The next stop on our week-long RZR trip was the teeny tiny town of South Fork, Colorado. When I say tiny, I mean tiny. There isn’t even a traffic signal in town. Our home base was Peacock Meadows RV Park on the edge of town. We wanted to try the trails around South Fork after hearing it was a hidden gem with very little traffic. Hidden gem was true, we were the only ones on the trail most of the time.
Our map for this part of our trip paled in comparison to the nice book we had in Silverton. I learned a valuable lesson for multi-day trail rides with a less than stellar map: buy Sharpies in different colors. Our Polaris Ride Command App was invaluable for this leg of the trip. Color coding aside, we had a fun time of adventures and misadventures.
We headed out on our first day with an ice chest full of lunch, snacks, beverages and a fully charged camera battery. The forecast was for scattered thunderstorms so our rain gear was also along for the ride.
The trails were delightfully empty. We went past beautiful aspen groves, more dead trees and too many perfect Christmas trees to count. We picked out apartment sized trees, perfectly full trees and lots of “Clark Griswold” trees. If we lived close, I’d have two or three every Christmas.
Our first stop was Beaver Creek Reservoir. It’s a good sized body of water that’s popular with fishermen. There were several families lining the banks with children playing along the water line. I’m sure there weren’t many fish being caught in that area of the lake. Maybe the people farther away were having better luck. While I walked around, Mark poured over our map for our next stop.
Poage Lake was up next. It’s a quiet little lake at the end of a little hike from the parking lot. My pictures don’t come close to the beauty. There was a solitary fisherman in the middle and we tried to be quiet for him, try being the operative word. All along the shoreline dead trees were scattered about. With no bark, it was clear they had been there a while. There was something about them laying about that was really cool to me.
None of us were hungry for lunch so we headed to the top of Greyback Mountain. The many turns along the trail led to some pretty waterfalls. I hung my camera out of the RZR as we passed and snapped off tons of pictures, tons of blurry pictures. Thankfully I asked Mark to stop for one as it is the only clear waterfall shot I got all day. We also saw something else wonderful, ANIMALS! Yeah yeah, the first sighting was a bunch of cows but it was finally something different from fast little marmots. After that the floodgates opened. Not really but we see the first of several deer after lunch.
We hit the top of Greyback Mountain before a storm rolled in. The trail up to the top is wide open on the side of the mountain with good views all around. There was a group of people on quads that we talked to for a few minutes. Our plan was to each lunch at the top and take in the view but Mother Nature had other ideas. The wind really picked up then the rain started, sideways. Time to go! I felt bad for the people on the quads, it was going to be a cold and wet ride down.
While up there we saw an active mine with some small surrounding buildings and picked that place for our fabulous picnic lunch. The mine before us was Summitville. That active mine turned out to be another mine clean up site. There are a series of signs along the parking area overlooking the original mine site that tells the rich story of the hardy people who lived and worked here. Across the trail sat several old buildings which were beckoning us. Where Animas Forks is being meticulously restored, this group of buildings was the exact opposite. Some buildings were standing well while others were partially collapsed from heavy snows. There was clearly a street of sorts with buildings on either side and grass was knee high in places. It was fascinating. Walking through it we tried to figure out what was a bank, store or home.
What is this? A deer? Yes, yes it is. There were several in this area of the forest. After leaving Summitville we headed to Elwood. It was marked prominently on the map but turned out to be a cabin available for rent and bills itself as a unique lodging opportunity. It also served as our turn-around spot. The storm had moved away enough for us to go back without getting slammed by rain, or so we thought.
We had a decent enough signal to check the radar and hoped we could beat it back to the RV. Wrong.
We drove back through Summitville and by Greyback Mountain then reached the heavier forest. The roads were wet and the smell of pine trees filled the air. I love that smell. We drove along splashing in puddles still confident that we’d beat it. We could hear thunder way off in the distance but we were good.
We didn’t even get the light drizzle. At least we got lucky that it started raining right as we pulled up to a T in the trail where everyone jumped out to quickly put rain gear on. I had a water resistant jacket on so I draped my rain coat over my lap and tucked it in down my legs. I swear if we hadn’t stopped right then and there, all six of us would have been soaked to the skin in no time. It rained hard. The trail climbed and the rain turned to hail that started small and got bigger as we climbed. It was a fun and wild ride. Once through the storm we had a nice ride back to camp.
No rain at the campground so we broke out the cornhole for a raucous impromptu tournament. I’m not sure who had more fun, the players or the hecklers. Day one in South Fork was in the books and we were excited about day two.