Twin Lakes, CO - Aug 2008

Another national forest campground that we'd read about was called Lakeview (in the San Isabel National Forest.) It's located about 30 miles north of Buena Vista, Colorado and 20 miles south of Leadville (an old mining town, but renovated in keeping with the era) and right near the town of Twin Lakes. This campground had such great potential for magnificent views, but sadly, most of the campsites were so buried into the trees that very few of the 60+ sites had even a glimpse of the water.


On our second day there, we lucked into the best site in the campground. Our first-come-first-served site was at the end of the campground and also was in a very small cul-de-sac (only 3 other sites) that got very little traffic. Most days, we had the whole end of the campground to ourselves. We stayed there the remainder of our 10 day limit -- and yes, this park had a 10 day limit, whereas most NFCGs let you stay 14. The rangers claim it was put in place when the concessionaires took over the campground operations because it was such a popular place.


This site had the best views of any other in the campground and every day, we enjoyed sitting outside and watching the lake change colors with the movement of the sun and clouds.


Our site was right at the beginning of the trail that went up to Mt. Elbert (the tallest in Colorado -- at 14,400') and every day, we'd say hello to hikers as they were on their way either up or down the trail. It was almost humorous to see these folks slogging away with huge packs on their backs while we were sitting comfortably in our camp chairs, sipping on ice tea.



Our campsite also had one of the largest "patio" areas of any of the others, so we had lots of room to sprawl and it was very private. Since we rarely had neighbors, we were able to let the dogs off leash while outside and they sure enjoyed the freedom.


Just another view of Twin Lakes on a calm morning. The two lakes were separated by a small spit of land. This is looking at the lower lake, while the upper lake is to the right, but not visible in this photo.



Surprisingly our sunsets were rarely colorful -- usually the sun just went down behind the mountains and it was over, but this particular evening, we had a lot of color.