With the end of the school year comes the beginning of summer. Mary- Beth and I have already completed two jaunts to the mountains of Pike National Forest, camping at Guanella Pass and staying at the Fairplay cabin.
My buddy Conor, who I work with at school, invited us out to Guanella Pass for a night of camping with his son. Of course I couldn’t say no. After a nice drive up Highway 285, we found ourselves on dirt roads going deeper into the forest. We came across some people who camped out the night before, warning us it’d be cold. They also mentioned that the snow further up the access road was a bit high and tough to get through for cars. I went as far as I could with our Subaru, but had to pull to the side and park it so we wouldn’t damage our brand-new car going through some of these deep ruts further up the road. The tires on Conor’s wagon went airborne as he drove over some of the bigger ruts. Finally we found our site and set up camp. It took a while to get the fire going, but we persevered.
We boiled some water and poured it into the Mountain House dinner bags that are easy to heat up and eat out of. Of course we had the customary s’mores, but MB wasn’t a fan of it. Apparently she doesn’t like graham crackers. What?!? The unfortunate thing was that it was too cold with snow still on the ground so that made for a miserable night without any sleep. Yet it was a fun trip because we had our first real experience in the Pike National Forest.
On the other hand, Memorial Day weekend was just a getaway from the city, spending some time at the cabin. Sometimes we just have to get out of Denver and lose ourselves in the outdoors and this weekend was perfect for it.
MB and I hiked in the morning on Saturday at Beaver Creek behind Fairplay. The name makes sense since you can see all these beaver dams along the creek. We didn’t see any beavers though during our hike. Along the way I found a great campsite not too far from the access gate, which was closed due to the heavy snow we had this past winter. I figured Conor and I would just wheelbarrow our gear a quarter mile up the road and set camp here. I told MB I wanted to get to the top of a hill alongside the creak and check out the rock outcroppings, so we took a sharp left and went straight up the incline. Elk had definitely been in the area with all the scat we were coming across. When we reached the top of the ridge, we were greeted by beautiful views of the continental divide.
After getting back we just relaxed and took it easy. As always whenever we go to the cabin, I cooked steak for dinner with some mashed potatoes. Mary-Beth must be getting sick of potatoes by now. Conor came up later Saturday night and we just hung out for a while before hitting the sack.
The next day I made breakfast and then Conor and I hiked out to the campsite I saw the day before. We both agreed it was ideal and not too far of a hike with gear. Before heading back to the cabin we went in town and came across this little girl who was selling pink lemonade and rocks. Conor, being the teacher he is, went into a nice little lesson about the different rocks (sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous). We got some ice cream and I brought back a cinnamon bun for my lovely wife, who has this insatiable affair with them. My mother-in-law does make the best so nothing compares to hers.
So the plan was that MB would head up to Breckenridge and meet up with her girlfriends for dinner and bring back Seda, who would get a ride home with us on the way out the next day. Conor and I would load up and camp out for the night, while the girls do their own thing back at the cabin.
I’m telling you, bring a four wheeled wagon instead of a wheelbarrow because it’s much easier than trying to balance a one-wheeled vehicle with 200 pounds of gear. We set up camp and then I bugged Conor to make the hike up that same ridge I did yesterday. He was worried about daylight waning, but I shrugged that off because I said it’d take us a hour to get up and back down, while we’d have just over 2 hours of light left. At the top, we heard some animal calls and then some gunshots, so we’re like “crap, let’s move” and busted our way back down.
We made the fire, Mary-Beth had pre-made some chicken enchilades with green chili sauce for us to heat up over the fire. Delicious. Then of course we had s’mores again too. It was a perfect night to view the stars and we looked at all the different constellations. Since we had a long day with all these hikes and setting up camp, we went to bed early. I woke up early enough to watch the sun rise over the eastern ridge.
Eventually Conor mustered up and we threw the disc for a while before breaking camp and heading out for some breakfast at the Brown Burro with Mary-Beth and Seda. Talk about being dog-tired. The waitress kept refilling the coffee for Conor and myself. After a good breakfast we headed back to the cabin where we did some cleaning and laundry before heading out.
Since I had never been to Seda’s parents’ house I followed the GPS, but figured that it’d be fun to take the back roads. Well, they were seriously back roads because they took us through some neighborhoods with serious switchbacks. Seda had grown up in this area her whole life and she had never been on these roads… After dropping Seda off, we finally made our way home where we unloaded everything and collapsed on the couch for the rest of the afternoon. A good end to a great weekend in the mountains.
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