The rest of our holiday weekend was spent camping with my uncle, aunt and some cousins. We met them in Westcliffe, CO then headed west into the Sangre De Cristo mountains. The trail to our camping spot was rugged an fun. So rugged in fact, that I ended up detaching my tail pipe from the muffler somewhere along the way.

Here, Brady and I are enjoying some chips and salsa.

The boys were fishing all day and needed a ride across the river.

The next day, the rest of the group wanted to try a little fishing, so Uncle Fred recommended we try Hermit Lake just up the range, one that he remembered visiting as a kid. Hermit Road, presented itself to be quite a rocky one… and about a mile in we found out that the lake was still a good 6 miles up the mountain. On the drive up, you could see the old Conquistador Ski Area, which prompted Brady and I to ponder purchasing our own plot of mountain and building a private ski area.

The road was getting rougher the higher we got, so we ended up stopping about half way and the boys fished the small stream.

Eventually though, Brady, Andrea, Kate and I started back up the road in search for the mysterious lake. At one point the bone jarring drive was too much, so we parked the car and hiked up about two miles until we found a small trail that led to Hermit Lake.

I ended up finding parts of a fishing pole lying around the area (Kate found half a rod, Brady found a hook and weight), so I was able to do a little angling of my own.

And finally on the trek down, I had to spot Brady on a couple tricky descents. (But judging by the picture, it doesn’t look so bad, but there were some rocks that could remove a transmission or two.)