Pine, CO to Crested Butte, CO

July 28, 2018

Pine CO, to Crested Butte, CO

Drive time: 4 hours

Breakfast

I was so busy eating just for fuel that I didn’t get a picture of my breakfast. I had a PB & J with coffee!

We started our trek and left around 9 am. Our plan is to stop halfway and get a brewery in for lunch. About a half hour into the trip, we see a line of cars on the side of the road. We look around and see a moose in a lake kind of taking a bath! It was amazing!! Chris said it was only the second time she has seen a moose in her 22 years here. It was Kenosha Pass and was definitely memorable.

On the way there, I tried these super delicious Primal jerky! The flavor was incredible and Jason said the texture reminded him of beef jerky.

Lunch

High Alpine Brewery in Gunnison, CO was our lunch stop. We tried a beer sampler and some pizza. I had to be a little creative to get something I could eat, but I just created my own with artichokes, mushrooms, and tomatoes. They had a green chile hot sauce that I added to the pizza and that was phenomenal! So spicy and great flavor!

Crested Butte, CO Lake Irwin Campground

We arrived at the campground around 4pm and set up both our tent and their camper in less than an hour. We started a camp fire and made a drink and then the skies opened up! We retreated back to our areas and the dogs and we took a must needed nap.

An hour later it’s still raining and I was hungry. We had grabbed a can of eggplant, onion, and tomato in an olive oil with some bread so we nibbles on that for awhile.

Dinner

The rain stopped and we slowly came out of our shelters. We got the fire started again and just started thinking about making dinner when another downpour began. This time all 4 of us and the 3 dogs ran into Kev and Chris’s trillium camper. We listened to music and waited out the last of the rain drops. When it was finally over it was COLD. We were at 10,200 feet and the wet and dampness stayed with us throughout the night.

I must admit I did not do a great job of photographing all of my meals while in Crested Butte. There was ZERO service there so I didn’t have my phone attached to me since I really couldn’t use it besides for photos.

Dinner for me tonight was Loma’s spicy pad Thai. It was a boil in a bag so nice and easy camping food!

The night

The skies opened up to a gorgeous clear sky. I spent a long time looking up at the stars. We don’t see nearly this many in the sky at home. The glow from the Warwick airport doesn’t allow the stars to truly shine. It was one night from the full moon so once the moon rose we started snapping pictures.

It was nearing 11 so it was time to try to sleep. Try was a key word tonight. I was shivering. It was in the 30’s outside and we were trying to keep our dogs warm with us too. We both woke up all night checking on each other and the dogs. Not a restful sleep for us on this first night!