Desolate Land.

August 22-24

“The beauty of it cannot be understood, either, and when you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you.”
~J. R. R. Tolkien

It was Chili’s birthday weekend so I wanted to take him on a special trip. Recently, I’ve become discouraged with summer camping in Colorado and how overrun the mountains get this time of year. So, in search of somewhere to disappear, Chili and I headed north-for the first time.

As we headed out of Colorado, I could just feel things open up and slow down, as if time stood still for a moment. Fewer buildings, smaller towns, wide open space for miles! A sense of untethered Freedom.

Turning off the highway and onto the faded two lane road, we went further north, away from civilization. About 20 miles further, the pavement turned to dirt and the hunt for a campsite began. The plan was to head into the hills looking over the reservoir for the first night and then find a spot on the water for the second.

The best laid plans as they say…

The road was very well maintained and took us through vast and expansive hills of wild grasses and sagebrush with an occasional patch of Badlands Mule Ears in full bloom. We saw herds of elk, deer and antelope grazing, startled by our passing. We drove past a couple of ranches and two vehicles. It was clear they were ranchers, I saw no signs of other adventurers…

Once we turned off the “main” road and onto the trail that would take us into the wild, a sign was posted saying “hunters welcome, no overnight camping”. That being the only viable route I had mapped to that area, we turned around to head towards the water. I had mapped 3-4 routes to the shoreline, all looked like passable roads.

We turned down the first trail, hopeful that our spot would be at the end, on a nice sandy beach, overlooking the water, but not 1 mile down the road and another sign, this one saying “Private Property, NO TRESPASSING”. So we turned around and headed on to the next mapped route! Another few hundred feet down this trail…”Private Property, NO TRESPASSING”! And I’ll bet you can guess what happened down the next trail…

As it turns out, while there was plenty of BLM land in the area, it was checker boarded with private land so you just couldn’t get anywhere without trespassing. Below is a screenshot of how the land is divided, as you can see, there was no way I was getting to the lake!

At this point, it was almost 7pm and I was running out of daylight. I knew there was a campground about an hour away so I decided I’d stay there for the night and regroup since my entire plan for the weekend was foiled!

Turning onto yet another side road towards the campground I felt disheartened, I don’t like campgrounds, especially ones right on the water where there were bound to be crowds of people. I told myself “remember Kari, this is happening for you, not to you and this will probably work out more favorably than your original plan”.

We sped down the road as the sun neared the skyline, ready to find our spot for the night. I saw the vault toilet in the distance but nothing else, no cars, tents, RV’s or people, was it possible??

There was no one there, not only that but it felt like no one had been there in quite awhile. We approached the boat ramp and realized that my inclination was probably correct, the campground was completely uninhabited! The water level was so low, all that was left was the small river feeding the reservoir further downstream and the dried up lakebed surrounding it.

As we drove through the campground there was eerie feeling, like the place had been deserted, like a dystopian movie, just how I like it.

Seeing some faded tire tracks leading down towards the water, we drove through one of the campsites and onto the lakebed.

As we drove away from the campground, solitude surrounded us! The tire tracks had disappeared and it was just Chili and I, and Freyja (my Jeep), driving across the desolate, expansive and untouched terrain!

We stopped on a small ridge just above the water, a perfect place to camp but the wind had picked up so I decided it was best to find a more sheltered spot. We followed the shoreline around until we found a flat area just behind a small ledge where it was more calm, this would be our home for the night!

Tired from the journey but ever so grateful to have the campground to ourselves we settled in and enjoyed the sunset.

I thought this formation looked like Falcor from the NeverEnding Story!

Sunrise

On Saturday morning, I made coffee, packed up camp and headed out to explore the reservoir. I left without a plan for the evening, we would see where the day took us.

We spent the next several hours driving around the lake, through ranch land and realizing that there was absolutely no access to the water besides the campground. On the east side of the lake, where we camped the previous night, I only passed one rancher, still no fellow adventure seekers. As the dirt road turned to pavement again, I began to pass a few road trippers and campers but there was still very little traffic.

The road curved around through a canyon and up to an overlook of the reservoir and dam. There was a state park on this side with three shoreline campgrounds. While much busier than the other side, they were only at about 30% occupancy. Even with the RV’s and a few SxS’s, there was still some peace and quiet.

After finishing the loop, we headed into town for some lunch and found a delightful little taco shop! Then onward we went.

Pulling off the highway, it was time to decide what to do for the evening. To the south, there was an area, closer to Colorado which would be an easier drive home in the morning. I confirmed that there was dispersed camping and it would be a higher elevation, therefore cooler, but I was drawn back to the lonesome campground from the night before so we headed north again.

Today was far less windy so we returned to the ridge from the evening before and setup camp!

It was 83 degrees, anyone who knows me, knows that I do not like heat! So I decided to go for a swim. Approaching the waters edge, it became very clear that getting in would not be possible, the entire shoreline turned to a quicksand-like mud and sucked my feet in. I thought to myself what a perfect mote this would have made if there were a castle on the other side. If anything tried to cross, they would surely get stuck. Then I thought, if it were to rain, this dried up lakebed would turn into the quicksand-like mud and Freyja would also surely get stuck…

Sunday was Chili’s birthday and since we’d be driving home, I made him a special dinner with lamb and cheese to celebrate!

After dinner, we sat by the river, listened to music and enjoyed the sunset. With all the summer wildfires, we were treated to yet another gorgeous, red sunset.

In the wild, almost everything is unpredictable, especially the weather…I was woken at 3:30am Sunday morning by the wind and after laying there for 30 minutes, I decided to pack up and head home, one of those gut instincts. As I was packing up, lightning and thunder started off in the distance and grew closer as I packed. I feel fortunate that the wind woke me up when it did. Had that dried up lake bed become wet, we might have been stuck there!

Although the trip started out with an unexpected change in plans, it did indeed end up better than expected.