Same start as usual, we woke and I blogged while Dan made breakfast in my kitchen. We were both feeling as though we hadn’t had a proper shower in a while so figured we’d go down to the creek we could see from camp and see if we could lather ourselves up with some soap. We crunched through the dry bush to the water and hopped a fence into private property. What we found wasn’t a creek but a small dam surrounded by reeds. It didn’t have easy access into the water and it didn’t look that inviting anyway because it was so stagnant. We retreated back to camp thinking we’d find a different alternative on the road.

I sussed out a spot just before the town of Piera on the Piera River using Google satellite. I lead the way out of the forest and back onto the highway. Only ten minutes later, I turned down another dirt forest road towards the river spot. There was a small pullout and there was a flowing river with absolutely no one around. Perfecto! Our cars parked in the shade, we took our soap down to the flowing water and got to showering. I stripped down but Dan remained modest in his boardies. Thankfully the water wasn’t as cold as the Animas River had been so we could easily submerge ourselves without getting pins and needles all over. Thanks to the morning heat, it was a refreshing dip.

We both scrubbed ourselves thoroughly and left the river feeling brand new. We let ourselves dry off in the sun on the rocks. While doing so, Dan noticed he had a bunch of tiny water slugs on his body. He went in for another rinse but didn’t get rid of them. Worried they were going to crawl into one of his orifices, he stripped down and had another shower upstream where I had been since I didn’t have any on me. After this rinse, he was bug free, though the pocket of his pants was still full of them.

Back at the cars, we packed our things away and put on fresh clothes feeling the most clean we had in days. Our next plan was to drive through Pagosa Springs then head north. I was to the lead the way so Dan pulled out before me and pulled off on the side of the road to let me by. In doing so, he pulled off a little too far and managed to drop his front right tyre down into a ditch. He realised he’d stuffed up and gave it a little gas but he wasn’t going anywhere. I left my car where it was and we both got out to inspect the damage.

Luckily he’d landed on his front axle and nothing else, but his tyre was completely of the ground. He needed me to pull him out. I didn’t say anything but I wasn’t sure my car would have the grunt to pull him out of such a big ditch but we set about hooking a tow rope up. We let a couple of cars go by before I lined up. As a couple in a fancy new silver Ford Explorer drove past, he gave me the biggest “You idiots” look I’d ever seen. Thanks a lot asshole. Dan hooked the rope onto his front axle then I positioned my car in front of his. The Astro doesn’t really have a good towing spot at the rear so we just hooked it into a hole in the chassis and hoped for the best. Dan got in his car and we were ready to try. I pulled forward to tighten the rope, dropped my car into first gear and pulled gently. I hardly felt the pull of Dan’s car before he was out. It was no problem at all!

A car was coming up behind us so we quickly gathered up the tow rope and pulled back in to our original parking spot so we could have a look under Dan’s car to make sure there was no damage. Apart from a bit of grass and mud tucked in to the front axle, she was right to go. A lucky escape!

Now we carried on to Pagosa Springs. I listened to an F1 podcast on the way and watched the storm clouds gather ahead of us. It seemed to be like clockwork in this area that when afternoon rolled around, so too did the clouds and the threat of rain. There was more green farmland between our shower spot and Pagosa which made the drive a pleasure. At some point, I heard a terrible suspension noise from the front of the car and paused my podcast to listen for it again. After a good five minutes, it didn’t happen again so I carried on listening to my podcast. Soon enough, it happened again, a loud clunk. Maybe it was the bike on the roof? But it definitely sounded like suspension bottoming out or at least not being happy. Shit! After playing the podcast again, I figured out it was the noise of someone tapping a microphone and nothing to do with my car. Paranoid much?!?!

We stopped in Pagosa Springs for petrol, but otherwise drove straight through. It was a cute little town with a lot of tourists tubing down the river but it looked less excited than our adventure down the Animas. The stormy weather also made it a little less appealing, even though it was still warm.

After Pagosa, we turned north towards South Fork and started climbing. I’d noticed on the Atlas that to get up to Curecanti National Recreation Area, we had to go over three mountain passes. The first, Wolf Creek Pass was at 10,857 ft, Spring Creek Pass was at 10,898 ft and the last, Slumgullion Pass was a whopping 11,363 ft. It was close to the highest point the Astro would have been and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about her making it after all the recent issues.

Eight miles from the top of the first pass, we started to climb steadily. There was a distinct smell of brakes at the bottom of the hill from the people riding then on the way down that increased my anxiety. The Astro settled into a rhythm and we steadily climbed at about 35 miph. Dan followed faithfully behind and a while later, we made it to the top of Wolf Creek Pass. There was a beautiful meadow at the top which some people were walking through. I stopped mostly because I wanted to celebrate a successful climb, but also because it was well past lunch time.

Dan popped his bonnet to look for a fuel smell he thought he could detect from inside the car but we found nothing. While looking, we both heard a gurgling noise coming from my car. Hmmm. At first I thought it might have been something wrong with the tyre but it didn’t sound right. It was the sound of gurgling water. There was that hole in my coolant hose that I hadn’t done much about. Sure enough, when I opened the bonnet, there was a constant pressurized stream of brown water pissing out of the small hole in the rubber hose. We avoided the stream and decided on lunch so we could let the thing cool down. The gurgling noise was coming from the overflow reservoir bubbling up.

Lunch! We made salad sandwiches and watched people walking across the field. I got my rain jacket out when it started to sprinkle but it was nothing serious, it definitely wasn’t shorts weather up at 11,363 ft! After lunch, my coolant system had cooled sufficiently to allow us to get our hands in there and make a fix. Dan’s brilliant idea was to move the hose further onto the spigot and clamp it over where the hole was. I added to that brilliance by electing to tape the hose around the hole beforehand. We faffed around with the hose clamp for longer than necessary since some idiot had placed the handles in a super inaccessible place. We eventually got to it using my vice grips and Dan pulled the hose off as I held the clamp open. As soon as we got it off, water came bubbling out of the engine block so Dan put the hose back on quick smart. The clamp was still off but it gave me a chance to tape up the hose. Then, with quick hands, Dan pulled the hose off, I put the loose clamp back on and he reattached the hose. I didn’t lose a catastrophic amount of fluid, just enough to wet a decent patch of the tarmac. Sorry environment. After positioning the clamp, and cleaning the area around the leak, we were right to go.

We said goodbye to the high elevation and began descending the mountain, Dan following behind me. The next few hours were some of the most beautiful I’d ever done. The dark grey tarmac wove through green fields of pasture with modest houses dotting the hills. We drove by towering cliffs and followed rivers that were raging right by the road. On top of that, the storm clouds were gathering again and we were treated to the sight of lightning flashes across the sky.

After an hour or so, I stopped in at a National Forest campsite to see if Dan and Cleo were doing ok. We were all happy to go on a little further since we were keen to get the three big mountain passes out of the way before making camp. The place we stopped was at the base of Spring Creek Pass which was almost unnoticeable thanks to the gentle incline. We reached the peak as rain started to fall properly. It definitely was dark grey and gloomy up here at this elevation.

We started on to the next pass right after going through a few small towns that set on the edge of huge fields that probably flood at the height of the snow melt. I wondered the appeal of these small places and the harsh whiteness that must consume them over the winter. The Slumgullion Pass also wasn’t too much work and as we crested over the wet road, we were rewarded with a beautiful view of the San Juan Mountains lit up by the only patch of sun in the sky. The clouds above us rained down, but nothing to heavy. I pulled in at an abandoned National Forest campsite right at the tip of the pass and Dan used the open bathroom there as I wandered through the thin layer of wildflowers admiring the brilliant view on the horizon. The campsite obviously hadn’t been maintained in many months so there was debris over the road and I was keen to find us a camp with a view of those mountains, so we carried on down the mountain side.

The road was wet and winding, but such a beautiful place with those lit up mountains. When I saw the turn off for Windy Point Overlook, I turned in and Dan followed. The road went a hundred meters up the mountain and came out at a beautiful parking area that had a brilliant view of the mountains, the patches of snow near their peaks flashing in the sun. This was gorgeous. No signs about parking and we were completely out of view of the road by a long way so I called this camp.

We stood outside admiring the mountains for a long time until the sprinkling rain finally got to us and we retreated inside Dan’s van for some rain time relaxation. The few claps of thunder we heard freaked Cleo out (obviously) and so she was happy to be couped up inside the van. We set up the laptop on the roof, deciding it was movie time. We watched “Clear and Present Danger” which I’d heard was a good bet. With Harrison Ford starring, of course it was! Dan had seen it before but long enough ago that he didn’t remember so we were both in suspense for most of the film.

We periodically checked the view outside to make sure we didn’t miss sunset and were surprised to find that most of the storm clouds had dissipated to reveal a late afternoon blue sky lit up by a bright yellow sun. The movie was just ending as sunset approached so we all got outside to admire the view. It was a slow sunset since we were so high above the horizon and the clouds lit up beautifully. We must have stayed out a good half hour just watching the scene change before us. We had the whole place to ourselves and the only noise was the gentle hum of the few cars winding their way up or down the highway below us.

When the sky finally turned dark, we retreated from the cold back into Dan’s van where he cooked tacos for dinner. It was pretty simple but brilliantly delicious. We made two and half tacos to share and ate them sitting on the bed looking out the back of the van. We finished the few minutes of the movie we had left and called it a night, huddling under the covers to keep out the cold. Poor Cleo asked to come into the warm bed a few times throughout the night but Dan wasn’t having any of it and she had to stay in her bed. Poor thing, but she survived the night alright.