Lumpy Ridge Hike & Poudre Canyon Camping

During our last few days in Colorado before we met up with friends for a wedding near Denver, we explored Rocky Mountain National Park and then camped in Poudre Canyon (that’s pronounced POO-DER) (that’s right, best name ever).

 

First stop in RMNP was a small but beautiful picnic area below the tree line

RMNP is amazing. I think I enjoyed it more than driving up Pike’s Peak. But that could just be because the drive up Pike’s Peak is terrifyingggggg and the drive up into the mountains of RMNP is a little tamer but not at all less breathtaking. I couldn’t get over how much snow was up there. So much!!! There were people hiking up and skiing down. They had just barely opened the road for the summer and I could tell why, snow drifts on both sides of the roads! We ate our lunch at a picnic table in the middle of the snow, it was amazing.

 

So much snowwwwww!

Picnic in the snow!!

Getting into the alpine zone

Below treeline again, check out that sky

We saw pikas and bighorn sheep and coyote and a giant elk that I feverishly pulled off the road to take pictures of.

 

This isn’t the best picture of the sheep (bottom right) but I loved the background

Bighorn sheep making an exit

I’m pretty sure this is an elk…but maybe a moose?!?!

I can’t explain how much I enjoyed RMNP and I wish we’d had more than one day to explore. Pictures do not do it justice.

 

I had really wanted to get a hike in while we were in RMNP but the timing wasn’t going to work out, so I found a hike just outside the park that looked good. It was located at the Lumpy Ridge trailhead….another great name!!! We didn’t have a ton of time as we had to get to our campsite about 2 hours away in the Poudre, set up, and then find a place to watch game 3 of the Stanley Cup playoffs. So, we set out for a quick 1.5 mile hike.

RMNP in the distance!

Hiking through some pretty forest

Lumpy Ridge

More views of mountains in the distance, can’t get enough

 

Yay hiking!

It turned out to be exactly what we were looking for. Some elevation gain, mostly in the beginning of the hike, and gorgeous views of the mountains we had just been exploring in RMNP. We saw a couple other hikers but for the most part we had it to ourselves which was really nice.

After that quick hike we booked it to our campsite to set up in the rain, before making a quick fire and then dinner, and then over to the amazing Mishawaka, a bar/restaurant/music venue directly on the Poudre River, where we were able to watch the hockey game. The bar tender and other patrons were, in true Colorado style, amazingly nice and we all cheered on the Capitals to a win!

Eggs and bacon over the fire in the morning!

The best campsite I’ve ever had, right next to the river

Bye Poudre we miss you!!!

A special shout out to our my friend Stephanie who recommended both the Poudre Canyon and The Mishawaka. It was one of our favorite parts of the trip!!

Sky Meadows State Park, VA

Sky Meadows State Park, VA

I found a hiking partner! For limited time, as she’ll be returning to Chicago at the end of June, but still, yay for someone to share nature with!! Most of my hikes thus far have been solo, which I actually enjoy, but it’s always fun to have someone to grumble to when the trail is steep! A good friend of mine, Lynne, has the most amazing family, and her cousin Lauren is back in VA for a couple months and she reached out and said she’d be interested in joining me on hikes!

So since she’s in Northern VA (my enemy) and I’m in the Baltimore suburbs I thought I should find some place we could meet up. I’ve been dying to get into the Appalachians in VA but driving 3.5 hours didn’t appeal to me. I looked on Google maps (seriously what did I do before Google maps existed? It’s the best), found some green area north of Shenandoah, and randomly happened upon Sky Meadows State Park in VA on the map. It’s a little less than 2 hours away from me with no traffic, so still a jaunt, but turns out it was tooootally worth it!!

Pretty cabin at the visitor’s center

Lauren and I met at the park at 8:30am. I like to get a jump on the trails because getting to a hiking destination and there being no place to park is reallllll irritating, especially after driving two hours. Plus, I wanted to get a good hike in before getting home to watch the Caps play at 3!! We ended up being some of the first people in the park that morning. It was much colder and windier than I expected and I was glad for the first time that I had brought my hat and gloves and fleece. Normally I way over pack and end up lugging around all my cold weather gear. Finding the trail proved to be a bit of a conundrum but eventually we got on track. My plan was to do a 4.5ish mile loop around the park. The initial couple miles were mostly uphill, some rocky, then the trail branches off to the north on the AT, and then veers east (are’t you proud of me for knowing which direction we were going?!) back towards the visitors center.

Snack break view!

We took a snack break at Whitehouse Lookout which provides a fantastic view of the small town of Paris, VA and beyond. The wind was really whipping up there so after we finished our snacks we decided to get back on the trail. In about a mile the trail heads back into the woods, where we saw an amazing tree that looked like it had split into four trees at some point. Very cool.

Exploring the fun tree

Hiiii!

At around 4 miles we ran into an intersection in the trail and a sign saying our trail went one way and the other way headed to backcountry camping. We had been discussing doing some backcountry camping so we thought we’d head that way and check it out. We were sooo glad we did!! There were such great campsites tucked into the side of the hill! And even better than hardcore backcountry camping, these sites had fire rings. Everybody loves a good campfire. They had nice tent pads and access to primitive toilets and were all about a 1 mile hike from the parking lot, so no cars allowed. We were so excited we immediately found a weekend in June we both had free and booked our favorite of the sites! Here we come backcountry camping! We just have to figure out how to keep our food stuffs away from the bears…..

So, after taking our camping exploration detour we hiked a total of 5.8 miles that day! Oh! I forgot to mention that Lauren brought her dog, Taco! He is super sweet and was great company on the trail.

I thought this was a fantastic picture but it looks like I focused on the trees in the background instead of Lauren…oh well, still a good representation of the fun we had on the trail!!

Week 17, Goal: 51, Hiked: 46.4

Here are some other photo gems from our hike, we realllly lucked out on a beautiful hiking day!

Hello tick grass….

View from the beginning of our hike

After a good section of uphill you come to this lookout spot, so pretty!

Camping Fun Despite Foils!!

View of the Potomac River from the top of Weverton Cliffs.

Ever have one of those days where it seems like nothing is going right?

That was our recent hiking and camping experience!! It was foil and misstep and then foiled again! We woke up late and were rushed getting our stuff together. Then an hour away from home I realized I had forgotten my sleeping bag. We pulled over and I boiled in anger at having done something so stupid and then we decided to push on and just buy another one. Chris’ was borrowed anyhow so it wouldn’t hurt to just own two of our own. I was particularly mad because I had just bought my sleeping bag and hadn’t used it yet, I was so excited!! Oh well…next time.

Then we went for a hike in Harper’s Ferry that I had mapped out and I figured would be around 7-7.5 miles from the town up to Weverton Cliffs. It ended up being more like 8.6 in the end. Also I had lied to Chris to get him to agree to the hike and told him it would only be 7 even though I knew it might be a littttle big longer. Didn’t know it’d be THAT much longer!! Lying, the key to getting your husband outside! Sorryyyy!! But the hike was still really fun and Chris actually enjoyed it, so I count that as a win. (For those of you who don’t know, Chris isn’t exactly an outdoors enthusiast, despite his beard that disguises him as a lumber jack) We saw an eagle at the top of the cliffs which was pretty amazing. I did not get a picture because I was too busy being excited and then it flew away.

The easy part of the hike, 5 miles of flat tow path walking along the river. Don’t forget sunscreen! (whoops…)

Off of the towpath, starting to go up towards the cliffs. You’ll notice the white trail blaze, this hike also took care of a chunk of the MD portion of the Appalachian Trail, getting me closer to that goal.

Chris was really ready to take a break and was running ahead a bit towards the cliffs. Don’t run towards cliffs, Chris.

Good view of where we came from, we started out a little past where those two hills come together.

By the time we made it back to the car it was 2pm. The Capitals had a playoff game at 3pm, so our plan was to speedily go set up our campsite and then find a bar to go watch the game at. The Schoedels don’t mess around and will find a place to watch playoff hockey and drink beer at all costs. We were camping at Greenbrier state park in Boonsboro, MD. We set up our tent in record time and then rolled out our air mattress to blow it up….and it had a giant hole in it. Ok, so now we’re down a sleeping bag and an air mattress! Well, guess we’ll get one of those while we’re out buying a sleeping bag later!!! So with our campsite set up we continued on to the bar we’d found in Boonsboro. Dan’s Restaurant & TapHouse. It could not have been more perfect! They had so many craft beers on draft, including some craft ciders, amazing food on the menu, and they had all three of the TVs in the bar turned to the Caps game, with sound. There were also several Caps fans at the bar. It was quite the find. The Caps won and we left to find a Walmart to purchase our newly needed camping gear at. We also stopped at a liquor store because what is a campfire without some drinks? Don’t tell anyone, state parks don’t allow alcohol in them anymore, but we were sly and poured ours into red solo cups like the grownups that we are.

Back at the campground we got to work blowing up our new air mattress (which came with a battery operated inflator….of which we had no batteries for!! of course! No worries, the inflator for the mattress full of holes worked fine on the new mattress!) and making a fire. I think this was the end of our foils. In writing it doesn’t seem like a day full of foils, but we sure chuckled a lot over all the obstacles we ran into that day!! We cooked hot dogs and beans over the fire and then later on had s’mores. It was a chilly 45ish degrees but we bundled up and really enjoyed ourselves.

Thanks to my dad I can build a badass fire.

Bundled with beverages around the fire!

Our campsite! I’m pretty sure this was the best site in the campground. We had nobody to our left and it was on the tent-only loop so not too noisy. The other loops looked more packed together with less privacy.

Oh wait, the damn fire wood. That was definitely a foil-fest. It came in packs with handles stapled on. Nice, handy for carrying. Not particularly handy for when you’re trying to actually burn the wood and there is nylon stapled to the wood. I don’t want to burn nylon and then breath that shit in. I attempted to pull the nylon straps off but all I did was bash the wood into my leg and hurt myself. Wood injury. Chris decided he would burn the wood apart with our lighter. It worked surprisingly well, but we did still breath in the fumes I guess. Also, that damn wood was moldy!! So we had to dry it out next to the fire.

I’m already looking forward to our next camping adventure!! Maybe a few less hiking miles next time though….and maybe I’ll remember my sleeping bag…and MAYBE our air mattress will last more than one inflate…although that might be asking for too much out of life!!

Week 16, Goal: 48, Hiked: 40.6 (catching up!!)