Close call of a different sort! - Fiberglass RV
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Old 01-16-2006, 08:25 PM   #1
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My wife and son and I got to the Davidson River Campground rather later than we had intended due to the very severe weather that took place when the warm front we'd been living under collided with a strong cold front. We had to drive through torrential rains and slow traffic. Because of this, we got to the campground just at dark (on the 13th) to discover that contrary to the Davidson River website, they do NOT have full hookups. So we had to boondock it. No big deal. The site we chose (the campground was almost empty) had a gravel pad and an asphalt run. Because it was getting dark, I decided to set up the Casita on the asphalt run rather than toil with backing onto the gravel pad in the dark.

The next morning, we awoke to what I later learned were 77mph wind gusts. Trees were coming down all around in the forest. As we sat in our Casita we heard a tremendous crash outside our trailer. Going out, we saw a large white pine had almost hit us. And we saw that if we had parked where I'd first intended to park, the tree would have smashed full into the trailer, destroying it and possibly killing us.

A very close call.

Here's the photo of the white pine beside our trailer. The Forest Service came by an hour later and carved it up into firewood. You can see the gravel pad I would have parked on quite plainly.
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Old 01-16-2006, 08:32 PM   #2
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Thats too close for comfort
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Old 01-16-2006, 09:12 PM   #3
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Boy, it is a good thing you have a little guardian angel on your shoulder.

Glad you are OK.

Diane
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Old 01-16-2006, 09:48 PM   #4
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Wow! That could have been very serious! We're happy to hear that you and your family were not hurt.
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Old 01-16-2006, 10:04 PM   #5
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Thank goodness you, your family and your fiberglass unit are all ok!! A little too much ..."Being one with nature" I say!
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Old 01-16-2006, 10:38 PM   #6
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Too close for comfort Whether it was intuition or what, I'm certain it was an experience you don't want to repeat. As mentioned, a "fiberglass" angel was watching over you.
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Old 01-16-2006, 10:53 PM   #7
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YIKES is an understatement indeed.

That was very lucky. Glad you went with your darktime set up!

It is sobering to be brought to the blunt awareness that no matter how much we plan ahead, and outfit ourselves for safety.. mother nature can always get a one up and there is nothing we can do about it. Kind of scary too.

My 13 footer survived 70 mph wind gusts recently. It is frightening.. your choice is to leave the trailer, but where ya gonna go? Can't drive in it, and the car isn't any less susceptible to crashing branches. What if a gust broadsides you while you are unsheltered?

Guess you stay in and go along for the ride hoping you don't lose anything more than sleep.
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Old 01-17-2006, 01:09 AM   #8
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Wind and trees are an unhealthy mix. We had 84 mph winds here a couple of weeks ago. In town, to avoid being hit by falling trees and limbs, a fellow took a shortcut down an alley ... and got hit by a falling tree. He got banged up some but was released from the hospital the next day.

In my back yard, not 30 ft from my Bigfoot, the wind blew the top out of a 30" dia. Monterey Pine. It missed but made an awfull mess of everything else.

Will have lots of camp wood next year.
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Old 01-18-2006, 09:53 PM   #9
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Been an awful lot of wind in Colorado this year and I haven't even been talking much

I don't like the wind in the trees when I'm camped underneath but it's the price you pay, I guess, to be out in God's beauty.

Stay safe.

EKW
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Old 01-19-2006, 03:47 PM   #10
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I do a lot of backpacking and I have often seen large trees go over while hiking in the forest. This was the first time I'd been in a developed campground and seen and heard so many trees and large limbs coming down. It was really dangerous for a while. One truly huge hardwood fell just across the Davidson River from our campsite. Probably a 100-foot tree--a pignut hickory, I think.
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Old 01-19-2006, 07:00 PM   #11
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On a trip to the Northwest Territories, we looked at the Pine Lake campground in Wood Buffalo National Park, and found that several sites were posted as out of service because the staff had identified trees which posed a falling hazard; they would be reopened when the offending trees were removed. To me, this illustrates one reason for using a prepared campsite (rather than backcountry areas), but of course unexpected stuff happens everywhere, including our backyards.
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Old 01-22-2006, 04:46 PM   #12
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Hello Bob

Your experience sounds a lot like what happened to my neighboorhood in late September 2006. The short story is that we lost two 30 foot pine trees in my front yard, and suffered no damage to our house (or Scamp...). Some of our neighbors didn't fare as well, but we all pulled together for the cleanup effort. No one was hurt. The whole story is available at http://www.dd-design.org/storm/

Glad to hear no one was hurt in your storm either!

-- Dan Meyer
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