Fall Camping -

If you’d like to see more of our Colorado adventures, click here.

Once the calendar turned to September, we leapt into fall with all of our hearts. Granted the days have still been warm, but we’ve found that if you climb high enough into the mountains, then the evenings are cool, the leaves are changing colors, and the mornings are perfectly crisp.

Here are a few snapshots from our recent weekend camping trips. If you feel inspired to hop in the car this weekend, at the very bottom of the post, I link to a few posts to hep you get started, including some of our favorite/essential gear.

Pawnee Campground, Brainard Lake Recreation Area

Brainard Lake is notoriously busy, especially on nice weekends. Waiting, in your car, to get into the area can be an excruciating wait. How do we know? We’ve turned around on more than one occasion.

That grumble aside, camping here is glorious.

We came up early Friday morning, reserved a first-come-first-served spot, then continued on with our regular schedule (work, soccer, etc.), and arrived with the van and our supplies Friday evening.

If you’re camping in the area for the weekend, you’ll never face those long morning lines, and instead, you can spend every moment of your 36 hours enjoying the lake, the trails, and the moose (if you can spot them!).

Hike to Lake Isabelle

One of the reasons that this area is so popular is because of the breathtaking hikes. In the past we’ve shared snapshots from our hike on the Mitchell Lake Trail. This weekend we opted for a trail we’ve never hike, leading past Long Lake to Lake Isabelle.

We make Lake Isabelle our destination, but if you’re adventurous, you could keep hiking up to the Isabelle Glacier!

Etc.

After our all-day hike, it was back to the campground for dinner. Our little camping snafu from earlier this summer has really had an impact on how we plan camp dinners.

For both this trip and the following, our main dinners were cooked entirely over the open fire. This weekend, dinner was grilled chicken and baked beans. You’ll see that the next dinner was a variation of the theme with grilled steak and beans.

Peaceful Valley Campground (tent camping!)

This was another first-come-first-served site. Unfortunately, we didn’t have our act together or the energy to find a site and camp on Friday. As a result, the campground was almost completely full when we arrived Saturday morning.

We ended up having our choice of the tent-only sites, and luckily we came prepared with our tent and plenty of sleeping gear. And honestly, I think we were all a little excited for the change of pace. It was definitely fun to all snuggle in at the beginning of the night for story and bedtime. Our usual routine is for the boys to go to sleep before us in the van, and then we head in later.

Buchanan Pass Trail

For this weekend’s hike, we took things a lot more slowly. We walked up the Buchanan Pass Trail for maybe a 1/2 mile or so, then the boys played in the creek before we turned around and came back to camp.

Dinner

Even though this second weekend was a lot more low-key, just being in the tent made it seem like an adventure. And, of course, the boys had a great time… you know that’s the case when random leg-hugs are being handed out left and right.