Over Memorial Day, we headed to Pagosa Springs for some fun. We have not stayed here before, just passed through a couple times. We booked a reservation at Pagosa Riverside Campground.
The campground had a creek with spots, as well as a little pond with paddle boats you could rent. It was a cute campground, but seemed a bit pricey for the location. The staff was super friendly. We wish there was some sort of bike path to the town.
We walked around the downtown and stopped at some of the local stores and brewery. The hot springs area is the main attraction with two facilities you can pay to get in. We even saw some people down in the creek that had a small hot spring hot tub on the side. We took Tegan to the hot spring that had a pool (vs. the one with just hot tubs). It was not overly crowded and had a nice little baby pool area so she could walk around in.
The next day we headed out on a Jeep trail. Chad found this website that described the trail for Elwood Pass/Wolf Creek Pass. It was around 18 miles, but it an out and back (for the most part). It had some epic creek crossings where you actually drive up through the creek for a little bit. The trail goes up and over the Continental Divide. It was not too difficult of a trail; we would rate it at a 2.
At the end of the trail, our toddler was upset and hangry, that we decided to take a forrest service road that goes past Summitville to the highway. Due to a fire by the highway, the road was actually closed and we had to turn around. We ended up driving an extra two hours due to this, but it was totally our fault since there were signs everywhere when we started the trail that the road past Elwood Pass was closed! Whoops! There is a campground area right at the beginning of the trail with some magnificent views of the forrest, valley, and mountains.
This was our first camping trip with a super mobile toddler. We ended up taking a toddler bed rail and putting it on the end bunk. It was nice to be able to contain her to the side with her toys and not have to set the dinnette table up/down multiple times a day. She stayed pretty warm with the blankets and heater.
We enjoyed our time in the Pagosa Springs area and would come back, especially to check out some more of the Jeep trails.
The Vegan Campers 