Oct 09 2009

Overlooks in Canyonlands

Our big day of hiking turned into a little day of hiking. Eleanor did something to zing her back and was in such excruciating pain that wearing a backpack for six or seven miles on the trail was not realistic. This was disappointing for all but I had great sympathy for her predicament, since the exact same thing happened to me about two weeks ago in Wyoming. Neither of us has a history of back trouble, but we both celebrated birthdays in the, uh, latter half of our 40’s, and we suspect that we are facing the reality of so-called middle age.

Well, not wanting to go quietly into decrepitude, Eleanor took a few Motrin and shouldered her burden long enough to hike a two mile trail at the spectacular Grandview Point of Canyonlands National Park. It was worth it, I think, but after that we needed to give her break. Fortunately, you can see a lot in this park just by driving to overlooks and walking short distances.

Driving in the park is kind of fun, thanks to squiggly roads and great scenery all the time. I really didn’t mind cruising around and stopping at overlooks, and it was a good excuse for a roadside picnic. Emma and I did get in one more short hike, at Whale Rock. It’s described as “good for families” with some slickrock climbing, but on a breezy day like yesterday the final stages of the hike can be a little intimidating. Zoe the Stuffed Cat (who always rides in Emma’s backpack) had to be securely zipped inside so she didn’t blow out, and we could hear her yowling the whole time.

We have decided to stay another day, in the hope of Eleanor’s recovery, and in any case because we can’t think of any other spot we’d rather be at the moment. The weather is fine, the campground is pleasant and cheap, the scenery is fabulous, and there is plenty to do whether we choose to drive into the park or just play around here. Most importantly, our water supply is holding out, and there has been sunshine to recharge the batteries.

The major reason to depart may be our next mail drop. It is awaiting us in a town three hours south of here, and the post office in that town is open on Saturday for only two hours. This means we must leave early Saturday in order to get the mail, or wait until Monday to pick it up. Normally a mail pickup is not a big deal, since the post office will hold mail sent to General Delivery for three weeks. It’s just one of the many factors we consider as we develop our ongoing itinerary.

In this case, however, I need that mail ASAP. It contains the registration paperwork for our car. There was a SNAFU with the title and as a result our temporary registration expired yesterday before the permanent registration was processed. As of today we are legal again, but we don’t have any paper to prove it, so I’d like to get that document before we go much further. In four years of full-time and part-time travel with the Airstream, we have not been pulled over by the police once, but of course Murphy’s Law says that’s what will happen if we don’t get that paper in the glove box soon.

We are in the “end game” of this trip now. There are only a few stops left before we end up in Tucson. We’re weighing the final stops carefully now, trying to get the most out of the high-altitude sites before we flee to the low desert and winter warmth. We will definitely be at winter home base before Halloween, and our next scheduled Airstream adventure will not be until after Christmas. Knowing this gives us reason to drag our wheels as we drive through the Four Corners region. For you, blog readers, this means perhaps another 10-14 days of travel blog before we switch gears to home life (and three-quarters of you tune out!)

Oct 08 2009

Offroading Canyonlands National Park, UT

We decided to skip Dinosaur National Monument this time around and head straight to Canyonlands. Dino is operating under some restrictions due to the visitor center being closed, and the fact that it is off-season. We’ll visit that park on another trip. So our route took us down from Blue Mesa reservoir along Rt 50/285 to Montrose, and then northwest to Grand Junction CO, where we picked up I-70 to Utah.

As I’ve mentioned before, the drive along Rt 50 across Colorado is a fantastic and worthy roadtrip. I-70 from Denver to Grand Junction is pretty good (for an Interstate highway) as well, but given the choice I’d pick Rt 50 except in winter. I can’t say the same for I-70 west of Grand Junction, because as soon as you cross into Utah it becomes a pretty featureless and dull road. The compensation is that you’re out of the mountains and on the straightaways, and so you can go fast.

I upped the rig to 65 MPH just so I wouldn’t get blown away by cars and trucks going the legal limit of 75 MPH. The increase in speed dings our fuel economy but we still got an overall 13.5 MPG for the segment, which isn’t bad for towing. We could have gone the speed limit with no problem, but as a general rule I don’t tow that fast. The trailer’s tires are rated for only 65 MPH and the fuel cost would have been high. As another GL320/Airstream owner once told me, “The GL will tow at any speed you care to pay for.”

The entrance we used to Canyonlands National Park is just north of Moab UT. The park is divided into four districts, each separately accessible: Islands In The Sky (where we are), Needles, The Maze, and Horseshoe Canyon. The districts have completely different routes leading in, and this makes it virtually impossible to visit all of the districts in less than a week. The distance from one entrance to another can be several hours. We chose Islands In The Sky for its accessibility and features — it should be a good orientation to the park overall. We’ll have to visit the other districts in future trips.

You have to come prepared to visit this place. Visually, it is like a mashup of Bryce Canyon and Grand Canyon. The views are stunning. But there is no lodging, no water, no fuel, and no services (restaurant, repair, or otherwise). The only campground in this district is called Willow Flat and it has just 12 sites. It fills every day this time of year. It has no dump station or water either. For just about anything, you have to drive 25-30 miles to Moab along a circuitous (paved) road, which means a minimum 45 minute trip one-way.

We arrived at 3 p.m., far too late to get a campsite in either Willow Flat or the nearby Dead Horse State Park (just outside the park boundary). We ended up at a Bureau of Land Management campground called Horsethief, about 5 miles from the park. No water, no dump, no hookups, but nice scenery and well-spaced dirt sites in the boonies ($12 per night). Amazingly, my cell phone and Internet work just fine both here and at the Canyonlands visitor center, so I’m able to keep up on work and post the blog. That means we’ll stay at least two nights and perhaps three.

Our usual program when arriving at a national park is to drop the trailer and immediately hit the visitor center for orientation. The rangers are always happy to meet someone who is going to stay a few days (rather than the usual, “We’ve got two hours — where are the good views?”) and they will provide insider tips on where to go.
With only a couple of hours of daylight left (after Emma finished browsing the visitor center for clues for her Junior Ranger program), we decided to drive down into the canyon on a four-wheel drive road called Shafer Trail. Now, you might be thinking, “Hey, that’s a Mercedes — it doesn’t go off-road,” and I’ll admit I was thinking the same thing. But Mercedes says that this SUV has parentage from their famed off-road beast the G-wagon. The GL comes standard with all-wheel drive and an air suspension that can be lifted two inches at the touch of a button. (In the photo at left, you can see the suspension in the “raised” mode.)

I wouldn’t take it on major 4WD roads that require very high clearance because our hitch reinforcement would probably scrape, but the Shafer Trail looked like a good bet — and if it wasn’t, I was prepared to turn around or back up, and go home.

Well. I was pretty busy trying to observe the incredible, occasionally terrifying, view while driving the car around steep hairpin turns over loose rocks … so I did not get any photos of us coming down the road. However, you can get a good idea of what it is like to drive the Shafer Trail from videos taken by other visitors. The photo at above (click to enlarge) shows part of the descent we did. The car did just fine, had no clearance problems, and handled as well or better than the Nissan Armada we used to do these sorts of things with. So I’m amazed that Mercedes managed to engineer a car that can go 150 MPH all day on the Autobahn in comfort, tow a heavy Airstream with good fuel economy, and still be a capable rough-road vehicle too.

The trip down Shafer Trail takes a while. We put the car in “Downhill Speed Regulation” mode, set the limit to 6 MPH, and it crept down the hairpins while I tried to avoid sharp rocks and major potholes. In about 40 minutes we were down to the Gooseneck hiking trail, parked the car, and hiked 0.3 miles to a stupendous overlook of the mighty Colorado River grinding its way through the sandstone canyon.

Yes, it was worth the trip. I would have liked to have gone farther, but the setting sun dictated that we head back up. I could not imagine driving the Shafer Trail in the dark.

At Gooseneck, the road we were on was part of the White Rim Trail, which is a backcountry 4WD adventure of over 100 miles. It takes at least two days to traverse completely. I am sure there are parts of that road I wouldn’t have taken our car on, but the rangers indicated that if we had time we could have gone at least to Musselman Arch.

Today we are going hiking. I have the Winter 2009 magazine 95% wrapped up, and my major task in the next few days is to review layouts and resolve last-minute problems before we go to press. This is work that can be done at any hour of the day, which means we can play in the sunshine and I can work in the early morning and at night. It makes for a long and peculiar day, but it works for me. I see the kid is waking up now, and that means it is time for me to wrap up the morning’s work and start preparing for a day in Canyonlands.

Oct 07 2009

Curecanti National Recreation Area, CO

It was time to break camp at Cheyenne Mountain state park. I took a short walk to drop off the trash in the bear-proof dumpster, and the camp host gave me a cheery wave and a big “HEY! How’s it going?” as I walked by. I thought he was being a little enthusiastic for a casual greeting, but when I returned to the campsite I found the ranger standing there and she said:

“Are you the guy who posted that nice blog about us?”

Turned out she’d been tipped off by Google Alerts. Everybody’s using it now, and that means within a few hours of my posting anything, random people are coming to blog to check it out because it mentioned something they’ve asked Google to monitor for them.

I’ve got to be more careful. Sometimes I don’t like a campground or a town. If I post my thoughts before we depart, the rise of technology means that people in the local area will find out before we’ve safely escaped the area. You might think I’m paranoid, but it has happened before. I once was threatened with a lawsuit for “defamination” by a campground owner in Creede CO for expressing my opinions. He carried on a campaign against me for weeks, with phone calls, faxes, and emails. I still get angry comments on the Tour of America blog for having dared to write sarcastic remarks about Solvang CA. I’m not afraid of the counter-criticism, but I’d prefer not to have to deal with grumpy locals at my campsite.

Fortunately, I can say nice things about our overnight stop. We drove the beautifully scenic Route 50 from Canon City, through the Royal Gorge, and up to Salida, Gunnison, and eventually to Curecanti National Recreation Area. I recommend this road trip to anyone who likes western scenery. We are parked in one of eleven campgrounds strung along the edge of Blue Mesa Reservoir (the largest body of water in Colorado). The Blue Mesa’s name is apt, as the water is stunningly blue at times, almost rivaling the color of Crater Lake. All around this long reservoir are pinnacles and scrub-covered hills, and the road follows it for many miles from just west of the town of Gunnison to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.

We have stopped at the Lake Fork marina and campground, 27 miles west of Gunnison. There are only two other campers here, since it’s so late in the season. The visitor center is closed, there’s no campground host, and the campground is dry and self-service this time of year, but that’s all fine. Frankly, having nobody at the desk just means we can check in a lot quicker. I bought a $6 overnight ticket from the self-service machine and we picked a spot. Every spot here has a view of the water.

On the way here, we paused at Monarch Pass. The last time we stopped there was in 2006, and the grade leading up to Monarch Pass hasn’t shallowed one bit since. It’s a long pull to the top, several miles of 6% grade leading up to over 11,312 feet of elevation. I took this photo for those who still don’t believe that you can tow an Airstream comfortably in the mountains with a V-6 turbodiesel. The car was perfectly content to haul us up the hill, and the engine stayed at normal operating temperature.

As I write this, the sun is rising over the reservoir. It was cold last night, and right now the official temperature in Gunnison is 18 degrees. If I’d thought it was going to be so cold I would have run the catalytic heater instead of the furnace, to save electricity. The Tri-Metric battery monitor says we managed to use 40% of our battery capacity in one night, and most of that was due to the furnace cycling on every few minutes, sucking up 7.5 amps as it ran. I got up at 5:45 and switched over to the catalytic heater but the damage to our power supply was already done. Fortunately, the skies are projected to be very clear again today, so we’ll probably get back to 90% charge by afternoon.

The plan for today is to continue heading west on Rt 50/285 through Montrose and up to Grand Junction. That’s about as far as we’ve gotten with it. We need to decide today if we are going to Dinosaur National Monument in northwestern Colorado (a big detour), or Canyonlands National Park in Utah, or both. Since it is getting cold at the upper elevations, weather will be a big factor in the decision. We can see the end of our travels in this part of the country approaching quickly, but we’re milking it for all we can.

Oct 05 2009

Cheyenne Mountain State Park, Colorado Springs CO

We have been waiting for two years for the campground at Cheyenne Mountain State Park to open. Every year we come by Colorado Springs to visit with members of Eleanor’s family, and we have tried different places to stay each time. They’ve all been fine, but nothing has been super-convenient to their home, and some places we’ve tried have been so far out of Colorado Springs that I can’t make phone calls or get online, which makes work impossible.

Finally this year we got our first chance to try the newest state park in Colorado, right at the granite base of Cheyenne Mountain, and it has been sweet. This place is first-class all the way. The park road winds up 600 feet of elevation (from 6,000 to 6,600) and includes a spectacularly nice Visitor Center (complete with cushy Mission-style furniture and a fireplace), many hiking trails, bathrooms, showers, laundry, camp store, four RV/tent camping areas, and special walk-in “tent only” campsites.

The views are excellent from up here, looking east to the valley of Colorado Springs and backdropped to the west by the imposing sight of Cheyenne Mountain. It’s fall, so some of the low vegetation is changing color, which makes the view even more entrancing.

But best of all are the superb campsites. They are varied in shape and size and distributed around curving roads and cul-de-sacs, so the campground doesn’t have the boring homogenous “parking lot” look. The sites feature the same perfectly level pink concrete that we appreciate so much when we are at Cherry Creek, along with large gravel picnic areas, fire rings with steel covers (first time I’ve seen those in a state park!), two rustic-looking water outlets (one positioned for RVs, the other for tents), a separate gravel tent pad with tie-down rings (because it’s windy here and tent stakes won’t hold in the gravel), and full hookups with 20/30/50-amp power.

The sites are well separated and bordered with plenty of natural local vegetation of the arid high-altitude variety. At $22 per night for full hookup (plus day use fee of $6 or annual state park pass), it’s a pretty good deal. I can’t find anything not to like. I suppose in the winter I might not like it as much, but the campground starts to go through a series of stepped closures starting October 15 anyway.

For business purposes, my Verizon Internet card works well enough up here, but I notice that phone calls often drop despite a strong cellular signal. This may be caused by the multitude of large antennas atop Cheyenne Mountain — a short straight-line distance away. The military is still active inside the mountain, and who knows what sort of RF they’re beaming out. Other than this nuisance, the park combines business and pleasure for me very well.

We’ve spent three days in the park and will be leaving tomorrow. We certainly could stay another day or two to enjoy the company and the blustery fall weather, but we want to get across the Rockies in the next couple of days, before some early winter weather shows up. We’ve been getting days in the 50s and 60s recently, but by Saturday the forecast calls for snow and a high of just 39. Time to move on — but we’ll be back to Cheyenne Mountain State Park again.

Oct 04 2009

Oscillation

I just read Forrest McClure’s recent blog post on the Airstream Life Community Page about his driving experience on I-25 near Denver. Forrest and Patrice spent a couple of pleasant days with us in Cherry Creek State Park, which is one of our favorite western stops.

I had not thought to mention the undulating stretch of pavement on I-25 in my first blog from Cherry Creek, but when Forrest and I got talking he brought it up and I was interested to hear how similar our experiences were. I want to talk about it further because it brings up an important safety issue for trailerites, and it gives me the opportunity to debunk some “urban legends” about towing.

As Forrest describes in his blog, the effect of undulating pavement (whether bumps, potholes, or even railroad crossings) is to make the trailer oscillate up and down at the tongue. The faster you go, the worse the effect, so if you read no further than this, take away one simple message: SLOW DOWN when the road gets funky.

When the trailer tongue lifts up, it unloads the weight on the rear axle of the tow vehicle. This removes part or all of the ability of the tow vehicle to control the trailer.

Let me repeat that, because it’s important to appreciate: an unloaded rear axle means you are no longer in control of the trailer. It does not matter how heavy your truck is. It does not matter what hitch you are using. It does not matter that you are the world’s best driver. You are now a passenger. The trailer, even a lightweight one, can easily shove your and your truck off the road in that brief “unloaded” moment, because when only the front wheels are in firm contact with the ground, you cannot expect to command the trailer.

The degree of this loss of control depends on a lot of factors. Speed has a lot to do with it, because the harder you bounce the trailer, the more it is going to lift your rear end. Independently-suspended vehicles have a slight advantage over solid axles, because they can keep their wheels planted more firmly in adverse handling conditions.

Heavier vehicles are harder to lift, but don’t think that’s going to save you. A typical Airstream with 800 lbs of tongue weight can easily bounce upward (on a good bump) with a force two or three times the tongue weight. In other words, imagine lifting up on the rear bumper of your truck with 2400 lbs of force. It may not come off the ground, but it sure it going to lose firm contact with the ground, with commensurate loss of control. You might as well be driving on ice. This is why I do not agree with the common belief that “heavier is better.” It’s only partly true, and induces overconfidence. There’s much more to safe trailering than just using a big truck.

I remember hearing an anecdote from an Airstream dealer about this phenomenon. He was towing a 1960s-era Airstream which was unduly light in the front (due to some parts being removed), using a heavy-duty pickup truck. Going around a curve, the trailer simply pushed his truck right off the road. Why? Because having inadequate tongue weight makes it easier for the trailer to lift the rear end of the truck. The trailer weighed about 3000 lbs, half of the weight of the truck, and yet in his words, “It pushed that truck around like it was a toy.” An oscillating trailer will cause exactly the same result.

Fortunately, both Forrest and I were traveling in a straight line, and both of us had the presence of mind to slow down. From our discussion, it sounded like Forrest got the worst of it, because he had some horizontal sway (side to side) and we did not. He also may have encountered the bumps at a higher speed, since I saw them coming and he didn’t. But as he pointed out, you can’t expect your equipment to save you in this situation. “Sway control” that is typically available on hitches is effective only on horizontal sway, not oscillation (up and down). You’ve got to slow down.

On the other hand, there is something to be said for a really good vehicle suspension. When oscillation occurs, you want it to stop as quickly as possible. The damping effect of the tow vehicle’s suspension is crucial here. The trailer will keep bouncing you for a while after encountering the bump, and that means the rear axle will get loaded and unloaded repeatedly. Each rear-axle unloading event is an opportunity for the trailer to push you, and each front-axle unloading event will give you a uncomfortable moment of understeer. The sooner it stops, the happier you’ll be.

Again, here’s where heavy truck drivers can become overconfident. Many trucks have very stiff suspensions, which resist compression even in an event such as we’ve described. Since the driver doesn’t feel the truck bouncing, he/she may assume that the truck is unaffected. Thus, the common statement that, “The truck doesn’t even know the trailer is back there.”

Actually, it’s the driver who doesn’t know what’s going on. A stiff truck suspension will resist bouncing, definitely, but the weight-loading effect caused by the trailer hitting a bump is still going to occur. Even if the truck doesn’t dip and bob, the weight distribution to the axles is still changing dynamically as long as the trailer is oscillating. You just can’t see it, or feel it, in the seat of your pants.

So in this case, what happens? Most of the time, nothing happens, the driver is clueless, and the truck and trailer go on their merry way. Once in a while, the grip of the rear axle is too light to continue controlling the trailer, and “suddenly without warning we went off the road!”

Personally, I’d rather be well-warned in advance that the rear axle is being unloaded and that I’m pressing the limits of tire adhesion, rather than be completely unaware and surprised when the limits are exceeded. If you tow with a vehicle that has a numb rear suspension, keep in mind that it’s not telling you something. Did I mention to “slow down”?

Of course, traveling on an uneven surface, wet or snowy surface, on a curve, or with improper weight distribution, will all exacerbate the problem. If you want to be safe (and who doesn’t?), start with a properly set-up hitch and weight distribution, then respect the conditions you’re in.

Despite driving radically different vehicles, both Forrest and I felt the effect of undulating concrete very dramatically. It’s impossible to say scientifically which tow rig performed better, but in any case our mutual experience underscores the need to respect the road. There’s no substitute for driver caution.