Elk Creek & Gunnison Valley Observatory
Nice RV campground near Gunnison Colorado, Elk Creek Campground. We also recommend Gunnison Valley Observatory. Our tip for driving US 285 in Colorado by RV.
RV Driving on US 285 in Colorado
From Loveland, we headed to Elk Creek Campground, which is a part of the Curecanti National Recreation Area and about 15 miles west of Gunnison, CO along US 50. I was nervous about the mountain drive along US 285, but we had no issues on Saturday morning and our comments can be found in Kansas through Colorado route. This stop was to kill a few days until our reservation at Black Canyon Of The Gunnison National Park, which we were really interested in because it is an International Dark Sky Park (in other words, great stargazing!). I didn’t have many expectations for Elk Creek Campground and sometimes those turn out to be great stops.
Curecanti National Recreation Area
The campground is on the Blue Mesa Reservoir and there were pretty mountains all around. Colorado is really beautiful and I was glad we had more time to appreciate the scenery. After some research, we found out that Gunnison has the Gunnison Valley Observatory which is open for public viewing every Friday and Saturday evening from June 14 through September 14. Admission is by donation and the suggested donation is $5/pp. Conveniently enough, we were there on a weekend so we were in! Penguin loves anything space-related and I haven’t had a chance to look through a telescope as large as the one they have which has a 31” diameter lens! We were excited, but then we realized the Fiat didn’t have enough charge to make it to the observatory and back. We looked up electric vehicle charging stations and were surprised when we found one in Gunnison, but then even more amazingly, Penguin found one at our campground of all places, and it was free. We got the charge we needed and then we were on our way!
Gunnison Valley Observatory
At the observatory, they had two Dobsonian style telescopes set up outside where we were able to see the moon, Jupiter, and Saturn quite well when there was a break in the clouds. These telescopes were big enough we could even see a couple of bands on Jupiter and four of its moons! However, it was almost a full moon so the bright moon which rose right after sunset impacted our ability to see the Milky Way, which we both really wanted to see since you can only see it in areas where the light pollution is low to none. We listened to a presentation about the moon and then waited for our turn at the large telescope. Unfortunately, as the evening progressed the breaks in the clouds became fewer and fewer. When it was our turn to look through the large telescope the clouds blocked the moon so we didn’t get to see the close-up view of the moon that we were hoping but we both still really enjoyed our experience at the observatory.
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