We had big plans for our second and last day in South Fork. We stopped to buy t-shirts across the street from the campground and Mark chatted up an employee. She said the ride to Platoro was fun and a good place for lunch. After dinner the lackluster map was spread out on the table and Mark plotted the next day. Our route would take us over Sheep Mountain into the town of Jasper before turning toward Platoro.
We entered the forest on the same trail as the day before and passed the same pretty aspens and pine trees. Once again we had the trails to ourselves.
The trail up and over Sheep Mountain was much rockier than yesterday’s trail. We slowed dramatically so as not to damage the RZR. The ride down was slow as well but all the rough terrain was worth it when we rolled into the back of Jasper. It’s a cute little town made up of houses tucked into a forest of aspen trees. Living in an aspen grove? Yes please. We had to stop to take in the beauty. If we lived in Colorado, having a cabin here would be top on my list.
We slowly rolled down the road to our turning point past many cute houses as we didn’t want to create a bunch of dust. We got to NF250 and turned left. They had a lot of rain recently and the damage was evident. Not damage to any buildings, but you could tell where a large amount of water had plowed down the mountain on some side roads recently.
This road was well maintained and we zoomed along right next to the Alamosa River on our right. It was a pretty drive. We saw a couple campgrounds, several houses and a church retreat complete with an outside worship area. That would be a beautiful place on a Sunday morning. We kept going and going but we were getting close to lunchtime and still weren’t there yet. Mark stopped a nice man going the other way in his SUV and what do you know; we were going the wrong way! We were actually almost to Alamosa! Talk about a wrong turn.
Back through Jasper we went. Time was now tight as Keith, Linda, Brian and Michelle wanted to be back early to start their drive home. That little wrong turn was seriously eating into our trail time for the day. The wildflowers were out in force and showing off as we wound down the mountain into Platoro. No stopping for pictures though as we were hurrying for lunch.
When we reached Platoro, we didn’t have time for a sit down lunch. We walked around the Skyline Lodge a little, had an amazing hand pie from their bakery and ate our snacks for lunch. The cafe inside the lodge had a wall covered in old license plates and hub caps from so many states I had to take a picture.
Michelle was as enthralled with the wildflowers as I was and we convinced the guys to stop so we could take some pictures. We promised to be quick. But, while we were taking pictures, Linda whispered DEER! We had an audience of two, a doe and her baby. She was watching us as much as we were looking at her. They stayed relatively still for all of us to snap off several pictures. These trails sure were a lot better for animal sightings than those around Silverton.
And we saw more on the ride back! A pair crossed in front of us, we slowed as quickly and quietly as we could and watched them scamper across the trail into the forest on the other side. They stood up high on the ridge watching us as we rode by. So very cool for this city girl.
Our ride back took us by Summitville and around Greyback Mountain through the now familiar forest. Again we had more rain which broke up before we got back to the RV. They loaded up their RZRs and left. After days of activity with lots of people, the campground was now strangely quiet. I decided to knock out as much laundry as I could while Mark cleaned the front of the RV before we watched the Diamondbacks game.
Linda sent me a text of a deer that literally stopped traffic right in front of them. She said he stood in the middle of the road almost posing for them and the trucker going the other way. We left early for long drive home and sadly, another vacation was over. Back to the heat we went and the long wait for another Colorado vacation began.