Morning dawned to clear skies and cool temperatures. The campground was virtually deserted. Only three units appeared to be occupied, despite the great weather forecast for the weekend. We cooked breakfast and then moved the truck outside of the campground. We loaded the trailer with our camp gear and started off.
We followed the Jeep road to the old McCrystal ranch, a turn of the century ranch house. The route was picked due to its gentle elevation change. We did some battle with deep sand, rocks and ruts. We averaged 3.5-4 mph, but made it there with minimal problems. After seeing the ranch site we backtracked to Can Creek where we pulled out our gear and hung our food bag.
We played around the campsite for awhile before I loaded the kids back into the trailer and headed back out. We had a fun ride out, with the downhill grade and a much less encumbered trailer. We tooled around on the bike on some of the forest roads and went to see the old Ring Place (and most importantly for Colter, the horses in the corrals). We headed back in to our campsite and spent the rest of the afternoon playing in the creek. We only went 14 miles, but I was beat.
Dinner was freeze dried Mexican Rice with Chicken chased down with creek water. We built a small fire and went to sleep under the stars.
We awoke to pleasant temperatures and cloudless skies. Morning was spent around camp. Finally, around 9:00 we loaded the trailer back up and headed out. Once again, our trip out was much faster than going in. I had to repeatedly look behind me to make sure our gear didn't bounce off.
Upon our arrival at the truck we unloaded the gear and headed back out onto the forest roads. We spotted a small black bear and watched him amble about the ponderosas. We then climbed uphill for about a 500 ft. elevation gain (as far as I could make it without needing CPR). We turned around and headed downhill. Riding 32 mph on a graveled forest road being pushed by 60 pounds of kids in a trailer was quite and adventure.
