#5 of 9. June 2022 Continental Divide – Colorado

Night 10 and 11 and 12

June 24-25-26

First to Salida, and then the Ute Trail north to Harstel on the 12 GDCR kevin.gps tracks

The trail quickly opened up to some pretty barren terrain. It was pretty, but very odd. Miles and miles of nothing. the roads were good, but expect washboard areas.

STOP, Side trip for Urgent care

After days of self treatment of a raging eye infection, (no pictures please) I had to go get some medical help. The best option was to head toward Colorado Springs. Thanks to my little group for sitting in the parking lots through hours of urgent care and sourcing prescriptions. It was an all day affair. Bummer, but I’m on the mend.

In a hurry on our way into Colorado Springs we figured a KOA would be a good choice since we needed to stay two nights and campgrounds were full. The Cripple Creek KOA had one vacancy, hurry!!

First of two nights….

AND this was the world’s highest KOA Campground. And WE had the highest camp space in the world’s highest KOA. And WE couldn’t breath….. 😳.

There’s worse places to be stuck in than Colorado Springs!

I’m not sure we’ve ever camped at 10,000 ft. We were really feeling it. The showers and restrooms were so far away it was an exhausting trek. Luckily we we have a stash of canned oxygen. The pictures look sunny and beautiful, but the weather was horrible at night. We had rain and it was sooooo cold. Luckily we have a dandy diesel heater.

Cripple Creek ended up being miles out of the way for everything we planned to do in Colorado Springs. Between Dr. visits we checked out the Florissant Fossel beds and made a quick drive through the Garden of the Gods.

The Florissant Fossel Beds

We were expecting ordinary fossils, like bugs, fish, or maybe dinosaurs. What an amazing surprise! This is a fossilized stand of giant redwoods! Of course it was pouring rain but I “ran” out onto the trail and got some shots.

I just love National Monuments. Got the stamp for my book. (I didn’t take pictures at the Urgent Care.)

The Garden of The Gods, the quickie drive:

Hey! Isn’t that Pike’s Peak? Let’s go!

Turns out that the second night at the KOA was impossible due to the weather. We sat in the Jeeps in the pouring rain. Luckily there was an Air B&B just a couple of miles away on a ranch. They had an RV that slept 6 and allowed dogs. Whew. It wasn’t fancy, and we went a bit higher in elevation where we were actually looking down on the worlds highest KOA, and across from the crest of Pike’s Peak.

After the medical break, back toward Harstel and back on the CDT trail to Breckinridge.

Night # 12

June 26

We turned north on Elkhorn Road headed toward Breckinridge.

We followed the old rail line path up and over Boreas Pass before coming into a very cold and rainy Breckinridge.

We made great time getting to Kremmling, so we considered taking a side trip over to Rocky Mountain National Park. But no. We realize we’re in for enough chaos at The Grand Tetons and Yellowstone due to the floods.

If we ever want to complete the Continental Divide Trail, we need to stay the course!

It just seemed too early to stop and camp around Kremmling so we opted for the 11 EZ1 kevin.gps and made it to Stagecoach State park. There is plenty of room for group parking at this lake.