springs, CO (07-15-23)

 We have been to Pagosa Springs a couple of times in the last few years, and this time around, we booked a week at a campground on the San Juan River.

The excitement started before we even checked in. In the office we could hear employees chatting on the radio and suddenly heard “Tell ALL the tent campers to get in their vehicles…NOW”. 

Turns out a young black bear thought the food being served in the campground was awesome, so he was trying to move in. Everyone was trying to scare him off.

Once we were settled, we actually came across the bear. He was in the campsite in front of us, looking for food. All of us bystanders made ourselves look big and yelled, to scare him off. He eventually left. Apparently he came back every day for a few days, but we never saw him again.

The campers who had the bear visiting were a group of 6 rigs traveling together. I forget how many kids she said there were, but they ranged in age from 9-15.  It reminded me of when our kids were young and we went boating every weekend. All of the kids seemed to be having a lot of fun- the old fashioned way. It was great to see.

Our first order of business in Pagosa was to attempt a hike. We took the 3.5 mile trail to Opal lake.

Although I think the term “Opal” is misleading, it is a pretty lake, and the hike was not bad.

We were very happy that our friends Dave and Debby came to meet up with us in Pagosa. They only had a couple of days, but they were definitely action filled. 

Our first full day with them we had booked a train ride on the Cumbre & Toltec Train.

The railroad is a National Historic Landmark. The route it takes crosses back and forth between Colorado and New Mexico countless times ( ok, 11 times), and It’s upkeep is paid for by the states of Colorado and New Mexico.

 

Apparently at one time the state of New Mexico tried to argue that more of the miles it travels are in Colorado, so their portion of the cost should be less-but the way the agreement was written was brilliant- one of the rails is owned by Colorado, and the other one is owned by New Mexico- so they are equally responsible for ALL of the track.

As far as passenger fares, there are several options available, but we booked the one that goes all the way to Antonito NM, several hours away. We also chose the “over 21” luxurious parlor car.  I knew from previous experience that it would be the caboose (easier to keep kids from running through.) And of course, a perk to this first class cabin is that they feed you, and serve you drinks. I got a kick out of our attendant, who was quick to tell anyone interested in coming into the car, that its a PRIVATE car- no entry allowed.

We spent a fair amount of time on the back deck, watching the beautiful scenery go by.

About halfway through the trip we stopped at a small town where everyone on the train was fed lunch. The food actually wasn’t bad considering it was basically a cafeteria. Back aboard the train, we finished our ride to Antonito.

Once in Antonito, it was a one hour bus ride back to Chama New Mexico, where we started our journey. Since it was late in the day, we drove back to Pagosa and had a late dinner at one of the local breweries.

Although that trip could be considered an adventure, it paled in comparison to the adventure we had the following day.  Pagosa Springs is known for it’s hot springs. In fact it has the deepest hot springs in the world, but we skipped that.

 

It also has a river that runs through it- the San Juan River. Our intent was to go tubing on the river. It’s running a bit fast right now, so it’s barely tubable.  After asking a camp host if we could tube from the campground all the way to the last “take out” spot, and receiving an affirmative, we dropped our truck off at the last take out spot- Yamaguchi Park. 

That done, we packed our lunch into a cooler and put the cooler into a “cooler float” attached to Dave’s tube.

 

And then we set off.

 

It wasn’t long before the quote of the day was uttered “ THIS IS NOT A LAZY RIVER”.

And it wasn’t. As we floated down the river at a pretty fast pace, we had to pay attention to the water in front of us. There were many rocks, and we needed to decide how to get around them. If we chose wrong, we could hurt ourselves or pop our tube ( I actually brought along a cheap spare tube, just in case.)

After about an hour we pulled over to have our lunch on the banks of the river.

Continuing on our way, we soon encountered several more rapids. Part of the problem with rapids is that they create a sort of eddy- so your tube just keeps circling back to the rapids- it was actually very hard to get past some of those.

 Debby flipped her tube a couple of times, and Paul did, once. Luckily Dave didn’t, because he had all our food and drink with him. At one point the cooler float hit a rapid in such a way that the cooler jumped out and landed in Dave’s lap.

About 2/3 through our trip (which seemed like 20 miles, but was actually probably 3.5 miles), we came across the hot springs that were adjacent to the river. It was a great place to take another break. Debby fell in love with the hot springs, and the rest of us enjoyed the fact that we could warm up. The river is extremely cold and at this point our feet were pretty much numb.

In fact, the water was so cold we had to stop several times along the way to add air to them.

Warmed up from the hot springs, we dragged Debby away so we could finish our journey. At one point I got stuck in an eddy, and couldn’t move forward, although I tried for quite a while. Finally someone floated by and grabbed my hand and pulled me with them, releasing the pull of the water. Whew.

The last quarter mile had rougher rocks and both Paul and Dave popped their tubes. Luckily Debby and I were ahead of them, and were able to explore and discovered they could actually walk to the truck from where they were.

The entire day was hilarious- because we lived through it.

Debby and Dave had to leave the next morning, and it was mine and Paul’s last day in Pagosa. We spent it groaning and moaning due to the full body workout we had on the river. 

Pagosa Springs, CO (07-10-20)

Pagosa Springs is a small, upscale touristy town, home to several hot springs, just as the name implies, including the deepest hot spring in the world. In addition to soaking in the springs, a popular pastime is tubing/rafting down the San Juan River, which runs through town.





Unfortunately for those interested in rafting, the river is running at 10% of its usual volume. There are overlooks where you can watch the tubers, but although we stayed for 3 days  we never got out and walked in the downtown area, nor did we eat at any restaurants. We just enjoyed watching the river and hiked.



There are tons of hiking trails in Colorado.  My biggest challenge right now is to find some that are doable for us.  We can’t hike at high elevations, nor can we hike for miles on end, and the trail can’t have too much elevation gain.  Tough parameters to meet in this state, and we aren’t used to limiting ourselves quite so much.

Nonetheless, we found a couple of trails that fit the bill and were still interesting. Our first hike was the meandering trail named Coyote Hill Loop.  Within the first few minutes we saw and heard a young Red Tail Hawk calling for it’s mother.

The trail was 3.5 miles and just 300 ft of gain, as it meandered through meadows and woods.  Very peaceful, and the weather was perfect.

Two days later we ventured out a little further. Knowing it was going to be a long day, we packed a lunch to bring with us.  It was almost an hour drive to our first trail but the scenery was pretty impressive.

Our first hike was the Piedra Ice Fissures Trail.

 It was a steady climb upwards through the woods, till we came upon the fissures- I was surprised at how many there were and how deep and long they are.  Paul had fun exploring, and even went inside one of them.
















We kept going along the trail until we reached the ridgeline, where we had spectacular views of the Piedra River Valley. We chatted with a young couple, who asked me to take their picture. I wouldn’t touch her phone but I had her give me her email address and I took pictures with my phone and sent them to her. A modern, socially distancing solution.

After we left them we made a bit of a mistake.  I had downloaded the tracks of someone who hiked this trail as a loop, and that’s what we followed.  Unfortunately , towards the end, it wasn’t actually a trail.  We had to pick our way through the underbrush.  But, we made it back ok.

From there we drove another half hour to get to the Piedra Falls Trail. Its a relatively short hike, 2 miles round trip, to a pretty neat waterfall.  There’s a small pool that you can swim in, and because it was a warm day, there were lots of people doing that.

This is a very popular trail.  We had to work to find a little area to have to ourselves.

The rest of our time in Pagosa was spent watching the hummingbirds and relaxing by the river. We debated going out for dinner but the restaurants were so busy, it really wasn’t worth it.

Eagle Nest and on to Colorado (07-01-20)

Looking at a map, our goal was to find someplace that looked interesting, where perhaps we had never been and someplace cooler than 90 degrees.  The small town of Eagle Nest, NM- population 300- fit the bill.




The most popular pastime in this area is fishing, and seems like everywhere we looked, whether it be Eagle Nest Lake, or the nearby rivers, we saw people doing just that.

This is one of the tightest RV spots we have ever had to squeeze into, and I don’t want to say how long it took.  But once in, the people in this park are some of the friendliest we have encountered.

 We were told that in a normal year there would be more socializing, but with Covid, they were just doing a distance Happy Hour on the pavilion.















We even had someone play the guitar for us one night.  It was definitely fun and it felt good to be in the company of others.














With a name like Eagle Nest, I had my eye out for some eagles, but we never did see one.

We hiked two trails in our 4 days here.  The first was Oeste Vista Trail. It was about 3 miles and 500 ft of gain, but the altitude is almost 9000 ft, so we were huffing a bit, for sure. The view from the top wasn't spectacular but there was a nice bench to sit on, and overall the trail was decent.









On our way home we stopped at a very well done Vietnam Vet Memorial.  We could only walk the outside, so I never found out why it was here, sort of in the middle of nowhere.

Our second hike was shorter but more fun. The trail follows Clear Creek, with several small waterfalls and a few bridges that crossed over the creek.

Once we reached a pool about a mile in, the scramble started- up a very steep embankment and along a rock ledge. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it past that part, but I did- no pictures though, I was too busy trying not to fall.  Ironically, once we made it past the tough spot, I decide I had had enough.

From the trailhead we drove down the road to the historic town of Cimarron. To get there we passed by Philmont, the 140,000 acre Boy Scout camp. We would have explored more if more things were open but as it was, we just decided to have lunch in the very historic Express St. James Hotel. 






The Hotel was originally built as a saloon in 1872 by Henri Lambert,  and hotel rooms were added later. Well known guests included Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Annie Oakley. During it’s wild wild west days, the common question around town was “ I wonder who got killed at Lamberts last night?”

Its much tamer now, and has a great outdoor patio, and the food was great!













Our visit to Eagle Nest finished, we plotted our course for our next destination- Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Colorado is full of mountains, so it does take some planning. We chose to go up and over Wolf Creek Pass.

This sign along the way was quite ironic, as the landscape surrounding it was definitely dull and brown.

As we chugged up the mountain, with a 7 percent grade in some places, Paul realized that the truck has yet another issue.  The turbocharger that we had replaced about a year ago is not working again, and we crawled up the hill at 30 mph. Not good.  We did eventually make it to the top of the pass, thankfully, but our relief was short lived.

As we started the trek downward, we were bombarded with signs of all sorts, some detailing the location of hair pin turns, others warning us when we were going over the 25 mph speed limit, and yet others letting us know how far we were from the runaway truck ramp.

I was so busy being nervous, I could barely enjoy the gorgeous scenery around us.  Imagine my horror when the truck started beeping an alarm and the “CHECK BRAKE SYSTEM” alert started flashing on the dash.






As Paul was calmly trying to explain to me what the problem was, I literally couldn’t understand him and told him he needed to pull over to talk. Being a good husband, that's what he did, and then explained that there was no problem with the brakes, it was just a bad sensor. Most of me believed him, but I was still happy when we got to the bottom of the hill.

At that point I could pay attention to the gorgeous scenery, and the colors of Colorado went from brown to beautiful shades of green.

The day ended on a high note when we got to our campsite and saw how close it was to the river. Now we could relax with an adult beverage ( or two).