Rambling Back with Rip
August 8, 2003
Well, another month is nearly gone and it will soon be August. We are still at the Ponderosa Campground on highway 17. We are about 18 miles West an Antonito. We had rain for a week or two when we first got her in June and then it turned off hot and dry. The past two weeks we have been having rain and hail pretty often and it has cooled off again. The days are usually in the low 80’s and the nights are in the low 40’s.
The fishing in the Conejos River has been fair all summer, but they stocked it this week and they are catching some really nice trout now. People from Texas, New Mexico and even Arkansas come to fish and camp here. I have been doing a lot of hiking on some of the high mountain trails. One of the lakes we hiked up to was 12,500 feet high. There was still one drift of snow there that was about 25 feet deep. Some friends of ours from Arkansas came the week of July 4 and we hiked up to Red Lake and camped out overnight. The mosquitoes had hatched out and there were millions of them. It was 4 miles up to where we camped and my pack weighed 40 pounds. I was really worn out when we got there. It is all uphill until you get within one-half mile of the lake. It sets down in an old volcano crater and it’s down hill the last half mile, but you have to climb back up when you’re ready to leave.
I found a hiking buddy from Texas and we hiked up the Continental Divide Trail a ways. We hiked in to Dipping Lake which is four miles west of Red Lake. We were gone three days and two nights. We left at noon on a Saturday and hiked nine miles before dark. That was nearly a death march for this old man! The next day we hiked up the Continental Divide Trail a ways and then came back and hiked half way back to Red Lake. Dipping Lake is located in a pass and it is where the Rio Charma starts. We went down to the lake and the trail is steep and rocky. It was steeper climbing back up from there. We had a really good time.
Another friend and I went on a day hike to Red Lake so he could fish. I decided t do some exploring around the lake while he fished. It came up a cloud and before we could get out of there it was pouring rain and the hail was about three inches deep. I only had a waist length rain parka so by the time we hiked the fur miles back to the pickup, I was soaked from my waist down. I was chilling and shaking something awful.
The season u here is more than half over for us this year. We plan to leave around September 1. This has been the fulfillment of my life long dream to spend the summer in the mountains. It is really nice to get away from the heat and humidity of Arkansas summer time. This has been a much nicer summer than last year due to the rain.
We are sort of isolated up here. No TV and no newspaper until we go to town. We get a little news on the radio though. Hope I haven’t bored you with all my rambling this time.