EarthRoamer Owners Rally 2006, Grand Mesa, Colorado

Rally participants pulled out all the stops in an attempt to keep warm. Notice the original EarthRoamer ER2K in the background!

Weather conditions are changing by the minute with visibility ranging from a couple of hundred feet at its worst to spectacular views all the way west to Utah at its best. Scott Brady and I take a drive to the visitor's center to check on upcoming weather conditions and the story is much different than we were told in early summer. There will be no "seventy degree highs or sunny skies," instead we are faced with the prospect of 12-18 inches of blowing, drifting snow with limited to no visibility. Snowfall is expected to start at 6 pm this evening and continue throughout the next day. The lady at the visitor center seems a little surprised and concerned that anyone would have plans of camping on the Mesa at this time of year with an approaching winter storm. As Scott and I head back to camp we discuss our alternatives and ultimately decide to stick with our first night's plan to camp near Lands End Road and reevaluate our situation in the morning. We decide to proceed from Camp 1 to a new camp at Bogan Flats near Marble, Colorado at a significantly lower 7,500 foot elevation. If visibility and road conditions permit, we will travel our originally planned route of Forest Service roads through Grand Mesa and Gunnison National Forests. Our backup plan if visibility and road conditions are too bad is to drop down off of Grand Mesa via a southern route and proceed to our Bogan Flats camp.

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