Cayton Campground, Rico, CO

 

It was a beautiful drive along the Dolores River to Cayton Campground, a San Juan National Forest Service campground about 20 miles south of Telluride. Since rain was predicted in the afternoon, we got an early start and arrived before noon. The rain didn’t wait, though, and we had drizzle and clouds most of the way. We wanted cooler weather and we sure found it. It was only 52 degrees when we arrived here at elevation 9200’.

Many of the sites are on reservation, but we got lucky again and got two of the last open sites. We actually have electric (we were surprised the sites without power were full) and there are non-threaded water spigots. There is a “dry dump” (no water) but it costs $10 even if you are camping here. We are paying $13.50 with the senior pass ($22 without).

Our sites are right next to a stream, but the downside is the sound of the rushing water doesn’t drown out the road noise from Hwy 145, just above the campground.

This is just behind our site.

And the road is behind the power pole. 

Since there is no phone or internet here, we took a drive to check out two other forest service campgrounds, Matterhorn and Sunshine, about 10 miles north, but weren’t all that impressed. We did have a good Verizon signal there, though. Since we only paid for two nights here, we will do some more exploring today to figure out where we’ll go next.

It wasn’t a good day for taking photos on our drive over Lizardhead Pass, which is over 10,000’, since it looked like this. The clouds were certainly interesting, though.

We drove around Trout Lake looking for boondocking spots

and came across this old trestle. 

 

This is beautiful country. If we’re lucky we’ll get to see it with the sun shining.