A lifetime of camping
My oldest brother brought his young family to Colorado after being released from his service in the Navy at the end of the Cuban Missile Crises. A year earlier, my mom and dad along with my other two brothers and one sister left the bitter winters of Minnesota to start a new life there at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. As a nine-year-old I had envisioned life in the west as an old western movie complete with cowboy hats and six-guns. By the end of the first summer I realized that mountain tops, pine forest and giant rock outcroppings were way more interesting than the things I had imagined.
After Jerry had his family settled in, the brothers were reminiscing one day about the time he had gone off to New Mexico on an Eagle Scout camping trip. The photos he brought back captured my attention like nothing I had seen. The memory of them prodded me to suggest what everyone was thinking. When I caught a break in the conversation I blurted out “lets’ go camping”. We all agreed and went to dad with our unanimous request. Dad always considered himself an “out-doors-man” and quickly agreed to take all us boys into nearby Pike National Forest for a weekend outing.
We named the place Turkey Rock for reasons I really don’t remember but the name stuck and after more than sixty years many of the people I know still call it that. It had everything boys could want. We built campfires; chopped wood, used knifes, explored a seemingly endless forest, and best of all, there was a three hundred foot tall granite rock with cliffs, loose boulders, and a challenging rout to the top. We thought we had died and gone to heaven. My brother-in-law came along and his presents brought out the destructiveness in us. My twin brother and I admired him for his rowdiness which always brought looks of disapproval from dad. This was the early sixties and there was no environmental concerns preventing us from smashing trees with the boulders we pushed over the edge of the big rock. That was until we sent one careening towards camp where dad was tending the fire. It came up short but got his attention in a serious way. With a few harsh words shouted from camp he ended that little game and we all scurried back down. We shrugged it off and the fun continued with feeding the fire and roasting hotdogs. The night brought hail and a lightning storm that sent us running for the station wagon fearing for our lives. By morning the sun was back out and we returned to our primitive behavior. I wanted it to last forever.
That first campout triggered something in me that persist to this day. The fact is I am writing this story from a camp site by a lake in Louisiana. It’s not the Rockies but it is camping and there are few activities I love more. For twenty plus years I returned to Turkey Rock each Memorial Day for a group campout with my friends. From the first time at Turkey Rock until now, I have spent countless days roaming the forests, climbing mountain peaks and fishing high lakes. As the years past, the style of camping slowly changed. In my youth, I had camped in remote places that took days to hike into, camped at timberline in February without a tent, lived off fish for days at high-lakes and spent new-years-eve at ten thousand feet just to get a good view of the fireworks shot from the top of Pikes Peak. In those days, the greater the risk and the tougher the challenge, the greater the reward. As time passed my tolerance for pain diminished, my company of family campers grew and my need for more comfort increased. The backpack became a large tent pitched from the back of a pickup truck fifty yards from a four wheel drive trail. That eventually became a short fifth wheel camper modified to clear the rocks on those same trails. In the early days, I would make fun of the folks that needed to take all they owned with them and couldn’t live without a heated place to sleep. Things are much different now that I’m looking at the front door of seventy. Although I still build a fire each night to watch caveman television, cook outside and step out early in the morning to embrace the new sunlight, my camp now includes a memory foam bed, a porcelain toilet, and two heat sources. My wife of 30 years is also as enthusiastic about camping as ever and we have abandoned our permanent home for a life of perpetual drifting from site to site. The best part is we no longer have a limit to the number of days we get to wake up in God’s magnificent creation.
After Jerry had his family settled in, the brothers were reminiscing one day about the time he had gone off to New Mexico on an Eagle Scout camping trip. The photos he brought back captured my attention like nothing I had seen. The memory of them prodded me to suggest what everyone was thinking. When I caught a break in the conversation I blurted out “lets’ go camping”. We all agreed and went to dad with our unanimous request. Dad always considered himself an “out-doors-man” and quickly agreed to take all us boys into nearby Pike National Forest for a weekend outing.
We named the place Turkey Rock for reasons I really don’t remember but the name stuck and after more than sixty years many of the people I know still call it that. It had everything boys could want. We built campfires; chopped wood, used knifes, explored a seemingly endless forest, and best of all, there was a three hundred foot tall granite rock with cliffs, loose boulders, and a challenging rout to the top. We thought we had died and gone to heaven. My brother-in-law came along and his presents brought out the destructiveness in us. My twin brother and I admired him for his rowdiness which always brought looks of disapproval from dad. This was the early sixties and there was no environmental concerns preventing us from smashing trees with the boulders we pushed over the edge of the big rock. That was until we sent one careening towards camp where dad was tending the fire. It came up short but got his attention in a serious way. With a few harsh words shouted from camp he ended that little game and we all scurried back down. We shrugged it off and the fun continued with feeding the fire and roasting hotdogs. The night brought hail and a lightning storm that sent us running for the station wagon fearing for our lives. By morning the sun was back out and we returned to our primitive behavior. I wanted it to last forever.
That first campout triggered something in me that persist to this day. The fact is I am writing this story from a camp site by a lake in Louisiana. It’s not the Rockies but it is camping and there are few activities I love more. For twenty plus years I returned to Turkey Rock each Memorial Day for a group campout with my friends. From the first time at Turkey Rock until now, I have spent countless days roaming the forests, climbing mountain peaks and fishing high lakes. As the years past, the style of camping slowly changed. In my youth, I had camped in remote places that took days to hike into, camped at timberline in February without a tent, lived off fish for days at high-lakes and spent new-years-eve at ten thousand feet just to get a good view of the fireworks shot from the top of Pikes Peak. In those days, the greater the risk and the tougher the challenge, the greater the reward. As time passed my tolerance for pain diminished, my company of family campers grew and my need for more comfort increased. The backpack became a large tent pitched from the back of a pickup truck fifty yards from a four wheel drive trail. That eventually became a short fifth wheel camper modified to clear the rocks on those same trails. In the early days, I would make fun of the folks that needed to take all they owned with them and couldn’t live without a heated place to sleep. Things are much different now that I’m looking at the front door of seventy. Although I still build a fire each night to watch caveman television, cook outside and step out early in the morning to embrace the new sunlight, my camp now includes a memory foam bed, a porcelain toilet, and two heat sources. My wife of 30 years is also as enthusiastic about camping as ever and we have abandoned our permanent home for a life of perpetual drifting from site to site. The best part is we no longer have a limit to the number of days we get to wake up in God’s magnificent creation.
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