RMNP Memorial Day 2011
Colleen, Claire and I decided at the last minute to try and go to RMNP for Memorial Day. It rained most the weekend, as it seems to do anytime we want to go camping as a family, but nevertheless, we had a good time and Claire became a Rocky Mtn. Natl. Park Junior Ranger. Here are the pics…
Labor Day “Camping”
Following on the heals of our other “camping” trip, where we were introduced to the luxuries of car “camping”, we decided to go to Dick’s Sporting Goods and purchase a few items. Needless to say, we filled up our seven-seater vehicle with stuff after making it by with a Rubicon a few weekends earlier!
We ended up going to Twin Lakes, just at the exit of Independence Pass off of Highway 24 south of Leadville. Instead of camping in the normal camping spots, we drove up past those, found a dirt road and took it for a while to find this SWEET campsite! It could have easily fit four more tents!
It was a great experience and very comfortable. I must say though, fishing with a Barbie Rod isn’t as bad as it might seem. I caught two fish within 20 minutes of each other.
“Camping” 8/16 and 8/17
Usually when I go “camping”, that means that we carry what we can on our backs, hike in a ways, find a stream and setup our camp and spread out our minimal gear and use what we can for more purposes than it was intended.
However, this trip started off leaving town Saturday morning in a horrible downpour that started Friday morning and showed no signs of letting up until Sunday afternoon. Yet, we still convinced ourselves to go camping. Furthermore, since I was going with Fred and Mark, (and they have nice offroad vehicles), Bret let me borrow his Jeep so we could join along.
The Rubicon didn’t really have a “trunk” and so we had to pack, then unpack everything, then figure out a smarter way to pack to make everything fit. After passing the Engineering Exam, we drove to meet up with the other guys on the west side of town.
There aren’t many pictures from the first part of this trip because it was pretty steadily raining until we got up I-70 a ways. When we turned off the highway at Empire, (well, most of us turned off, I missed the exit and ventured on into Georgetown before I could turn around) and then took a right on Main Street to head up to Bill Moore Lake area.
This requires a decent 4×4 vehicle, and we stopped to let some air out of our tires before continuing. Luckily the rain had stopped coming down, and our hopes were high. When we finally bounced into camp, I realized I had forgotten our rain fly to our tent. And this was the one time we would actually need it because it was a guarantee that it was going to rain this weekend.
After Fred helped me whip together a solution (what *can’t* be solved by tarps and bungie cord?) we decided to setup the gazebo and table and furnaces…
Wait a minute.
Furnaces? What kind of camping is this? I used to knock it, but when it’s snowing outside, I have to admit, having a furnace is pretty nice. Along with having a gazebo and tables and chairs and hot cocoa. Thanks to Fred, we had pretty much everything we could want with us.
Claire was a champ and did great staying warm. Colleen had her bundled up with just about as much as we could and then let her sleep in her pack-and-play. Part-way through the night she crawled into her baby mummy bag that we got for her and Colleen put her next to her on the cot.
Wait a second.
Cots? Yes, we had bought a couple luxury items before the trip, and these worked out a lot better than air mattresses. With a cot you not only are up off the cold ground, but you can store stuff underneath so you don’t lose the space in your tent like you would with a mattress.
Fred, Mark and I played a few holes of golf at the campsite.
Ok, now this is getting out of hand.
Yes, Fred did bring some spare golf clubs with him that he didn’t care about, along with some whiffle balls, so we would have something to do in camp.
We made a trip up to the actual lake and it was freezing! The lake was partly frozen over, I didn’t even bother breaking out my new fly rod. Instead, we setup Claire’s Barbie Rod. However, I don’t think there were too many fish in this lake.
The next day we packed up and then drove the loop all the way around to Empire Hilton. Which is a semi-abandoned cabin that’s really creepy. The trail to get there was a little rougher (and slicker, due to all the rain) than Fred and Mark remembered. However, in the monster vehicle that we had, we were able to make it over all the obstacles and back down to the trailhead.
On our next trip, we just might have to pick up a few more luxury items before going, because they made this trip a lot more enjoyable.
On the way home we stopped at Beau Jo’s and it was so yummy.
