If you live in or visit Colorado, please be aware that we are under a Stage 2 fire restriction for the entire Western Slope (Utah state line to the Continental Divide). This impacts virtually every outdoor activity in the state, including off-roading. Please see my website for the latest stage 2 restrictions for Eagle County, which go for most of the local jurisdictions here on Colorado's Western Slope. Thanks for taking the time to read, and please don't do anything that puts our homes in danger. We're in a very extreme drought.

http://www.ozzypost.com/eagle-county...-restrictions/

 

Tell me about it. Half of Larimer County is on fire.

 

Indeed. I hope your family and home are ok. Stay safe, man...

 

Closest it got to my house was the bottom of Rist canyon. About ten miles from my house. It was still scary watching the flames come over the mountain.

 

Not to mention the complete idiot that has been SETTING fires!! Yep, you heard right....this dip **** was intentionally setting fires in and around Teller county!! From what I have heard, they have caught his a$$! Good, I think he should be set on fire!! What a DOUCHE!! If I see another person throw a butt out of their car, I'm gonna slap a mother effer!! Seriously people, what does it take for you to GET IT!!

sorry, end rant....

 

x1 gazzillion!!

 

Agree also

 

I know this is a sore subject and it hurts the responsible smokers. But since there are so many that dont care and just throw there buds out the window and what not that causes a lot of these fires. They should raise the taxes even more on tobacco products to help pay for putting them out. Its a bunch of BS that everybody else has to pay for there stupidity.

 

We're getting smoke from the High Park fire all the way down in Evans. I wouldn't even think of going off-roading in the mountains now. Catch one dry piece of grass on the hot exhaust and there goes the whole bloody county. God we need a nice light week long rainfall across the state.

Good luck to all the families who lost their homes.

 

Whats with wildfires around COS always being arson? That huge one ten years ago was arson too.

 

I live just north of COS in Monument and you can see the smoke from our house. It just sucks!

We are trying to find SOMETHING to do tomorrow. We were going to go up to RMNP and go do the calypso falls which is almost to Allentown. We have to question if it is going to be open.

 

We were at Wheeler Lake today and were having lunch when we noticed what appeared to be smoke coming over ridge just south of the water fall.

As we got farther down the trail we turned back to see the wispy smoke had turned into a huge billowing cloud of smoke.

When we got down to the v-notch we had ash falling on out rigs.

That's not clouds overhead....


Once we got to Fairplay to air up at the gas station we found out that the smoke we'd seen was from the fire just outside of Leadville and we also learned that the fire had started about 3 hours earlier, so right arround the time we made it to the lake itself.

The view from the gas station in Fairplay:



My buddy James and his family had already headed toward B.V. to spend the night and hit some trails around Tin Cup so we called and let him know what was going on. less than 20 minutes later he called me and told me to expect delays on HWY 24 due to the Waldo Canyon fire.

After heading south on Hwy 9 and making it to Hartsel we made our turn toward home on Hwy 24. As soon as we got past Hartsel we could see the plume of smoke from the Waldo Canyon Fire.....from the middle of effin' South Park!! And it was massive.

As we got closer to Lake George Deb and I knew it was going to be a long trek home.

As we rolled through Divide I started taking inventory of what food we had on hand since Deb is a diabetic and a long stop could've been very bad for her.

From west of Divide:


We pressed on to Woodland Park and the enormity of the fire hit us like a tone of bricks. To see a fire this big and so close to the highway was mind numbing to say the least.

Approaching W.P:




Just south of W.P I startd getting nervous.....REALLY NERVOUS. See, my friend Nate built his house in Waldo Canyon and the closer we got the the bigger the knot in the pit of my stomach got. I installed Nates HVAC system and his house has got one of the most impressive views of Pikes Peak I've ever seen.

Leaving W.P:




As we approached the turn off for the Pikes Peak Highway I looked north toward the area were his house is.....and there's nothing but smoke and flames.

I've called him numerous times and all I get is voice mail. I'm very worried about my friend.

For those of you that are going wheeling tomorrow.....PLEASE be extremely careful.
Keep your cigarette butts in your rig.
Don't start a camp fire.
Don't park a hot rig on dried brush.

Do everything you can to be safe and watch out for fires....they start so easily.

If you haven been to the high country yet....it's as dry as I've ever seen. Tinder dry is the only way that I can think of to describe the conditions we say today. One spark is all it takes, literally.

 

I think there is another one near Estes now...Jesus. This is bad.

 

Keep a fire extinguisher in your vehicle this year too if you don't normally carry one in your rig.

 

fixed it for ya!