yobosayo – Around the World Travel Blog – Follow us around the world

From Leadville, we drove on smaller roads through a few mountain passes to get to the Crested Butte region.  It was a beautiful drive, green pine and aspen filled mountains littered with wildflowers.  It’s green everywhere except at the peaks where the mountains snow has yet to melt, like at the top of the Cottonwood Pass.  Eventually, the peaks, pines and flowers give way to a peaceful, serene Lake Irwin.  It kind of feels like you discovered something or stumbled on a little treasure.  I should keep this little place to myself, but it’s too good not to share.  There is a campground here, with about 20 campsites (a few are right on the water).  This by far was my favorite place to stay this whole trip.

We met my brother and his family in Leadville, Colorado (about an hour south of Vail, Co.) for a few more days of camping.  Molly Brown Campground is a nice, shaded campground with plenty of tall pines, and lots of privacy.  Although our campsite wasn’t right on Turquoise Lake, there were plenty of spots that were.
While there we went canoeing on Twin Lakes, tried our hand (unsuccessfully) at fishing, grilled on the open fire, and ate roasted smores.  Two days of camping is the max. limit of days for my brother, at which time we split up.  They headed north towards Denver, and Mike and I headed west in search of a shower.  I guess you could say our one limitation without a shower in our Scamp, is that every few days we have to figure out how we are going to get clean.

This campground offers both rv sites and tent camping.  Tent camping is located off a trail and is private.  If you are tent camping, this is the place to do it.  There are several trails that surround the campground.  They are all easy, short hikes.

The above photo was much of our view of the lake.  Sadly, the mountain pine beetles have done their damage on the pines at Steamboat Springs Lake.  The park is in the process of cutting down the dead trees, and are planning to replant 18o0 trees this year.  The loss of the trees also means, there is little shade or shelter.  We stayed two nights; our first evening we got drenched in a hail and rain storm, and the temperature dropped to 36’F.

 The morning however, turned out to be sunny and beautiful.  We spent the day fishing without any luck.  The night would have been perfect, if not for the swarms of gnats everywhere.

Before we officially set off for our camping adventure, we stopped off in Fort Collins, Colorado to visit with my brother’s family.  It was filled with non-stop activities that Kyra and Aiden are involved in…swim meets, tennis practice, soccer games and baseball games.  The week culminated with a pinata party, as Kyra also turned 8 years old and celebrated with 10 of her closest girlfriends.

We wrapped up our visit with family by camping in the Poudre River at the Big South campsite, a small campground, about two hours northwest of Ft. Collins.  The Big South is situated between the Cache La Poudre River on one side, and the main road on the other.  Eventhough camping road-side doesn’t sound appealing, this campsite still offers a good amount of privacy once it got dark.

After almost 3 months on and off in Philadelphia, Mike and I loaded up the car and headed west out to Colorado.  Our plan is to spend a month in Colorado and SKI!  We’ll also see my brother and his family throughout the month, so it should be an awesome December.