The Rain Dance

July 10:

I'm not sure if I accidentally performed some ancient rain dance in the past week, but either way the Gods have answered and brought monsoon season upon the San Juan Mountains. Like clockwork, I wake up every morning around 6:45, open up the rain fly, and shiver in the 40 something degree morning chill as the sun rises above the mountains. By 11:30am, black clouds begin moving into the canyon quickly from the north west, and by afternoon, the sky is almost completely shrouded in dark clouds. At some point between 1pm and 5pm every day, it pours rain for a very short amount of time, dropping the gorgeous 80 degree July temperature down to the 50s and emitting threatening thunder that echoes through the canyon.

After talking with a few different locals around Durango, we reached the conclusion that the thunderstorms were not unusual for July in the south western region of Colorado, but had begun a little earlier in the season than normal. We also discovered that by going east about 15 miles into Durango, we could usually avoid the afternoon storms altogether. Because Durango lies in a valley, the surrounding mountains mostly protect it from these storms.

One particularly stormy afternoon, we had had enough of the La Plata Canyon's early storms, so we set of to explore campgrounds out at Junction Creek and Lower Hermosa. We were really stoked on the prospect of camping out at Junction Creek because it is so much closer to downtown Durango than our La Plata Canyon site, and the afternoon storms don't roll in  until late afternoon or not at all, but after driving 12 miles up a mountain with poor gravel/dirt roads, we realized the site was unrealistic. The sites available for free camping were very primitive- no toilets, no water, and no closer to town than our previous camp. Not to mention that Brianna found a bunch of animal bones scattered around the area we were looking at setting up camp in!

With Junction Creek as an overall failure, we headed north about 8 miles to the Lower Hermosa Creek campground. An easy, 60-mile per hour drive north on 550 brought us into the town of Hermosa, where we followed a Forest Service Road about 5 miles up to the campground. The road itself was very well maintained and gradual, and the distance from the campground to town was less than at La Plata Canyon.

That night, it rained like hell in the canyon as we packed up our camp, stowed it all away in our cars, and headed out to Lower Hermosa. As promised, while the La Plata Canyon was under a flash flood warning, our new campground proved dry and beautiful. We even made it in time to set up camp, gather fire wood, and watch the sun set. Here's to new campsites!

-Mickey