Somehow, I managed to get all my shit together given how recently I was given Sunday off – Wade managed to work his magic and got me the day. We figured it out on Friday. At 8:30 pm. 

I rode my bike to work on Saturday so Matt could just pick me up on our way out of town. Thankfully, the day didn’t take forever and before I knew it, Matt was pulling in to get me. 

An uneventful drive to Keystone, and we found our people. There was tequila. There was beer. There was dinner. There was hanging out by our cars for a bit, and there was camping in our car in a dirt parking lot. 

Morning came and we started moving. We hung out in our cars for a bit, and then headed into Keystone, where we decided breakfast was a great idea. An egg croissant with avocado in sandwich form was awesome. The coffee was pretty good too…

We had a lovely day of hanging out with our friends, under the C3 tent, making snow cones…

We stayed until everything was packed up and we started for Salida. We saved SO much time not having to go back to Denver and just going straight through Leadville. 

We stopped at the grocery and grabbed the last few things we needed for food, and headed to our favorite dispersed camping area. 

We set up our pad and sleeping bags – there’s no reason to bother with a tent when it’s not supposed to rain – cooked some dinner, cracked some beers and settled in for the night. SO peaceful…

Wow. I always sleep like a rock when I’m hanging out under the stars! It’s SO peaceful! I even managed to make myself wake up enough to snap a picture or two of the night sky. So pretty!

We (okay, I) got up, made some coffee, watched the sun come up… Ahhh, sunrise in the mountains. Pure magic. 

We made some breakfast, chilled out and read books in the morning sun for a while, packed up what little we’d pulled out, and started making our way to Creede. 

We pulled into Creede and found a parking lot. We had just over an hour until we had to head to our activity for the day, so we wandered around. Such a cute little town! We found a brewery (Spare Keg Brewing) that was just opening up for the day and snuck in for a beer. The Rained Out IPA was pretty good!

We headed back to the car and drove back to South Fork – somewhere, I had found this rail bike tour thing (through Revolution Rail Co.) with a float trip back on the Rio Grande, and we thought it sounded like fun. 

What a cool experience! The rail bikes were exactly that, side-by-side recumbent-type bikes attached to an aluminum frame with wheels that roll on old railroad tracks. The scenery was beautiful, and there was something just plain fun about tooling around on old railroad tracks. 

When we got to the put-in for the rafts, we jumped off and went down to the river, where we got some PFDs and a short safety briefing. We hopped in our raft with our guide Zach, and we were off!

The trip was a super chill float down the river. The water was super low (220 cfs), so we were a little worried about getting stuck, but since there were only three of us in the boat, we were pretty light weight and managed to make it over all the super shallow spots with minimal issues. 

Zach told us all kinds of fun stories about living in the area, about spending a winter in Creede when the population goes down to 300 people, and about the one music festival in South Fork that he’d been at all weekend. He also told us that Creede is basically the caldera of a collapsed super volcano, and that the cliffs around the area are all petrified lava. Super cool. 

We got SOAKED, too! There were water guns, which were hilarious to spray each other with, and at one point we jumped in to cool off – it was hot out! And the river water wasn’t as cold as I’d feared… FUN!

When we got back to the station, we pulled out of the river and made our way back to the car.  We changed out of our soaking wet clothes and headed towards camp. 

We pitched camp, and while we were doing so, the camp host came up to ask us if we had reservations. We said yes, for the 4th. He turned red, apologized profusely, and said he couldn’t keep track of the days… It was hilarious. He was a nice guy.

We made some dinner after that, sat by the LavaBox for a bit, and then went to bed. We’ve got a big hike tomorrow!

We got up at a reasonable hour today, had some coffee and breakfast, and headed out to our hike.

Wheeler Geologic Area looks like an alien landscape in pictures, and I was determined we would get to see it for ourselves. We parked at the trailhead, and set off on the hike. 

It’s eight miles one way, but thankfully, it’s not hard. Just rolly with no big climbs, and huge, beautiful views the whole way. The wildflowers were still blooming, which was a plus.. 

Eventually, the trail met up with the 4WD road and we knew we were close. We found the UTV trailhead, headed up that trail, and in no time, we were exclaiming about just how amazing the place was. 

It was pretty much indescribable. I think I’m just gonna let the pictures speak for themselves. We hung out for a while, had some lunch, and then made the long trek back to the car.

We got back to camp, and Matt jumped in the river as he does, and then we changed clothes and went into town for dinner.

Dinner was at the Creede Hotel and Restaurant. We had some drinks – beer for Matt and an Old Fashioned for me – and the most incredible mozzarella sticks we’ve EVER had as an appetizer. Dinner was fish for me and pasta for Matt, and it was all incredible. It never ceases to amaze me how you can find REALLY good food, even in the most random small mountain towns… 

Then a short wander around town, back to camp, chilling out by an actual campfire this time, and bed.

I woke up early and decided I wanted a campfire with my coffee, so I managed to relight the fire from last night – WIN! 

Matt got up after a bit, we made some breakfast, and then broke down camp. We had one more thing to do today, and then we were headed home.

We went into town and found the start of the Bachelor Loop. It’s a scenic drive from town up the canyon that passes some old ghost towns and mining sites. Looked pretty cool, anyway, and we thought we’d give it a go. It said the road was rough, but we figured the Element was up to the task.

We started up the road and stopped at a couple sites and took some pictures. Eventually, we saw a steeper section or road, which was called the Black Pitch… We got a running start, and somehow, Matt got the Element to not slide out and we got up the hill. That was fun, but dicey for sure. We made it, though, and continued around the loop, checking out the rest of the sites. We finished up checking out the local church and cemetery, then headed home, stopping in Buena Vista for pizza and beer at Eddyline Brewery, my favorite….

Great weekend away!

Here’s the video: