Mud-on-the-tires Full-time RV Adventure: CO -- Nathrop, 1

Our second month in Nathrop, Colorado…

Winter finally hit the Colorado Rockies and we played in frozen white stuff! We did a bunch of geocaching and also visited family at Christmas. It was a good month!

A fresh blanket of snow!

Weather

- Average December high temp: 40.8F low temp: 11.5F Average snow: 4.7 inches

Here is what we experienced December 2012:

- Snow: 6.5 inches

- Lowest temperatures: -11F on the 10th, -9F on the 19th, and -8F on the 29th

December started with well above average temperatures and it ended slightly below average. Snowfall was slightly above average. However, because winter got started so late, the Colorado Rockies have 50-75% of the their normal snowpack. We need a lengthy period of above normal snow just to get to average. Come on snow!

- Hikes and Geocaching

Hike near Cottonwood Lake-found 6 geocaches Found in a cache…will come in handy next spring!

A hike on the Colorado Trail near Mt Shavano…found 2 geocaches

Note the lack of snow on 14,229 foot high Mt Shavano (over my right shoulder) on 4 December.

A hike up the Browns Creek Trail to a pretty waterfall…hmmm, where’s the cache?

That spot is at 10,000 feet and should have 2-3 feet of snow the first week of December.

Geocaching near Salida…6 caches found

7 December, still no snow

Geocaching along the Arkansas River in Buena Vista…4 caches found

9 December, finally some snow!

Disc golf in Buena Vista

Hike up the Mt Princeton road in 6-8 inches of new snow!

Headed up to Mt Princeton A big buck guarding a geocache Arleen by a cache

Beautiful winter views along the Mt Princeton road

I’m holding a “nano” cache. Inside is a rolled up paper, or log, that geocachers initial and date. This log was full! It gets quite a bit of traffic each summer. Here’s the cool thing…we would have never discovered this little school house or learned its history had it not been for geocaching. We learned that this school was used 1889 to 1933. On Christmas Eve 1902 during a holiday party attended by local families, snow came down hard creating 3-4 foot drifts and zero visibility. They decided it best to spend the night. A teacher, Miss Thompson, read “A Visit from St Nicholas” by kerosene lamp. That’s all we know of the story, but it made us think of those kids on that chilly night. It also made us appreciate this area a little more.

We broke trail on the Colorado Trail south out of Chalk Creek Canyon…See the alien face?

Posing in front of Mt Princeton…The temperature was in the 20’s and winds were 40mph…brrr!

Christmas day hike on the Colorado Trail north out of Cottonwood Creek Canyon

Note the lack of snow on this south facing slope

Geocache tally: Started December with 26 and added 40 more for a total of 66.

- Skiing and Snowboarding

Winter finally hit the Colorado Rockies the second week of December! In a 10 day period, the mountains got 3-5 feet of snow. Monarch, our closest ski area, finally opened on 14 December and it continued to snow and snow and snow for five straight days. We went to Monarch three times those first five days and played in powder each time! Until now, we’ve never lived so close to a good ski area and we’ve never had season passes. That little dream has come true and we are taking full advantage of it!

Opening day, 14 December 2012

Powder turns!

17 December…more powder!

Arleen in the powder

Surfing the snow

- Snowshoeing

Arleen had snowshoed quite a bit, mainly in Alaska and a couple of times in the Alps. I had never been! Now that our trails are covered in snow, hiking is out, and snowshoeing is in!

Our first snowy foray was on a rocky four-wheel drive route near St Elmo. The powdery snow wasn’t quite deep enough to prevent us from scraping and tripping on rocks, but we had fun. We will do a whole bunch more snowshoeing this winter!

Posing by an old cabin Peeking around some aspens

Snowshoeing near St Elmo on the 4-wheel drive Grizzly Lake route

At 11,000 feet in 2-3 feet of snow!

- Staying warm

During the coldest periods, the RV skirt kept it 25 degrees warmer under the trailer! We continue to stay warm and nothing has frozen. During the cold snaps we went through a 30lb bottle of propane in three days. Otherwise, we empty a bottle every four days or so. We do have some problems with the propane. When the bottle is about 1/3 full or less, and the temperature is in the single digits or lower, the propane does not make it into our system. The outside of the bottle ices up and I think it impacts the pressure. We put fleece pillow cases over the bottles, but it didn’t make much difference. It’s not a problem if the other bottle is more than half full. Then our system automatically switches bottles and everything works as it should. Then I take the “frozen” bottle off and put it in the sun for a couple of hours, and it works fine allowing us to empty the bottle. The only time I get concerned is when we leave for a few days. There are certainly solutions, like bigger propane bottles, but I’m alright with the status quo. At about $26 a fill, propane cost us roughly $200 in December. We also pay for electric. Even when running an electric heater a few hours a day, we paid just $30 for electric in November. Though these additional costs are considerably more than during the summer, we don’t drive as much, which means fewer times of paying $4 a gallon for diesel.

- Merry Christmas!

We made a quick 4-day trip down to the Front Range to visit family. We changed plans to take advantage of a break between winter storms and it worked out great! It was nice to spend time with our family.

South Park, the Sawatch Range (left), and the Mosquito Range (right)

Geocaching with Ellen and Kendal near Elbert, Colorado

Geocaching near Elizabeth, Colorado

Austin enjoying Dion’s Pizza

Maggie checking out whales

Geocaching and a great breakfast with Brian in Colorado Springs

Where we got our mail

Nathrop, Colorado

We’ve been here two months…the longest in one spot since we hit the road. The first few tinges of “hitch itch”, a desire to hit the road, have recently hit us, but we are happy. We thoroughly researched next year’s route and have even made reservations at small campgrounds and around busy summer holidays. We plan to spend spring 2013 to spring 2014 in southern Utah. It will be our first time setting eyes on Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Bryce, and Zion National Parks. We’ll also spend a bunch of time time hiking and fishing the remote lakes in the Boulder Mountain region between Torrey and Escalante and even plan an early fall week at the north rim of the Grand Canyon! We plan to do some volunteer work at an animal shelter in Kanab and hike to the famous “Wave” nearby. Our winter home will be Cedar City, close to Brian Head Ski Resort, decent fishing, Cedar Breaks National Monument, and plenty of other things that will keep us busy. Though we have a plan, it’s always flexible. There are lifetimes of adventures in our great country!

The longer we stay put, the stronger the “hitch itch” will get, but if we keep getting snow, we’ll be happy! Speaking of happy…

Happy New Year!

- Parting shots