ATVing New Trails

So on my birthday, we headed out a little earlier than usual to Buena Vista - a place we have been to many times but have never really camped in that area.  We had poured over maps and internet sites to get the best feel for the area as far as camping and I even checked out all 4 campgrounds but they were already booked!

We drove on a road which we knew had some wilderness camping spots and sure enough, there was ONE spot available and we grabbed it!!  It was kind of along the road but there was a beautiful, rushing stream right below us and plenty of shade so we were set!

I went to grab my camera to take a picture of the stream and OH NO - it's not in my purse where I put it!!  And then I remembered, I had put it in my work bag that morning since I was going out to lunch for my birthday - gosh darn it - I was NOT happy about not bringing it so I have no pictures to show!

We slept great the first night and you could hear the rushing stream all night long!  It was cold the next morning and pretty cloudy but we headed out anyway to do a 54 mile loop!

It was a great day - we went over 3 passes - Tincup Pass which is elevation of 12,154 ft - Hancock Pass which is 12,140 - and Cumberland Pass which is 12,015!!  Hancock Pass was the hardest as it was solid rock for quite a ways!  But it was neat to get above timberline!

The wildflowers were amazing!!  There were 2 kinds that I had never seen before - one was a deep purple and one was a crimson - they're so delicate looking!  And of course no camera to capture them!

After lunch we were up pretty high and it started to rain - we took cover between a couple of evergreens that kind of protected us!  I laid our blanket down which worked fine but then the wind came up and started blowing the rain on us so I opened the 2 ponchos that I'd been carrying for the last 3 years and we covered up with them!! It worked great!!!  A little later it started raining again so we just put them on and continued to ride!  By the time we finally got back to camp, we were 2 quite muddy people!!

It continued to rain................but I won't complain since everybody needs rain so badly!  We couldn't have a campfire anyway...........Glenn grilled quickly in the rain and we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening playing scrabble, reading and listening to it rain...........

I slept like a rock that night UNTIL early morning when I woke up with one of my horrible headaches - I was in misery for quite a while but finally got back to sleep and didn't wake up till 9:30!!  I think that's a record for me!!  But at least I felt better!!

We packed up and trailered over to another section so we could ATV Mt. Antero - this was a "difficult" course as described in our book - but we did just fine, even though it seemed it was straight up and down!!!  Once we finally got to the top, there were trails all over the place!!  Mt. Antero is 14,269 but we didn't go quite to the very top as there were clouds building up all around us and I sure didn't want to be on top of that mountain if it started to lightning!!  So we headed back down, had some lunch by the stream and finally headed on home!!  Pictureless but happy!!