Camping at Homestake Road

What do you do when you’ve got a three-day conference in Vail starting Monday? Go camping over the weekend! Granted, it wasn’t quite as easy as that.

We took off on Saturday morning to find a campsite near Vail to spend the weekend. Unfortunately, even when the weather is pretty decent, many campsites don’t open before Memorial Day. We started by trying a campsite in Vail, but the gate was closed. Then we tried a campsite a little further down the road, but, again, the gate was closed. We ended up in Red Cliff, a quaint (read: strange) little mountain town down a one-way, cliffside road, but only stopped there briefly before we tried the national forest access road, but, again, were locked out.

We decided that the next try would be the last. If we couldn’t find a site, we would turn back and drive the two-plus hours home. And, of course, that’s when we came across Blodgett Campground.

The campground has approximately a dozen sites and sits next to Homestake Creek, a fairly popular fly fishing destination. During our two-night stay, we made friends with the neighbors, chased an escaped Tilly for about five hours (until she gave up and rolled over when we stopped chasing her), and dealt with an end-of-season resort employee party (which went on until about 3 or 4 AM on Sunday night). Overall, it was a good spring camping trip (though not necessarily a restful one). Plus, I think I’ll be telling the story of Tilly’s escape for the rest of my life.

What’s your favorite camping story?