Good evening,I'm new to the forum and new to our motorhome, having only a couple long drives under my belt (700 miles and 1000 miles). Prior to that we had a 27' travel trailer. I do almost all the driving in our family. My kids and I will be doing 10 days in the motorhome, Tucson to T or C to Albuquerque, to Durango, and back again, with a couple nights at each stop along the way. I have been struggling with where to stay near Durango, CO. Honestly don't really want to stay at an RV park as the rest of our stops are at fairground parking areas on asphalt (we show dogs) and the kids really need a few days to run wild and be in nature. I found a primative campground, South Mineral Campground, near Silverton that sounds beautiful and as though it can accommodate a 32' rig. However I'm not sure how hairy the drive from Durango to Silverton is in a motorhome. We will not have a vehicle/toad so if we camp in an RV park that's where we're stuck for 4 days. Am I being overambitious taking this on? Are there other suggestions where we could camp in the Durango area? Any tips or ideas for us? Thank you so much!Jill

Slow and steady! Good road some incline ‘s and curve very driveable

Large Tour buses drive it taking the train passengers back and forth each day. It should not be a problem for you.

Was just there May 7th, nice drive you will be fine just drive slow and enjoy the view. If you haven't drove in the mountains before use low gears going down hill to save your brakes.

Truckers use the road all the time. It has plenty of traffic. But I am here to tell you that there are few roads in the US that will scare the **** out of flat landers more than the road you are considering. It is narrow, it is windy and has extremem drop offs. There are few guard rails. There can be snow and hail any time around Red Mountain Pass.

Don't know when you are going but be aware that that is a busy camping area. Mineral is popular. There is an actual campground or two or three along the road to it but just know it is busy especially weekends. A bit closer than going up past Silverton is Molas Lake and Little Molas Lake about as far south of Silverton as Mineral is north. Both are nice, both have lakes. Molas lake actually has a little store as well and is reservable, town of Silverton owns ithttp://www.molaslake.com/reservations.htmlI can say on weekends midday when I have been through there have been no empty spots, weekdays may not be as big an issue. Dont know how old the kids are but one of the best hikes around there is ice lakes make sure and go to the upper ice lake at least, there are other lakes up there as well iirc Island lake and Fuller lake are within a mile or so of upper Ice lakehttp://www.rockymountainhikingtrails.com/ice-lakes.htm

Driving 32' motorhome from Durango to Silverton

Cambryce
Explorer
Jun 04, 2019
Wow! Being snowed out in June was not something I had anticipated. I will call both Molas lake and the forest service but it doesn't sound promising. How disappointing. We're in Tucson, hotter than heck here, so I didn't even think of snow! We can't easily go driving around as we do not have a vehicle we can tow yet so the only way to get around is with the motorhome.
Thom02099
Explorer II
Jun 04, 2019
Cambryce wrote:
Wow! Being snowed out in June was not something I had anticipated. I will call both Molas lake and the forest service but it doesn't sound promising. How disappointing. We're in Tucson, hotter than heck here, so I didn't even think of snow! We can't easily go driving around as we do not have a vehicle we can tow yet so the only way to get around is with the motorhome.

An advantage to staying in Durango, and a suggestion, would be to rent a car/SUV/Jeep for the time you're going to be there. In Durango there are a number of nice places to camp, immediately in town as well as in the surrounding area. Since you are presumably the solo driver, perhaps one of the rental car agencies that will deliver to you would be appropriate.
4runnerguy
Explorer
Jun 04, 2019
Cambryce wrote:
We can't easily go driving around as we do not have a vehicle we can tow yet so the only way to get around is with the motorhome.
That's where taking the train to Silverton makes sense. You can focus on the scenery and not worry about the driving. You get around three hours to walk around Silverton before your return trip. Since the train goes a different route than the road, you can take the train one way and the bus the other and see both routes without having to drive your MH.
BarryG20
Explorer
Jun 05, 2019
My wife and Grandson are getting ready to finish up the Colorado Trail this year with a final 3 week push with the llamas. The last 150ish miles from San Luis Pass(Creede area) to Junction Creek outside of Durango. And as such last night was looking at the SNOTEL site (snow telemetry)

LINK

it shows a variety of things regarding snow one of which is snow depth at various stations around the country, as of last night
Red Mountain Pass Station 69 inches @ 11200' elevation
Molas Lake 32 inches @10500' elevation
Mineral Creek 23 inches Don't know the exact location of that site could be the headwaters so higher elevation than the campground maybe but could very well be the CG area @10400' elevation
Columbus Basin (west of Durango in the La Platas) 81 inches @10785' elevation

Problem has been well not a problem if you live here for water is the late snowstorms we got and the cool weather only within the last week have nights been above freezing at elevation and even then low-mid 30's and daytime highs in the 40's and 50's so melt off is going slower than normal this year.

Good thing the current plan is to go in August. General rule of thumb for the trail is for the southern half no snow on the trail 3 weeks after Red Mountain is 0
dedmiston
Moderator
Jun 05, 2019
BarryG20 wrote:
My wife and Grandson are getting ready to finish up the Colorado Trail this year with a final 3 week push with the llamas. The last 150ish miles from San Luis Pass(Creede area) to Junction Creek outside of Durango. And as such last night was looking at the SNOTEL site (snow telemetry)

LINK

it shows a variety of things regarding snow one of which is snow depth at various stations around the country, as of last night
Red Mountain Pass Station 69 inches @ 11200' elevation
Molas Lake 32 inches @10500' elevation
Mineral Creek 23 inches Don't know the exact location of that site could be the headwaters so higher elevation than the campground maybe but could very well be the CG area @10400' elevation
Columbus Basin (west of Durango in the La Platas) 81 inches @10785' elevation

Problem has been well not a problem if you live here for water is the late snowstorms we got and the cool weather only within the last week have nights been above freezing at elevation and even then low-mid 30's and daytime highs in the 40's and 50's so melt off is going slower than normal this year.

Good thing the current plan is to go in August. General rule of thumb for the trail is for the southern half no snow on the trail 3 weeks after Red Mountain is 0

Good golly. That was the longest URL I've ever seen. :B

Our old fashioned forum software doesn't display long URLs very well. It won't let the line wrap, so the whole page breaks and you have to scroll horizontally to read anything.

You can use the link button to convert your URLs to links, and then the page won't break and readers won't have to copy/paste the URL into their browsers.

Happy camping.
ppine
Explorer II
Jun 05, 2019
People ask about all kinds of roads on the forum. The vast majority of them are easy and nothing to worry about. This is the best example of a road that some people are not going to be comfortable on.
BarryG20
Explorer
Jun 05, 2019
sorry about the url length, appreciate the fix, I did notice it was pretty long but did not go back and see the post after I hit the reply button
thanks again
dedmiston
Moderator
Jun 05, 2019
BarryG20 wrote:
sorry about the url length, appreciate the fix, I did notice it was pretty long but did not go back and see the post after I hit the reply button
thanks again

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