Moving to Woods Lake

Campin' in the San Juans, part 2

My camping trip to the San Juans near Telluride didn’t last very long. All told, I was only there about a week. After leaving the Matterhorn campground where my first gig as a campground host only lasted a couple-three days, I went up the road looking for another place to camp.

The campground I chose was infested with small, black biting flies. They were thick and unavoidable. I left.

I ended up at a lake I had visited about a week previously, a secluded lake waaay up a long Forest Service road called Woods Lake. Here’s a shot from that previous visit:

Woods Lake. An artificial lake but at this point I didn’t care.

And for what it’s worth, here’s another shot from that previous trip, taken in the next gulch over from Woods Lake:

Sunshine Mountain and the South Fork of the San Miguel River

It is definitely God’s Country up there, even if it was infested at that moment with little flying spawns of Satan.

So I arrived at Woods Lake, tired and not in a very good mood, and set up camp.

RV camp at Woods Lake, with bug zapper

It’s a pretty enough place. And it was quiet.

Woods Lake. The mountain is named Middle Peak.

A meadow next to the lake and campground

But my aggravations were not over. Pookie got herself into trouble going to a neighboring campsite and begging to be petted. Of course, since she can’t talk, they didn’t know that that was all she wanted. I got in trouble with the camp host, who kept referring to her, a tortoiseshell that is obviously female, as “he.” I decided that that guy wasn’t very bright.

I also scratched an eyeball on a tree twig while going through the brush looking for her. My vision in that eye became blurred. And the bug zapper wasn’t zapping any bugs. Apparently that kind of bug isn’t attracted to ultraviolet light or something.

Arrrgh. Then one night I happened to see the Moon rising above one of the mountains:

Moonrise at Woods Lake.

The moon is coming up over Fowler Peak; the prominence on the right is Baskoff Peak. Both are Thirteeners.

The next day I went around to the other side of these mountains and photographed Lizard Head, which is kind of famous:

Lizard Head, in the San Miguel mountains south of Telluride, Colorado

Then I packed up and went home to the Grand Mesa.

Next: campin’ on top of the Mesa