Cousins’ Colorado Camping Trip (August 19-27) Day 1

This is Pearl here, and I’m going to be telling you about the camping trip we took to Colorado in August!

We have long wanted to make a trip to Colorado to visit Aunt Anna’s (Lucas) family, and when we lived in Pennsylvania the long trip out there seemed insurmountable. Now that we live in Missouri, the trip is only 12 hours versus the nearly 24 hours it would take from Pennsylvania, and is definitely more doable! So the idea came up for a camping trip in the Colorado mountains with the Lucas children and we decided to make a go of it! Samuel and David were able to work around their mowing schedule, and even Jed was able to take off a few days to bring his family out to join the fun!

The evening before we left, while they were loading the truck, David’s German Shepherd, Kaya, jumped in the truck to go along! Unfortunately, we didn’t have room for her, so she had to stay home…

Our group from Missouri (Candace, Tasha, David, Samuel, Ezra, and yours truly) and Jed and his family from West Virginia arrived at Aunt Anna’s place late afternoon, Wednesday. It was so nice to see our cousins and Aunt Anna and Uncle Jonathan again! Here we are, getting everything loaded up into the three vehicles before we headed out to our campsite.

To make a long story short, we got going later than we had planned and had to make several stops for different things, so by the time we got to our destination to look for the perfect camping spot, it was already pitch dark. (It was also a 2 hour drive.) So after wandering around on gravel roads for a while and discovering that it was getting quite late, we decided to just stop where we were and camp off the side of the road leading up to one of the Fourteeners. We were above timberline, and it was coold!!

We were awakened by the sound of vehicles and people walking and talking, and when we got up, we discovered cars parked all the way down from the parking lot (at the foot of the mountain) to where we had parked our vehicles. Apparently everyone was wanting to get an early start on hiking the mountain that morning!

We were in an area unfamiliar to our Coloradan cousins so it took us a little while to locate the trail up to the mountain that we were planning to take our four-wheelers up that morning. We finally found a spot to park all of our sundry vehicles, and we got out our gas stove and heated up breakfast so we had some nutrition to keep us going for the adventures of the day.

The Lucases wanted to take us up several Fourteeners ( a mountain peak with an elevation of at least 14,000 feet (4267 meters) while we were in Colorado. So our first Fourteener of the day was Mt. Lincoln. We were hoping to go on our four wheelers as far as we could go and then hike up to the top.

As you can see, we made it as far as to this metal gate, and were informed by some people in their Jeeps that were descending the mountain that we shouldn’t go farther than the metal gate, even by foot, because it was private property and considered potentially hazardous because of mine shafts.

Most of us were on four wheelers as you could see in the last picture. But Jed and family drove all the way in his Toyota 4-Runner. We were pretty impressed!

Four-wheelering buddies – Rose and Pearl.

Since we weren’t able to hike up Mt. Lincoln we decided to go up another mountain that was right near by — Mt. Bross, which was 14,177 ft. high. This time, Jed and Rosalie and family decided to get on a four-wheeler and we were able to drive all the way to the top. There were three guys at the top that had hiked up and they kindly took some pictures of our group for us. We took pictures for them in exchange! 🙂

As you can probably tell, it was quite windy and also quite chilly up there!

When we got to the top of Mt. Bross we could really start feeling the effects of the altitude. It was very easy to get out of breath after very little exertion!

Jed and Rosalie headed back down the mountain to where our vehicles were parked, and the rest of us headed on another route to get Mt. Lincoln. We went on our fourwheelers as far as we could, and then hiked the rest of the way!

This is the trail up Mt. Lincoln. It’s way steeper than the picture implies!

The guys on top of Mt. Lincoln! L to R: Samuel Morley, Danny Lucas, Ezra, David Morley, Sam Lucas, and Tim Lucas.

And the gals! L to R: Carrie Lucas, Pearl, Rose Lucas, and Hannah Lucas

I was so glad to have my brother along for at least the first day of camping and adventures! Unfortunately, he had to leave the next morning, Saturday, to fly to Pennsylvania for some Greek classes.

Some of us hiked an unoffical fourteener, Mt. Cameron, that was right near Mt. Lincoln.

On the trek down, one of the four wheelers’ steering bars broke. Here the boys had the fourwheeler on its side to examine the damage.

The guys eventually winched the front end of the broken down four wheeler up so that it could be towed, and slowly but surely made it back to our vehicles. Sometimes one of us others had to gently push from behind with our four wheeler to get them through a tough spot. It was quite the adventure!

We were all tuckered out after that long day!

We found a nice camping spot that evening that was nestled back in the trees. Samuel took this shot of our spot with his drone.

We had this beautiful creek flowing right across the road from our campsite. It was handy to get water from as well as keeping our watermelons cold! 🙂

We were so privileged to see a lot of wildlife right near our camping spot. Here’s a momma moose and her twin calves that we saw one evening.

The scenery around us was just breathtaking! We have a wonderful Creator who delights in beauty!

Stay tuned for Day 2!

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