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Roughin' it at the Peak

Jul 10, 2007
Christi and I headed out on Friday to go up for a camping trip with Matt and Korri. Our adventure got of to a weird start when we were about 10 miles away from meeting up with the other two.

While watching the car in front of us, with 5 full sized dogs in the back, one of them flew out when the truck hit a bump on the road. The dog luckily landed on some soft gravel, rolled a few times, and then walked off. Christi and I honked, threw on our blinkers and did everything that we could to get the attention of the car in front of us, but with no luck. They finally stopped in the same city that we did, and when we tracked them down, the wife who was driving, didn't even acknowledge us when we pulled up.

The husband who was sleeping in the back had no clue, and the wife didn't tell him that we were trying to stop them. So, we told the husband what happened, and by the look on his face, we're both guessing that they didn't have the most fun ride back looking for their dog.

After the whole ordeal, we met up with Matt and Korri and started driving through the park to Pike's Peak. We finally got to a spot with a sign that read: "No vehicles permitted beyond this point." Matt looked at us and told us to throw our Jeep into 4-lo and just follow up him up the mountain.

This part of the trip was probably the most exciting. We spent the next 20-30 minutes, climbing and balancing our cars driving up rocks that had fallen down the mountain. To say the least, on our 300+ ft. car climb, we broke in our Jeep and really used it for what it was intended to do. It's tough to write about because you really had to be there to experience what we went through. It's not like we just drove up some gravel road to our campsite, we literally teeter-tottered our car while strategically navigating our path so that we didn't rip out our transmission on the boulders we were driving over.

After we got down with the most exciting car ride of our lives, we made it to our campsite. It is a little place about a mile away from Pike's Peak and about 2000-3000 feet below it, elevation wise. We're lucky to have known Matt since he used to work for the City of Colorado Springs and traveled up the road when you used to be able to. So, thinking back on it, we camped out in a spot that probably only a handful of people in the entire world know about.

Our campsite was amazing and since we got up there a little late, we spent a little bit of time walking down to the fishing hatcheries and then came back to set up shop before the sun left us for the night.

We did the usual camping stuff by grilling out, making s'mores and of course sitting around a huge fire that we made. When we woke up the next morning (freezing), we found ice chunks in the dog's water dish to let us know that it got pretty cold the night before.

We then took a long hike down to the lakes to view the Peak and get a different look of the mountain. After our treacherous hike back up to the campsite, we gave Christi her first lessons in firing a gun and then packed up and headed into Colorado Springs.

Both Matt and Korri are from the Springs, so they were great tour guides for us. Especially Matt. He took us to see the little historic parts of town, to a great popcorn place, and then to the Garden of the Gods. What a site that is! If you're ever in the area, you definitely have to make the trip to check out the huge boulders there.

I've finally updated my picture page and loaded the pictures from the 4th and from the camping trip on there. We had a great weekend, and our next voyage will take us to Omaha in two weeks.
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