Ash Ali and family and I spent several days last week camping in and above the Conejos River Valley and at Kerr lake in south central Colorado. Beautiful country but not an uneventful trip. While we were still headed up Conejos River Valley, Ash's 80 spit out the nut that holds the top of the shock bolt on the driver's side of the truck. Not real good. We searched on the road for the missing parts and Michelle did find the top washer, but no nut.
We went up the road just a bit and pulled down into a Forest Service camping area that turned out to be pretty nice. Mulling over the problem we noticed that the rollers on his winch fairlead had the same size nut and thread pitch so solution found. We had a nice dinner and turned in.
In the morning we headed off up the mountain toward the road to Kerr Lake. Being old and seemingly without memory I got us turned left when it should have been right looking for the lake road. My bad. We were turning around and heading back out to the right road when over the radio came the words "catastrophic failure". Again, not real good. The left hand side leaf spring on the Ali's Kamparoo had sheared completely off. Ash's inventive genius came up with a trail repair. We pulled the axle into alignment with my winch and then used big ratchet straps from either end of the trailer to keep it in place. Whatever works.
We continued on to Kerr Lake, them at a snail's pace, on a less than user friendly road in their condition. But the lake was reached, camps set up, another dinner made and all was well.
The next day they went over Elwood Pass and down to Pagosa Springs to find some sort of fix. I spent the day at the far end of the lake watching the trees grow.
The next day the spring was reinstalled along with some steel tube bracing. I decided to follow them home, just in case.
Interesting trip, but in a very beautiful area. It's around 11,200', heavily forested and has lots of places to explore. I'll be back.
We went up the road just a bit and pulled down into a Forest Service camping area that turned out to be pretty nice. Mulling over the problem we noticed that the rollers on his winch fairlead had the same size nut and thread pitch so solution found. We had a nice dinner and turned in.
In the morning we headed off up the mountain toward the road to Kerr Lake. Being old and seemingly without memory I got us turned left when it should have been right looking for the lake road. My bad. We were turning around and heading back out to the right road when over the radio came the words "catastrophic failure". Again, not real good. The left hand side leaf spring on the Ali's Kamparoo had sheared completely off. Ash's inventive genius came up with a trail repair. We pulled the axle into alignment with my winch and then used big ratchet straps from either end of the trailer to keep it in place. Whatever works.
We continued on to Kerr Lake, them at a snail's pace, on a less than user friendly road in their condition. But the lake was reached, camps set up, another dinner made and all was well.
The next day they went over Elwood Pass and down to Pagosa Springs to find some sort of fix. I spent the day at the far end of the lake watching the trees grow.
The next day the spring was reinstalled along with some steel tube bracing. I decided to follow them home, just in case.
Interesting trip, but in a very beautiful area. It's around 11,200', heavily forested and has lots of places to explore. I'll be back.
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