South Slope Fishing & Camping

 Isn't it funny how sometimes you just don't see and hear from friends for a long time and then all of a sudden there is contact between you and them?  And you pick up right where you left off the last time you saw them!  Such is the case with Dave and Leslie - they actually met us a couple of times in Los Barriles and we went ATVing with them and shared several meals and happy hours!  But with Covid basically the last 2 years we've been in Mexico, we just hadn't reached out to them!

So when they called and Dave wanted Glenn to go fishing with him and the 4 of us to camp together, we said of course!  South Slope Reservoir is over off of Gold Camp Road - a place where we used to camp when we first moved to Colorado - it's beautiful over that way (not far from us - on the road to Cripple Creek) but it seemed to get really busy so we just stopped going over that way.

South Slope is an online permit only to get in the gate and only 20 cars a day are allowed in - Dave made reservations for a couple of days (although Glenn only fished one day with him) and we headed over this last week!

I had forgotten how bumpy and narrow that road is - many places it's only one way traffic and we were pulling the 5th wheel!  A little harrowing at times!

I had talked to Leslie about meals but Glenn had talked to Dave about fishing and the camping - but as guys do, they never talked about what Dave was driving now or what kind of camper they had - hmmm!  There are hardly any campsites up in that area so we went to where we thought they might be and they weren't -  we pulled off the main road on a very rocky, rough road - pulled in across from a larger camper and the guy came over and said he was leaving so we could have his spot - we thanked him and said we had to check one more place before we would come back!

So we headed up even more - I think I failed to say that it is a steep, steep hill to get up to the gate where the lake is - we even had to put the truck in 4WD to make it up the hill.  They were not up there either so we went back down and parked in the guys' spot and it was a nice spot in the trees with the rushing stream just a little ways over!

After we set up, Glenn unhooked and we went looking for them - found them right towards the bottom of the road and we wouldn't have fit into their spot anyway so it was a good thing we took that one spot!  Decided it was no problem to just meet for happy hour and dinner together so that's what we did!

They came up the first night and we went down the second night!  It was fun catching up with them and eating some great food together!

Here are a couple of pics of the stream - so pretty!

And here's a toast to the four of us!

Glenn enjoyed a full day of fishing (catch and release) with Dave - I got a lot of reading in and enjoyed some down time!  We headed out Sat. morning early - hoping to miss the traffic on that road - NOT!  We ended up meeting 2 cement trucks - oh my - there wasn't room to pass and what an ordeal trying to get around them!!  I was a nervous wreck - and decided then and there we were NOT going to camp in that area anymore - we're just too big and long with the 5th wheel on that narrow road!