Overland Camping Roadtrip Blog
Travel Day 12:
Total km driven to date: 3332km
Total km walked to date: 90.75km
Rangely, CO – Rabbit Ears Pass, CO
283km drive
5.18km on foot
Those of you following along will notice I skipped 3 days, I was at an offroad event in Rangely, CO and have posted a race write up on my other website at www.pathmakerproductions.com/blog check it out if you’re interested!
After staying up late then night before helping Josh England of Rise Above Photography and Big Rich of W.E.Rock pack up all of their gear it was a slow morning getting everything put away in my camp and heading out on the road with the approximate destination of Steamboat Springs, CO. Leaving the high desert scrub and brown landscape of Rangely the road slowly climbed into the hills and greener pastures. Traveling along Hwy 64 it follows the White River for most of its distance. Getting on Hwy 40 at Craig, CO the road drastically starts to change as you begin to climb into the Colorado Rockies before Steamboat Springs. Steamboat is a classic frontier ski-town with many rustic shops along the main drag and a very nice little ski-town feel without all the big box stores or sprawl that is so common around these parts. We passed through town and instantly headed up through the Rabbit Ears Pass, at 9438ft our highest point yet on our journey. Seeing a pull off and a road heading into the bush near the summit in the middle of the Routt National Forest we pulled off and found a great spot to set up for the night in a meadow full of yellow wildflowers and also some big patches of snow! We set up camp and went for a 5km hike up the mountain, I did not bring the GPS but I am sure we passed the 10,000ft mark on our hike, first time ever this high above sea level! Some black thunderheads started heading our way so we headed back to the truck, getting here just in time for the rain to start pouring and the thunder to start crashing down around us. At the closest I counted 1.5 seconds from flash to crash, meaning the lightening was very close and very violent for a while. While poor Axel cowered underneath my legs I spent the evening working on W.E.Rock photos and planned our route for tomorrow.
