Dispersed camping is sometimes the best test of a marriage. Packing, meal prep, miles of rough roads with only the Colorado Gazetteer and hope to decide the boom or bust of a weekend in the wilderness can put an unnecessary strain on the bond between two typically easy going people. Add three restless girls and a car sick dog and you have a classic case of marital peril.
Camping around Winter Park is spotty since our last bout of wildfires with some previously wonderful areas being turned to ash and others closed due to restoration. But I’m decidedly stubborn and have been known to take unnecessary risks to secure a camping spot, so we took one such risk on a couple forest roads that ended in almost jackknifing the trailer in abrupt turnaround situations.
After a couple of disappointing dead ends, I saw a road up to Meadow Creek Reservoir that looked promising, but an area that would likely fill up fast due to its proximity to what looked like a popular weekend reservoir. We bounced up the road on a Thursday afternoon through puddles and potholes with butts clenched, snippy comments, and low expectations. Yet, luckily for the future of our union we found several vacant dispersed sites just waiting for us to create our makeshift home away from home.
Meadow Creek is a lazy little tailwater cascading over beaver dams with pocket water just begging for an elk hair caddis and a 3 weight. A cow moose paced the valley around our site all weekend as we kept a close eye on each other.
The site we ended up at was deep and had plenty of room for archery and exploration. The creek splashed just outside our tent flaps with a soothing white noise from mother earth.
I filled up the hummingbird feeder with homemade sugar water on day one and by day three it was completely empty. Some of the little fighter jets buzzed startlingly close to our heads, some even venturing into the tent for a quick inspection.
The mosquitos attacked us now and then so a trip into Murdoch’s farm store in Fraser to buy a electric fly swatter tennis racquet made the fight a lot more entertaining. Of course I had to test it on myself and the loud zap on my finger made the girls double over with laughter and almost made me piss my pants.
The reservoir got crowded on Saturday but is a special place to paddle board and fish with a spectacular mountain range background. Supposedly there are Tiger Trout in this lake, but I couldn’t figure them out.
The brook trout in Meadow Creek were plenty fun and I got spoiled catching them, almost resembling I knew what I was doing. By the end of every fishing outing my fly was completely chewed to pieces. And not just from the brambles I hooked it in.
To get there, head west on 83 right before Tabernash, CO and drive up 84 to the left towards the reservoir and start looking once you High Lonesome Trailhead parking pull off.
The Confluences 