Grand Mesa, CO

[DoubleD]

We are planning a 2 week camping trip starting September 23 and are considering Grand Mesa. What is your weather experience on Grand Mesa during late September and early October? We have double batteries and propane tanks and only run the furnace and some lights, so I think we can stay there for about 7 days without recharging or refilling. Thinking that would be a great time to fish the many lakes up there, and of course, crowds will be way down. Which route affords the best access to many areas on the Mesa?

[kwatson51]

DoubleD,
Sorry no one replied to your question..I suppose your trip is over with by now.
Please tell us about it...where you stayed etc. and your impressions.
...keith

[DoubleD]

DoubleD,
Sorry no one replied to your question..I suppose your trip is over with by now.
Please tell us about it...where you stayed etc. and your impressions.
...keith

We ended up staying at Vega SP, just off the Mesa.  8200' instead of 10,000+ made it much more enjoyable after dark.  This was the third stop in a four stop tour of Colorado and IMHO, the best part of the trip.  Got up on the Mesa every day, got a great picture of a moose who visited the lake we were fishing on.
We saw every end of the Mesa, NSEW, and it is an impressive place with over 300 lakes.  We fished a couple of the lakes and were never skunked.  Saw a bear on the side of the road about one mile away from our campsite one night, made me even more convinced that I do not want to cook food in the PU.  Five out of over 100 campsites were occupied until the last day, when 3 were occupied.  The aspen were perfect, the weather was a bit rainy 2 of the 5 days, but it didn't stop us from enjoying the trip.  There were days we saw more deer than people, and days we caught more fish than the number of people we saw.
As we left Vega, we took a county road northeast towards Silt to avoid backtracking west to get to I-70.  Just after the pass on that road, the road turned to mud, the kind that is slick as grease.  The PU fishtailed around a couple of the first few hairpin corners and I was taking it real slow.  Then we hit a mile of this greasy mud.  Crawling along the tightrope of not getting too close to the edge, and trying to stay out of the ditch, I managed to slide into the ditch and the PU followed.  The last thing I wanted to do was stop, so I just slowly kept going and the TV came out, but of course the PU took a little longer to get out of the ditch.  Turns out that we did a little damage to the rear corner of the roof of the PU (probably from hitting some branches) but nothing a little sealant won't repair.  I think that dent will be considered a souvenir.  We must have gotten 200 lbs of mud on the PU, and another 100 on the TV!
All is all, it was a great 2 weeks, perfectly timed to miss hunting seasons, crowds, and catch the best aspen viewing and fishing of the year!  It was a 800 mile loop, and we put 1645 miles on the TV.

[CampDirt]

I am sooo glad you had a great trip!  Grand Mesa is also one of my favorite places for wildlife viewing.  I always thought the best kind of camping was lots of wildlife, great fall colors, and not too many people.  You have more guts than I do going up that muddy road!  A lot of the mountain dirt roads on the east side of the divide are now covered with snow, western slopes will probably get hit soon.  So, you went at the perfect time.

I have to admit I totally forgot about Elk Campground.  Sorry you didn't have much luck fishing at Ridgeway, but at least you got to see some spectacular sites (like Black Canyon).  Fishing is better on Grand Mesa anyway.  For your next Colorado fishing getaway you ought to try Red Feathers Lake up north.  I'm not a fisherman (except BIG fish in the Pacific), but I hear it's a fisherman's paradise.  Planning to go there next summer myself.  Anyway, I'm glad to be of some help...