Fish Creek, Colorado
Fish Creek is located near Pingree Park. It flows from west to east through
a steep wooded valley, which is quite difficult ot locate flat ground to
camp on. Mark Elssaesser and I backpacked in about 3 miles in July of 1998,
and of course, Frank joined us. The weather was great when we started out
form the trailhead, but lasee than an hour into the hike, it began to look
like serious rain. We kept our eyes peeled for any suitable ground to pitch
a tent, and became anxious when we found absolutely none. Soon, it began
to rain, and we stopped where we were and set up camp on an uncomfortably
sloping hillside. We set our tents up and napped through the storm for
a few hours. When the rain let up, it was dinnertime, and we ventured out
into the wet grass to cook our dinner of red beans and rice. Frank, being
short of hair to warm himself with, was shaking miserably, so I wrapped
him up in his blanket and fed him
some
dogfood by the campfire. The sun came out after dinner and we went on a
short hike up the trail to see what lay beyond. We were relieved to find
we had not prematurely camped short of perfectly level ground, for the
trees became thicker and the hillsides steeper as we went along. Back at
camp, we stayed up until just past dark, then went to bed under the threat
of yet another storm. During hte night, high winds strafed the area, and
I was quite sure my tent was due to collapse at any moment. The dome pinacle
of my tent, normally about 3 feet high, was at times bent down to within
inches of my face under the force of the wind. It got very cold that night,
and poor Frank suffered terribly I'm afraid. He just doesn't take to cold
too well. The next morning came without broken tents and we ate a quick
breakfast of pancakes and were off. Along the trail back, we discovered
evidence of the high winds the night before in the form of giant trees
felled across the trail which were not there the day before. This same
system was responsible for the Routte National Forest blowdown, where hundreds
of acres of lodgepole pine were flattened in one night. We got back
to the van just before it began to rain again. It just wasn't the best
weather for camping.
