Campout at Golden Gate Canyon State Park…Golden, CO

Picture’s are here.

Yes, its true….two camp outs in two weekends…back to back. Was as good as it could have been. If you read about the previous camp out then you know about the stomach virus that ran through everyone in our household. The silver lining here is that we were all sick during the work week, and then we got better in time to go camping again this weekend. Dan and company were able to hook up with us at Golden Gate Canyon State Park. This is the second time we have camped here and we enjoyed it quite a bit last time. It was home to our first annual Parking in the Pines bus camp out.
-
The way the days off worked out this time, we were able to head up to camp at noon on Thursday. This would give us a three nights of camping. And since I didn’t have to go back to work until that Wednesday, we were all set to hang out with no worries about time. The drive up was smooth, and slow. There are a few ways to drop down into the campground. The way we normally go is to take 46 West to 119 North. A few miles up, we turn right onto Meadowlake Dr. You’ll immediately see signs for the campground and you’ll turn onto Gap road to get to the park. There is an earlier turn to the North that you can make at Kriley Pond. But BEWARE! This route, although shorter, is extremely steep. If your in a VW bus, you’ll be in first gear for a couple of miles. This is called Mountain Base Rd. We have taken this road when coming back home but that is all downhill. The other option, which we had not tried until this camp out, was Gap road. We went this way with Dan when we left. It basically hit’s 72 where you can head East into the town of Westminster. A very quick route. Probably the easiest of all the routes, in or out of the park.
We stayed at Revrends Ridge like we did last time. All the loops up to loop E have electric hookups. Anything after that is tent-only with no power. Loop D was our choice again this time around. There is a spot on the West side of the loop that is wide enough to accommodate a bus and an attached tent. Although, being paved made it a bit more interesting when it came to securing the floor. Once parked, setting up camp didn’t take much time at all. At this point, Leah asked if that small black puddle underneath the back of the bus was there before we pulled in. Of course, it wasn’t. I had an oil leak via a valve cover gasket. I had tried to fix this the day before after noticing that the previous install of the valve cover gasket had not gone to spec. See this picture. Obviously my install was not much better. I made a mental note to check up on it when we got home. As of this write up, I still have not had a chance to look at it much. Weather reports were showing that we might get some chilly weather, so camp setup included getting the heating blanket plugged in. Katie and Cameron both had 0-Degree sleeping bags with one piece footed PJ’s, so they were ready to go. After the kids played and everyone ate, we put the kids to bed and Leah and I enjoyed a nice warm fire. There was only about 3 other campers at Revrends Ridge at that point and only one was close enough for us to notice. This made for a very quiet night.
-
Last night was not very cold at all. We woke up to clear skies, a good breakfast, and nice fresh air. After eating we wandered around the camp site a bit and decided that maybe we would try one of the local hiking trails. I shorter one called Raccoon trail was about 2.5 miles long and was graded as being ‘moderate’ in difficulty. To start off, we thought it was 1.5 miles, not 2.5. The elevation increase on the trail was over a 1k feet and by the time we got back to the camp site, we were ready to sit down, eat, and sleep the rest of the day Being at 9k feet can make things like a hiking a little more difficult Everyone hung in there and we finished it in about 3 hours. Was a very scenic and beautiful hike that took us up to Panorama Point and back down. The views from Panorama Point are really nice. When we got back, Dan had arrived with his two dogs. We all chowed down for a bit and relaxed. The kids played around the loop until dinner/smore time. The rest of us hung out around the fire for a little bit longer before crashing out for the night.
-
Last night wasn’t too chilly, but we did have the heating blanket on a little bit. More fat yummy bacon and other goodies for breakfast. The arrival of Dan’s kids sent them all running around on their own in the loop. Leah and Dan worked on making some necklaces out of a type of twine. We met up with some other campers in the loop to play a game they had made with golf balls and some PVC. Really simple and entertaining setup that I would like to make. More hanging out, cooking food, playing bocce ball, riding razors etc. Then dinner and smores, then off to bed.
-
Got cold last night. Had the heating blanket cranked up a little and the kids were all fully zipped up in their sleeping bags. Hoped out of bed and pulled the magical defrost knob that controls the BN4. 5 minutes later, nice and cozy. Love that thing. It stayed pretty cold the whole morninig. The sun was beating down nicely on one side of the circus ten so it was nice and warm in there. That and the BN4 running for a few minutes and everything was toasty. The kids packed up in the tent while the adults brought cooked food in to eat. Started to warm up a little bit after breakfast. Started to clean up a little bit hear and there. The tent was a little damp and since we were putting it back up in our garage when we got home, we just bundled it up and tossed it on the rack as opposed to packing it up nice and tight in the bag. After saying our good bye’s to Dan and company, we followed him on Gap road out to Westminster. This was the route I was talking about earlier that I think may be the easiest of the three, and the shortest.
-
All in all, another cool camp out. Golden Gate Canyon state park is still appealing the second time around to us. We’ll be camping there again for sure.