Sunday 9-12 Drive to Matchless Campground - Larry Falls

 

A Mountain Range

Today we drove about 70 miles through a couple of mountain ranges. The first one was about 20 miles from Lottis Creek Campground called Cottonwood Pass. The speed limit was 30 but there were a few times Larry had to slow down to 15. There were a lot of switchbacks. The mountain views were very pretty. The aspens are starting to turn colors for the fall. We saw a beautiful buck on the side of the road. A little bit further down the pass we saw a gorgeous bull moose just taking a leisurely Sunday morning stroll. Larry wanted to stop but there was another vehicle behind us and no place to pull over. Larry stopped at the Cottonwood Pass Continental Divide overlook. It wasn't too picturesque because you only see the road going through the pass. After taking pictures we continued on.

Larry kept a close eye on the breaks, the temperatures were fine and there was no fading.

We stopped in Buena Vista, Colorado at LaGree Grocery Store. Larry wanted to use the internet to do some research on where we're going. While he did this I went into the store and picked up a couple of items. Larry read there were two different places in town to take a shower, one was a laundromat, 10 minutes for $7.00, or the city park, two minutes for a $1.00. We decided on the city park. The park was very nice. It had a dog park, skate board park, bicycle track, tennis courts, soccerfields and access to the river for kayaks. The park was getting busy with the local families and kids just having fun. The bathrooms each had one shower, they were very nice and worked great.

Then we continued down the road. We wanted to check out Elephant Rock Campground, it is a BLM area with free camping that a lot of YouTube folks camp at. We didn't plan to stay there we just wanted to drive by. Just before the tunnels the road turned to dirt and was very rough, we didn't want to see it that bad so as soon as we found a place to turn around we left. 

Larry had found some forest service camping online around Twin Lakes that seemed like it might work but when we got there it was next to a main road and did not have access to the nearby trails so we moved on. We drove to a dispersed camping area that was suppose to be RV friendly. The road in was very rough and had huge chuckholes. We stopped at the entrance and Larry walked around to check the area out, he didn't like it, too much dust, really small undefined spots and very unlevel. As he was walking back to the Minnie he tripped and had a hard fall, he hurt his left arm and elbow. It was bad enough that we decided to go to Leadville to get it checked out. Leadville is very small, only about 2500 people. They do have a small hospital and a clinic owned by the hospital. The clinic was closing and the receptionist said they could not fit him in but he could go to their emergency room. Larry explained he didn't really want to pay the emergency room cost. She said she understood and made him an appointment for tomorrow morning at the clinic. 

He doesn't think anything is broken because he can still move everything but when he fell he felt something in his elbow pop. He also has quite a bit of swelling in his arm. Both the arm and elbow are quite painful. After finding a place to camp he had me make him a sling using a beach towel. He also took a couple of Tylenol and used an ice pack on it for a few hours.

Nearby to Leadville is Turquoise Lake, it is located in the Pike-San Isabel National Forest. All but two of their campgrounds close the Tuesday after Labor Day. One of the two was mostly reservable sites and the other one is first come sites. We drove around both and decided on Matchless, it's a parking lot. You park in the parking lot and the site is in the trees with a picnic table and fire ring. Some of the sites have a pretty view of the lake. The sites don't have any hookups. There is a pit toilet but no water because they're working on it. Water is available in a huge tank. The hiking trail is right there.

Turquoise Lake

 

Our campsite

After dinner I walked around the campground 7 times and then stepped in place to get 25,000 steps. This put me in 4th place in my group for the week with 189,102 steps.