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Montana Owners Club Rallies

21 06 2026

We’ve attended a few gatherings of the Montana Owners Club (MOC) rallies in the past, one in Dolores, CO in 2022, the 2023 gathering in Heber City, UT and the last in 2025 in Hermosa, SD. This year we’ll attend two rallies, the Rocky Mountain Regional in Colorado Springs, CO and the Western Regional in Arlington, WA. These rallies are great ways to catch-up with RVing friends, meet new, learn about our RV’s and explore the local areas. On June 2^nd, we packed up and headed north for a 2-month trip through Colorado, Utah, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.

Rally Trip Map

The Rocky Mountain Rally is being held at Garden of the Gods RV Resort near Old Colorado City and Manitou Springs. Located just south of Garden of the Gods, the park offers convenience to a lot of activities in the area. Our group activities included a trip to the top of Pikes Peak, dinner & show at the Iron Springs Chateau Theatre, “Yo Ho Ho and a Barrel of Fun” melodrama, and a chuckwagon dinner and western music show at the Flying W Ranch.

Flying W Wrangers

From Colorado Springs we spent 2 nights in Montrose visiting friends. We stayed at Riverbend RV Park – a nice, fairly quiet park on the banks of the Uncompahgre River. In Ouray we enjoyed the comfortable patio, cocktails, and lunch at Mi Mexico restaurant. For dinner we returned to a favorite, Colorado Boy Pizzeria and Brewery, for delicious pizza and a few cold brews. After Montrose we’re headed to Helper, UT at Castle Gate RV Park. This park is nice and inherits unique characteristics from the town of Helper which is named for the railroad engines that would be added to “help” trains up the steep, 15-mile grade through Price Canyon. Most of the town is between highway 191 and the busy railroad yard where you hear (and feel) the operations of the rails here.

Riverbend RV Park, Montrose, CO

Helper Balanced Rock, Helper, UT

Our next stop is in Brigham City, UT at the Golden Spike RV Park, where we did indeed visit the Golden Spike National Historic Park. This is the location where the first transcontinental railroad connected the Central Pacific Railroad that built eastward from Sacramento and the Union Pacific that built westward from Omaha, NE. Located at Promontory Summit, Utah, the park provides a great interpretive center and operating replicas of the original engines that celebrated this milestone.

Jupiter & No. 119, Promontory Summit, Utah

Golden Spike Champagne Celebration , Promontory Summit, Utah

Following our day at Golden Spike, we made a fairly quick transit of Idaho and Oregon staying at Abundant Life RV Park in Caldwell, ID; Boardman Marina Park in Boardman, OR; and Reeder Beach Resort in Portland, OR. The drive along the Columbia River was spectacular, and we want to return to this area.

Boardman Marina RV Park

Boardman Marina RV Park, Columbia River

On June 21^st after transiting Tacoma and Seattle, we arrived at Angel of the Winds RV Resort in Arlington, WA. This is a beautiful resort – associated with the Angel of the Winds Casino, the 180 cement pads are spaciously laid out between manicured landscaping. Amenities include several picnic pavilions, a miniature golf course, a beautiful clubhouse, indoor pool and a covered firepit area. With the proximity to I-5, the resort experiences some road noise, but the amenities well outweigh this nuisance. Our week with other Montana Owners included several vendor presentations, a Whale Watching trip, and a tour of nearby Boeing Everitt factory, home of the 777. We also visited a self-pick berry farm and took a Washington State Ferry to the beautiful town of Friday Harbor. It was a busy, fun-packed week!

Boeing Factory Tour, Everett, WA

Friday Harbor, WA

After Arlington, we’re headed to Sequim, WA on the Olympic Peninsula. More from Sequim…

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Tags: Arlington WA, Boeing, Flying W Ranch, Friday Harbor, Golden Spike, Helper UT, MOC rally, Montana Owners, montrose
Categories : Summer Camping 2025

Off to Heber City, UT

11 06 2023

After a “close call” for Jury Duty, I’ve been released on Friday and we’re going to head out tomorrow. The annual Western Regional Montana Owners Club rally starts next Wednesday in Heber City. This is the same rally that we attended for the first time last June in Dolores, CO. We’ve also met a smaller group of Montana Owners in Quartzite in January.

Gunnison KOA Journey

We’re going to visit friends in Montrose, but decide that nearly 5 hours is just a bit too far, so our first night is at the KOA Journey in Gunnison. This campground is more like a city park, lush green lawns, big trees and even a small fishing lake. We’re parked in site #48 which provides a very long back-in site with full hookups right behind the office. This site isn’t bad, but if the “Kottage” is occupied, you’ll share your patio area for their parking. We’d prefer to be further around the circle, site # 26, 28 or 16, 18.

Moochdocking in Montrose

From Gunnison it’s a relatively easy trip over to Montrose, including passing through the US 50 Little Blue Creek Canyon Improvement Project. In Montrose we enjoyed Colorado Boy Pizza and Beers on Sunday evening. On Monday evening we joined additional friends for an informal dinner of wonderful salads, beans and hot-dogs! Thanks M&D for letting us “camp” in your front yard.!

Green River State Park, Green River, Utah

From Montrose we’re headed to Green River State Park. We’ve stayed at Green River before, and have always noted their mosquito problem apparently due to overwatering of the lush grass. It’s not as bad in previous years, but the little nuisances are still obnoxious when walking through the grass or just after sunset. We’re parked in site #26, basically just a wide spot in the main road with hookups on the wrong side. Not optimal, but it’ll work for a quick overnight. We’d also note that it appears that the park is adding 10-20 new tent sites and at least 1 new shower house.

After Green River, we’ll be in Mountain Valley RV Resort in Heber City for 7 nights. More from Heber City…

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Tags: green river, gunnison, heber city, montrose
Categories : Summer Camping 2023

Ridgway State Park

3 07 2015

Good Morning from Southwestern Colorado.

After 1 night in Montrose with good friends, we’re parked in site #115 in the Elk Ridge campground at Ridgway State Park. We’re a part of a group that will eventually total 15 people camping in sites #108 – #115. Set high on a ridge overlooking the reservoir, the D and E loop contain about 100 campsites. Nearer the lake, the Dakota Terraces campground provides about 80 sites in 3 loops. Lakeside near the marina is a boat ramp (with the required Invasive Species inspection) a small swim beach area and several day-use covered picnic tables. All of these facilities make up the Dutch Charlie area. Further south is the Dallas Creek area designed primarily for day-use with fishing areas and picnic tables. There are also about 80 full hookup campsites at the Pa-co-chu-puk area to the north, below the dam.

All of the Elk Ridge sites offer 20 and 30 amp electric hookups with conveniently located threaded water taps. Site #115 has many trees, great for privacy, but impossible for awning use. The roads throughout the campground are asphalt as are each sites parking area – some back-in, some pull-through. There is also a concrete apron with picnic table and fire ring. These aprons are placed at various locations, some on the left, some right and some rear. Not all the locations are ideal – our fire ring is directly outside the RV door and under a low hanging tree. With 15 campers, we used the large picnic table and fire ring area at site #113. The trees thinned out a bit toward site #108 where awning can be deployed fully. These 5 sites are well spread out and not always convenient for toting food or chairs between sites. A better alternative would have been to select sites around the inside of the loop end (such as #84-#113) or across from each other (#115-#112).

Best sites at Elk Ridge are those along the upper loop #165 – #184. Many of these sites offer great views off to the east with good privacy. On the lower loop the first campsite #80 provides beautiful lake views, but might be a bit short and narrow for some rigs.

We had a great July 4^th weekend at Ridgway and would like to return here again on another long weekend.