Camping and Jeeping in Colorado

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Our 2nd camping adventure in Colorado was to explore the Jeep trails near Cripple Creek and Canon City. For 3 nights we stayed at the Rocky Top Motel & Campground in Green Mountain Falls, CO near Woodland Park. Not sure I'm really recommend this campground because it needed some work but it appeared that it had just been taken over by new management and improvements were starting to happen. Lots of seasonal campers were already getting settled in for the winter and some others looked like they had been permanent residents for awhile. We were sort of tucked in between the mountains and up on a hill so the views were pretty nice and the area too. We did have full hook-ups. We didn't spend much time actually at camp except for the first day when we had to wait out the rain and then in the evenings. The nice thing was were were able to have our first campfire in Colorado with a nice backdrop of the mountains at sunset. Because of all the drought and dryness in Colorado, fires are not usually permitted.

CRIPPLE CREEK

For our first day of Jeeping we drove to Cripple Creek. This was an old historic town and gold camp established in 1892 at an elevation of 9,494. This is where we hopped on the historic wagon road to riches Shelf Road. This was an old stagecoach and freight route and part of the Gold Belt Tour Scenic Byway from the 1800's. The shelf road took us on a dirt road through the lower part of the canyon and then up to the cliff side of the canyon. There were some pretty awesome views along the way. This road led us down to Canon City. There was a sign for Sand Gulch Campground near Canon City so we decided to go explore it. It was very pretty with the red rock canyon in the background and the red dirt roads in the campground. It was our first red dirt road we had driven on (see pic) and it looked pretty cool. Lots of cactus in the area too (but not the kind you see in pics, these are more like bushes (see pic). After exploring, we grabbed a bite to eat in Canon City at Chicago Bob's BBQ (good food). We then headed back to camp on a different road/trail which was Phantom Canyon Road. Another road with some nice views but not quite as nice as Shelf Road. It was a fun day exploring new territories in the Jeep and taking tons of pics. Our day ended with a yummy grilled steak dinner and a campfire.

RAMPART RANGE ROAD

Our 2nd days adventure started with a drive around Green Mountain Falls area and then to the Pikes Peak Pickle Shack and the North Pole! I like to just do the tourist stuff so I made Jeff stop at these two stops for pics and to pick up some pickled asparagus (always nice to support the local businesses). Who would have thought the North Pole was in Colorado!!?? I didn't. Well it's actually just a Christmas theme amusement park with a few Christmas shops. We didn't go in but just took a pic of the entrance/parking area. The North Pole has been around since 1956. We then drove to Rampart Range Road. This road didn't seem to be much for scenery as the others were. There were a few lakes that showed on our GPS map but when we tried to get to them they were gated off. We just kept taking different trails to see where they would lead us, some led us to dead ends. Finally we made it to the Rampart Reservoir (which cost $7 to enter). It was a nice open water area where people were relaxing, fishing or kayaking/canoeing. Also a nice area to hike around. We stopped to take some pics. I would have liked to hike around some of it but at 9,000ft, Jeff would have struggled with his asthma. So we headed back to camp, took the Jeep to the car wash and enjoyed another cool evening by the campfire.

In the future, we hope to do more camping in Colorado because the scenery is so beautiful and it's a great place to explore in our Jeep. But first we will need to upgrade our motorhome to a diesel if we want to make it much further up into the mountains because our gas powered Winnie just might not make it up the hills with the Jeep. Saving that for our full-time motorhome adventure!

The campground was about an 1 1/2- 2 1/2 hr drive from our apt depending on the traffic so not a bad drive for a little get away.

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