Pearl Lake State Park, Colorado - June 1st to 3rd, 2021
After the stress of getting ready to hit the road for six months, having a relaxing first stop to start Season Three was just what we needed. Pearl Lake State Park in Colorado, just north of Steamboat Springs, is a beautiful and peaceful setting.
The drive to Pearl Lake State Park was just as beautiful as the park itself. We headed west from Fort Collins on highway 14, through Poudre Canyon and over Cameron Pass. Poudre Canyon is always gorgeous. The Pourdre River was flowing strong from the spring snow melt. We followed a bus loaded with people and rafts for awhile until it pulled over at a boat launch along the river. Several rafts passed by on the river. It looked like the people were having fun paddling down the exciting rapids.
It took us about half an hour or so to drive across the burn area from the Cameron Peak wildfire as we approached Cameron Pass. It is hard to wrap our heads around how large the fire was when just reading the numbers: 208,913 acres which is 326 square miles. Driving through the burn area, at least the part that crossed the road, gave us a better idea of the large scale of the fire. There were several buildings, or what were buildings, burnt down to the ground, with only their blackened foundations remaining. However, many structures seemed untouched. Several homes had banners in their front yards that read "Thank you firefighters!".
For lunch, we stopped in the town of Walden for a picnic. Vic & Sigrid Hanson Memorial Park was a nice little town park. Children were happily playing in the playground.
From Walden, we continued on highway 14 over to US 40 which took us over Rabbit Ears Pass to Steamboat Springs where we stopped for gas. Looking up the gas prices for the stations in Steamboat in our GasBuddy phone app, we found a great deal just a couple of blocks off the highway. The gas station was unmanned and looked like it was in need of some upkeep, but it saved us 44 cents per gallon. We'll have to remember to use the GasBuddy app more often!
Then we headed north on Elk River Road. Pearl Lake State Park is about 20 miles north of town. There was still snow on the mountain peaks that surrounded us. Cows peacefully grazed in the meadows in the valley along the Elk River.
Pearl Lake State Park surrounds a dammed reservoir. The small lake is very peaceful. Only wakeless boating is allowed on the lake. When we arrived, there were a few people paddling in kayaks and on SUP boards. The campground is on the west bank of the lake. There are great views from most of the camp sites. Our site does not have a direct view of the lake, but we have a great panoramic view of the mountain peaks to the west.
We arrived early enough to take a short walk around the campground and down to the boat ramp on the edge of the lake before dinner. There was a trailer set up for renting kayaks and SUP boards, but we didn't see anyone around. Several people were fishing from the dock. The sounds of birds chirping and frogs croaking filled the air.
Back at our camp site, we could hear sandhill cranes in the meadows to the north of us, but we couldn't see them. Not too far south of here in a farmer's field just outside of Steamboat Springs is where we saw our first sandhill cranes last year on the way to Stagecoach State Park. Humming birds and swifts were flying all around us. Every now and then we would be startled by a hummingbird that would fly and hover about two feet in front of our faces to check us out for a brief second before darting off again.
We are loving our new sliding door screen. Our door stayed open the whole evening until we were ready to turn in for bed. It is so much easier to go in and out of the screen than opening and closing the door, especially while carrying items in and out to the picnic table. The alternative is to leave the door open without a screen. Even though we were still in the dry climate of Colorado without many bugs, we did see a few mosquitoes around dusk.
To end our first day of Season One, we sat in our camp chairs at our camp site watching the sun set over the mountains. It felt good to be on the road again.
The next day was very peaceful and relaxing. In the morning we went on a hike followed by a slow paddle around the lake in the afternoon.
There is a hiking trail, Pearl Lake Trail, that leads from the boat ramp over to the dam. It is less than a mile to the dam. When we reached the dam, we decided to continue down the trail despite Left Buddy's (LB's) headache. We could see that the trail continued further along the shore. Not long after the dam, the trail splits. It looked like the main trail went to the right, so we went right even though the lake was on our left. We thought the trail needed to go away from the lake some in order to cross a marshy area with a small stream. It didn't take us long to realize we were on the connector trail that went over to Coulton Creek Trail. It was not the trail we planned to hike, but it was a nice climb up through the trees with wonderful views of the surrounding mountains. When we reached Coulton Creek Trail (Trail #1176), we only continued down Coulton Creek Trail for about five minutes. Coulton Creek Trail is a nine mile loop and we were not prepared to hike that far. This was hike #13 of our 52 Hike Challenge: 3.8 miles with a 604 foot elevation gain in two hours.
Right Buddy (RB) was happy to see the variety of wildflowers along the trail. Since there were so wildflowers at nearby Steamboat Lake State Park last summer, she was hoping there would be a lot at Pearl Lake as well. When we arrived at Pearl Lake the day before, she did not see many flowers in the campground so she thought we might be too early in the season for wildflowers. There were not as many wildflowers at along the trail as there were at Steamboat Lake, but there were enough for RB to get her fill of flower pictures. We could imagine that there would be even more flowers here in a few weeks.
Lunch was a picnic by the boat ramp. We managed to snag a picnic table among the trees near the trailhead. Our lunchtime entertainment was people watching, watching about a couple dozen people fishing, boating, and hanging out with their dogs.
After lunch we got our inflatable kayak (paid link) out. RB thought she might be paddling by herself since LB was not feeling well and he is not a big fan of being on the water. However, by afternoon, he was feeling better. We had a lovely time slowly paddling our way around the whole lake. An American white pelican and a bald eagle flew overhead. A loon dove below the water's surface in search of food.
We ended the day like the previous day, sitting at our camp site watching the sun set. After the sun went down, a deer slowly crossed behind our camp site right in front of us as it grazed on the grasses. It looked up at us once, but didn't seem to be too bothered by our presence. The next morning we packed up and headed for Utah.
Pearl Lake refreshed our spirits and our bodies. We were now ready and excited to see what the rest of Season Three has in store for us.
Check out our related video: Pearl Lake State Park, Colorado
(RB)