2021 Road Trip – Craig, CO

June 23, 2021 – The Wild Horses of Sand Wash Basin

Today we visited the Wild Horses of Sand Wash Basin. Sand Wash Basin is a very large piece of land (250 square miles) controlled by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) which contains a large herd of wild horses. Entry is free, but they recommend a four wheel drive vehicle with decent ground clearance. Had we stayed on the main paths today, we probably could have gotten by in a car, but they say if it rains you’re in trouble even with four wheel drive. We ventured down a couple of side paths where we were glad we had the extra ground clearance and four wheel drive. Sand Wash Basin is extremely remote (47 miles west of Craig, CO with Craig being the last place with amenities).

We saw our first group of horses about 3 miles from the entrance. We only saw 3 other vehicles while we were there, but a couple in a Jeep had already stopped to view these horses. The horses were a couple hundred yards off the road, so that couple elected to walk in closer to them. We watched for a while to see if we would have an opportunity to film a When Nature Attacks video, but the horses didn’t seem too bothered. We got bored and moved along. Later we saw the couples’ jeep traveling down another road, so I guess they survived their own stupidity.

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I had read that part of the herd tends to hang out near a place called Two Bar Spring, so we turned down a side road to check that out. We saw quite a few along the way there. Overall we saw over 20 horses. We ventured down a remote side trail and discovered a group of 4 very close to the trail. We passed them very slowly and they never moved even though they were within about 20 feet of the trail (people have probably been feeding them). We got some great close-ups there and then headed back to another group of horses and had lunch with them. After lunch we felt like we’d seen plenty and headed back to the campground.

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June 20, 2021 – Travel to the KOA in Craig, CO

Today (6/20) we left Mt Princeton RV Park in Buena Vista, CO after 16 nights and headed for the KOA in Craig, CO (about 40 miles west of Steamboat Springs on US-40). Although most of the information I could find regarding this drive in the RV forums indicated that it was a fairly easy drive with Tennessee Pass on US-24 north of Leadville, CO being the only moderate climb. Once again, we beg to differ. Tennessee Pass was a piece of cake (probably because heading north we were already at 10,154′ when we hit Leadville and only had to climb to 10,424′). The scenery between there and Minturn, CO was spectacular, but the driving was a bit of an effort with lots of switchbacks going up and down mountain grades (mostly down heading north). From Minturn we took I-70 West for about 16 miles and then jumped on CO-131 heading north. We immediately hit steep grades upward which really made the RV work. According to Google Earth, the first grade hit 7.7% near the top. We got over that OK and stopped for lunch at a pullout near Bond, CO. After lunch we started into the next uphill grade. It had a short section with an 8.6% grade and at an outdoor temperature of 91 degrees that was too much for the RV and we started to overheat. We pulled over immediately and let the engine cool down and then put our flashers on and crawled up the rest of the grade in 2nd gear at 25MPH. The remaining section had anywhere from 5% to 7.2% grades, but we avoided getting hot by taking our time.

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When we got to Steamboat Springs, CO we stopped at the Walmart for supplies and then continued west on US-40 to the KOA. This is a very nice KOA situated at approximately 6,200′ in elevation. Even at that elevation, it’s still getting up to 95 degrees a couple of days this week. The owners here are wonderful and were kind enough to let us ship some items here and hold them for us until we arrived. One of those items was a replacement ice maker for our Norcold refrigerator. After a bit of cussing and swearing on Monday, we were able to swap out the ice maker and are producing ice again. The Wi-Fi here may be the best we’ve ever experienced. I spent my Father’s Day evening Sunday watching music videos on YouTube without a hiccup. Unfortunately, Visible and Tracfone aren’t doing so well here. Beth couldn’t even send out a picture in a text (MMS) Monday evening. The new AT&T Prepaid Hotspot works great here too, but we don’t need it since the campground Wi-Fi is so good. There are enough trees beside us that we had to break out our portable satellite antenna (R2D2), configure it for the DISH Eastern satellites and place it behind the camper on the hood of the Tahoe. None of the Denver local channels are on the DISH Eastern satellite (no Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy), but so far that’s the only “roughing it” we’ve experienced.

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