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Benn Farrell is chased to shore on a fishing boat as an incoming storm douses a camping trip at Eleven Mile Reservoir.
Torrential rain and hail pound a campsite in Eleven Mile Canyon.
Benn Farrell is chased to shore on a fishing boat as an incoming storm douses a camping trip at Eleven Mile Reservoir.
I’m not much for camping, but I do on occasion enjoy the outdoors and wilderness.
I know not everyone has the same definition or same images that come to mind when the phrase “Let’s go camping this weekend” is uttered to them. For my longtime friend Joe, camping means taking his fifth wheel out of storage and finding a semi-remote spot where he can have no neighbors, but still have a soft bed, shower, stove and television.
For me, camping is in a tent with an air mattress and sleeping bag with a butane stove nearby for meals. It also means a firepit if fire danger regulations allow, no cell phone service, and having to “make” in the woods with the other animals. Just because I don’t sleep in a camper and have a television with me, I do not consider my kind of camping to be at all “hardcore.” However, this is how I most enjoy camping.
The word “enjoy” also depends on how long I’m out at the campsite. I find two days is about my maximum before I start to miss my soft bed and my shower, and I start to think the sunburn I’ve gotten by then only makes me look like an enormous salmon to bears in the area.
In the last couple of weeks, after two years of not scheduling a camping trip, I decided to meet my friend Mark at a campsite in Eleven Mile Canyon and fish from his boat in Eleven Mile Reservoir. He went up for three days, and I joined him on the second day.
The campsite itself was beautiful. If you’re new to the area and haven’t driven through that canyon yet, it is well worth the scenery alone. However, this particular camping trip, despite the beauty of the surroundings, had only one theme: Rain. A lot of it.
Torrential rain and hail pound a campsite in Eleven Mile Canyon.
Mark had mentioned the campsite had heavy rain and even hail the night before, and sure enough the rain and hail returned at exactly the moment I parked the car a good uphill hike from the site. Now, I’m overweight, and I don’t allow my weight to stop me participating in things I want to do that have a lot of physical requirements.
However, an overweight man walking a quarter mile uphill, carrying heavy items in a torrential rain and pea-sized hailstorm wouldn’t exactly work for the cover of a Visit Colorado brochure. It took all of what I could muster to simply not get back in the truck and head home. Luckily, I didn’t want to look weak in front of my friend or disappoint him, or leave him to drown if the rain refused to stop.
Luckily, he had already set up his canopy over the cooking and eating area of our campsite, so we took refuge under it while the hail became more intense. With Mark’s help, we were able to put my nine-person tent together when the storm reached a lull and we finished just in time to watch Round Two of the storm drench the canyon. By this time, as we returned to the protection of the canopy, all I could think to do to pass the time of the storm was to start singing John Denver’s legendary hit “Rocky Mountain High.”
When the storm subsided for the night, we were finally able to get the fire pit emptied out, get a fire going and cook our meals. I made the rest of my trips to the truck up and down the hill to bring up the rest of my camping gear, which was now soaked from sitting in the back of my truck. All the while, I keep telling myself, “This is camping. This is camping. What’s that pain in my side? This is camping.”
The next day was bright and beautiful for our outing to Eleven Mile Reservoir in Mark’s PVC inflatable boat with a trolling motor to do some fishing. Now, you should understand for the purpose of this story, I fish on a regular basis, and I think I’ve caught two fish all season thus far. Fishing for me is not about “catching.” It’s about getting out in the sun, getting the line wet, listening to music and not allowing my phone to ring.
However, our fishing excursion on Mark’s boat lasted about an hour before the next storm of the trip chased us to the shore. We decided to go back to the campsite and wait to see if the storm broke to allow us to fish the river near the campsite instead. We put the boat away, returned to the campsite and, of course, as we were about halfway up the hill to the canopy is when the torrential rains returned, soaking us both.
“This is camping. This is camping.”
Waiting out the storm this time around gave us a chance to crack into the beer cooler. To be honest I caught more buzzes than fish in the two days I was in the canyon.
The rains eventually subsided and the campfire sparked up yet again. Dinner on the fire pit was a surf and turf of red potatoes, onions, carrots and grape tomatoes with shrimp on a skewer and top round steaks. After eating such a hearty meal, Mark was ready to turn in, which he did. However, I stayed up a couple hours longer, feeding the fire and playing dramatic movie scores on my iPhone, imagining every snap of a twig in the dark behind me was a woodland animal coming to claim my life.
The next morning, although I ended up with back issues from my deflated air mattress, it was bright, sunny and gorgeous for the first time since I had arrived. It was everything Colorado is — or at least should be — known for. I helped Mark, who has a YouTube channel for cooking, shoot a video about how to make Eggs on a Raft, and soon it was time to start packing up.
Of course, the only sun-blessed portion of the trip was the morning we had to break down camp and make repeated trips down and back up the hill hauling our gear to our vehicles. The sun beat down on us for each trip like a celestial punishment. All the while, I keep hearing a line from that song in my head, “Rocky Mountain high, Colorado!” Shut up, John!
“This is camping. This is camping. This is painful! This is camping.”
Two and a half hours later, we finally had our gear in our respective vehicles and we were ready to return to real life. We shook hands and thanked each other for a great time. As I drove back into civilization, my phone blew up with an onslaught of work voicemails, texts and whatnot. Despite the rains, the best part of camping, the seclusion, was over.
The two days I took to enjoy the Colorado wilderness in my mind was a success; rain and hail included. Yes, it was wet and daunting at times. Yes, I returned with a possible hernia, but I returned with a smile on my face and the smell of a campfire pit on my clothes.
I couldn’t help but think even though things don’t always go the way you expected or wanted them to, it doesn’t mean the adventure itself wasn’t a benefit to you in the end.
Benn Farrell is a Monument-based freelance writer and playwright.