The Long Way
We took a detour through Denver to pick up some packages and get new tires on truck 2.0. After our chores were done we went north to Fort Collins and then west up the Cache La Poudre River to Pingree Park Road then on to the Jacks Gulch Campground for MeadowFest.

Meadow Fest is hard to explain. It’s essentially a family reunion where all your family members are awesome people. We all camped out in the woods and sang songs around a campfire, ate pancakes for breakfast, and had pot-luck for dinner. It rained a couple times and hailed a little bit. There were more cats than dogs this year (four cats + one kitten vs 3 small dogs), one person got two flat-tires on her van, and one person had a marshmallow-roasting incident resulting in some tears.

There is also some nice mtn biking in the area on forest service roads where I saw fields of wild-flowers in bloom. I don’t think I’d make a special trip to mtn bike, but if you’re here, bring a bike.

The area is close to Ft Collins so the forest has a tendency to fill up on summer weekends. There is some free-camping in the area in dispersed camp sites and those fill up by Friday night. The campground at Jacks Gulch had open spots all weekend ($22). There are some electric sites ($29 in 2018), but no water or sewer connections. I drove up on a Thursday morning and there were also some available sites in the campgrounds along the Poudre River.

Tech report: There is no cell service, no internet, only satellite tv.