Tangled Laces: Camping season begins!

Memorial Day weekend. For Jay and I it typically kicks off our camping season. This year was no exception, although things didn't go quite as planned. First of all... we've been having a LOT of rain. I mean, A LOT. Not just a lot for Colorado, but in general, a lot of rain. Which means that while its raining in the good 'ol Mile High city... its snowing in the mountains.

Because Memorial Day weekend is a huge weekend for camping in Colorado, we always try to pick a campsite that can be reserved. Colorado is great about allowing dispersed camping in National Parks and National Forests. However, on such a busy weekend, dispersed camping spots can be taken on Thursdays before the weekend starts. So we usually avoid them.

However, this year... with all the rain/snow... I had a bad feeling about the campsite we reserved. So I called the ranger district where it is located before we left and found out it wasn't opening until the second week in June at least!

Regardless, we jumped in the car after work on Friday and set out to find camping spots. And we did! The first spot we found was beautiful. Just off of 285 on the road to Lost Park Campground are a few amazing dispersed spots. They would actually be great for groups too! The evening was beautiful. The night got COLD. The next morning we woke up to sunshine and blue skies. But that didn't last for long...

view from our campsite

our great spot

watching the storm move in

snow during breakfast

and now we're camping in winter wonderland

So we packed up the tent and kept on driving. We headed towards Buena Vista with the intent of heading to Mt. Princeton hot springs. We never made it there, but we found a campground at the base of Mt. Princeton that was perfect for the rest of our weekend.