Mountain Time: Our Sad and Surprising Summer in Colorado

Before our summer morphed into sadness, we’d planned to spend it at high altitude in Colorado. And we did, sort of, in a piecemeal, in-between sort of way. Our time in the mountains was sad…. and healing. We did what we generally do: explore, hike, mosey, but maybe more so. And as fall begins, we are feeling a little more grounded.

It all started in Kansas. We got news that my mom was having emergency surgery. I flew south, to join my siblings, staying with my mom in the hospital as she recovered. A few days later my stepfather, who’d been struggling with a number of health challenges, passed away. Dan flew down for the funeral, and we stayed a while to be with family.

We spent the next few months back and forthing between the Colorado mountains and the sweltering sadness that was our Florida summer. For several weeks, Dan hunkered down in the Colorado national forests with Milo while I stayed on in Florida. And, when we finally got back on track (ish) Milo’s health rapidly declined and he died.

So, yeah. The summer was rough, and strange. And sad.

Buuut…. Colorado. Colorado is a lovely state, and it was soothing to take in its expansive mountain vistas and explore its wild places. We ended up sticking around well into September.

Zigzagging Across Colorado

Between trips to the airport, we put on the miles, zigzagging around the Southern half of Colorado.

We stayed in Colorado Springs (at the airport long term parking!) and in the beautiful arid mountains north of Cañon City.

We traveled west of Creede and explored a sliver of the Weimenuche Wilderness.

We boondocked a long restful while on a mountain pass outside of Poncha Springs, in a few random dispersed spots, and in more Forest Service Campgrounds than usual, all while carrying the burden of loss.

Wild places are healing though, as is hiking, which is (literally) putting one foot in front of the other over and over and over. And Colorado was a good place for that.

In our time here, we’ve learned a lot about how to navigate this busy, outdoorsy state. In this post, we’ll focus on the upside of our summer, and share what we learned about adventuring in this awesome state.

Camping in Colorado

In all, we camped in over 25 spots in Colorado this year. And we loved almost all of them. However, there are a couple of Colorado-specific challenges.

Though Colorado has over 14 million acres of National Forest, it is a very outdoorsy state with large population centers on the front range. Come summer, a good many of the folks in Denver and Boulder and Colorado Springs and Pueblo and Fort Collins, etc. head for the mountains. If you are planning to camp in this state– either in a campground or dispersed in a national forest– don’t expect to mosey in late on Friday or Saturday night and find a spot.

In our experience, even out-of-the-way, dispersed sites can be crowded over the weekend. Showing up midweek really helps. But even then it can be challenging to find a good spot. (A caveat: our definition of “good” is uncrowded, remote and inexpensive.)

In Ouray, we spent an hour or so scoping out boondocking opportunities (“no overnight parking” signs everywhere!) and cruising the nearby National Forest campgrounds before finally settling in the last available spot in the meh Angel Creek Campground. When ya gotta, ya gotta.

We tend to avoid more populated resorty areas. But that can be a little tricky in Colorado. After all, everyone loves the mountains… and mountain towns love tourists. They are pretty well packed in summer.

They are also magnificently situated and full of luxuries, expensive art, condos, gourmet restaurants, and fancy coffee… not our style.

Okay, we do really like the fancy coffee part.

Luckily, Colorado is full of lesser known, but beautiful, spots too.

This summer we seemed to need a little more luxury and we did a bit of both.

Perhaps because camping is pretty well a Colorado way of life, National Forest campgrounds here tend to be a little more expensive than in other places. Our Interagency Senior Pass came in handy. But even so, campground stays cost us between $14 and $17 a night– more than we like to spend. And in Telluride, we reserved a $50 a night spot in the town park.

Even the relatively remote Burro Bridge Campground near Delores was pretty pricey.

But there are some lovely free spots in Colorado if you know where to look. We especially enjoyed Marshall Pass and Mineral Creek, both high altitude havens from the summer heat.

Checking out those forest roads is certainly worthwhile. But beware! In Colorado mountain roads are well used, meaning that they can be rutted and rocky and washboard-y, sometimes all at once! And during the state’s frequent rains, they can be impassably muddy. If you’re planning to go, it’s a good idea to contact the local Forest Service office to check road conditions.

Also, even if it’s sweltering in the valleys, those mountains get cold, really cold. Plan for weather extremes– mid-day heat, followed by monsoon storms, even snow and sleet. A puffy coat and warm sleeping bag are essential for camping in Colorado.

If you are looking for a camping spot in Colorado, our Google travel maps (here and here) show all the places we stayed, along with a few comments and prices. But there are so many more spots out there. Camping in Colorado is really pretty awesome.

Hikes without end

We did a fair amount of hiking this summer. Towards the end of his life, Milo couldn’t hike very far so we curtailed our walking too. After he passed, hiking was soothing, a silver-lining of sorts.

Colorado’s trails kicked our butts. But we gradually got a few of our hiking muscles back. There are trailheads everywhere here!

We hiked from campgrounds and down canyons. We even stopped along dirt roads when we saw one of the ubiquitous trailhead signs.

If you are planning to hike in Colorado, be aware of altitude and how it affects your body. Give yourself time to adjust and take it slow. Also, expect that any trail in the mountains is going to go UP. While here, we took random trails we came across, just to see where they’d go and yep: all of them were steep.

Hot Springs

In addition to mountains, Colorado has some lovely hot springs, but many are developed and pricey. Last summer, we checked out Cottonwood Hot Springs near Buena Vista. This year, we’d hoped to camp at Orvis Hot Springs and do some starry night soaking. But the campground was full. So we saved ourselves some cash and went to the Ouray town park which was awesome enough for us.

The mountain weather makes hot springs both wonderful (chilly enough to fully enjoy the heat) and dicey (Thunderstorms are super common). In Ouray, we had to wait an hour after a quick moving storm cleared the pool. But it was so worth it!

Mountain Towns and Tourists

Colorado has many cute little mountain towns that cater towards tourists. These can be a fun change of pace after a few days (or weeks) in the wild. Over the summer, we visited Buena Vista, Creede, Ridgway, Ouray, Telluride, Durango, Dolores, and Silverton. Whew!

You could spend a lot of money (and time) in these towns… and many others scattered around the mountains of Colorado. We celebrated Dan’s birthday in Telluride, soaked in Ouray, and hung out in the park (after our Margaritas) in Durango.

We also spent several days working at the Durango library.

If you are wanting to camp near any of these mountain towns– plan ahead. In the summer, campgrounds fill up quickly. And you’d have to be extra stealthy to stealth camp here– these towns have seen the likes of us before.

Lesser Known Spots

Not surprisingly, our favorite places tended to be less traveled ones. We loved exploring along FS Road 858 over Owl Creek Pass pass between Cimmaron and Ridgway, and hiking the Colorado Trail near Marshall Pass. Ditto for the mountain roads near Burro Bridge Campground outside Delores.

When the summer started winding down, we enjoyed the quiet of McPhee Reservoir (would NOT have been quiet earlier in the season though), and we stayed on (and on and on) at the Canyon of the Ancients National Monument in the far south western corner of the state.

And Chimney Rock National Monument was a breakfast stop that turned out to be a half day adventure– Ancient Chacoan ruins perched up high on a mountain, oriented towards a once-every-18-years lunar standstill. Amazing!

Much Needed Mountain Time

Colorado was just what we needed this strange, sad summer. It is a state so generous and varied in its outdoor options, that we just sunk in and stayed. Though grief takes its time with you, but the mountains sure seemed to help.