Continuing on the Leadville Colorado adventure…

After we left the Half-moon Creak area we went into the City of Leadville for a little bit. The main goal was to just top off the tanks, grab some ice, coffee and whiskey. We heard that Leadville had its own distillery. I thought that a trip to the whiskey store would be a great little addition to the day. I mean Leadville was a old gold prospecting town… Getting a nice bottle from the locals could really ad to the flavor or the trip. The bad news was the distillery was closed. I think its closed permanently.

The whiskey situation was a bit disappointing but not really a big deal. The group split up to grab the essentials before we headed out again. Jake, Elliot and I found the this cool little place called City on a Hill Coffee and Espresso . After we grabbed coffee I headed to a gas station to meet up with Dave.

When I got to the gas station I found Dave standing in front of his rig with the hood up. His Jeep was dead in the water, not so much as a hint of electrical current running. The problem was simple but a little perplexing at the same time. It was just a dead battery, but his rig was only a 2014 with low miles. Fortunately, the issue happened in the middle of the day on a Tuesday when everything in town was open. Except the whiskey store…

By this time Jake and Elliot had met back up with us. Dave and Jake took the dead battery to a parts store to get a diagnosis and pick up a new one. It turned out that one of the cells in the battery had ruptured causing the failure. What we think happened was that the cell ruptured during some high speed travel over rough terrain. All in all not a big deal and we headed out for more adventure. The main goal for the rest of the day was to head out east of town and find a place to camp up in the mountains.

 

We took County Road 2 out of town and headed up. I got a little bit confused as to exactly what trails we took in this area because there are so many abandoned mines there. The trails just seem to sprout out from everywhere. We drove around enjoying the scenery for quite a bit until it was time to make our way to a camp site.

  

Now… in this area there are a lot of old gold mine claims, some of them are actually still being used today. I would be very careful where you choose to camp in this area. We selected an area that already had established fire rings and generally looked the part of an official campsite. If I remember correctly we were at an intersection between County 3 and County 3E.

The place was gorgeous. We were basically right at the main trailhead that leads to Mosquito Pass. There was two little ponds that surrounded us. The rest of our backdrop was just beautiful mountains and trees. It looked like the perfect place for game to grab a little refreshment. Somehow this was the only campsite that I didn’t get a photo of. Actually none of us did for some reason.

We had a great dinner, a refreshing beer then settled in for the night. The weather was perfect for outdoor camping, so long as you doubled up on sleeping bags. I slept like a baby that night. Minus the occasional bout with elevation breathing. The campsite was around 11,000 feet and I still hadn’t acclimated yet. In the morning we would pack up and head to Mosquito Pass and then down to Alma, Colorado.