We were itching to go someplace so decided to head to Red Feather Lakes for a few days. We've been there before and liked it. Plus it's only two hours from home.
We left at eight, and stopped at the Western Ridge Resort restaurant for breakfast ; we've been there before. I had the combo scrambler which was a pile of home fries, green peppers, mushrooms, onions, bacon, etc., all topped with two eggs and green chili sauce. Carol was much better.
We drove to our favorite FS camping area on Prairie Divide Road and, to our surprise, the place was packed. No room anywhere. Then we headed to Deadman Road; another road that goes through the national forest. Again, packed. We finally found a very nice spot on FSR 502 which runs off of Deadman Road. This is now our favorite disbursed camping area around here. Close to town, only 1.8 miles of well maintained dirt road to drive and good cell phone and internet coverage. 40.800385 -105.636990
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| Morning coffee with my friend |
With the Jeep, we took a ride around Deadman Road looking for other future campsites but found none that were any better than this one.
Put out the hummingbird feeder and business was good.
Carols dentist used to live in Fort Collins which is only an hour away. This area is a major nearby camping area for Fort Collins which explains the crowds.
Sunday
Rode over to the Dowdy Lake campground just to see if anything on the lake was available for a few days. One night only; that was it. Every campsite in Dowdy Lake is reservable; not even one for walk-in campers. The crowds everywhere just reinforces our preference for the shoulder seasons. There are two other FS campgrounds in the area, but the aren't much.
After that we went riding around looking for other disbursed camping areas. We came across a bunch of them, but nothing as good as where we are.
I drove around the camping areas and scrounged up a load of firewood. Later on, we had a nice campfire.
Monday
A grey and stormy day. No traffic at all on Deadman Road. It's amazing how quiet it is in the woods. The wind blowing through the trees and the birds chirping away; that's it. We've noticed that you can hear the wind coming through the pine forest long before you can feel it.
Gopher and I are sitting outside, Carol's inside keep warm.
The mountain road west to the Laramie River Road that we hoped to drive is still not opened. The late Spring snow storm messed up our plans once again.
We took a drive around today and only saw two tenters. This is definitely a weekend place. Next time we arrive on Monday and leave on Friday.
The wildflowers were in full bloom
Tuesday
Headed home. We'll come back perhaps in September or October when the leaves turn, when lakefront sites are available on Dowdy Lake and the mountain road is opened. The drive took two hours to cover 100 miles.
Just one more reason we plan on staying within 3-4 hours of home; flexibility.
In two weeks we head towards Leadville, Buena Vista and Crested Butte.
