Camping in Trinidad State Park
Sat 16 August 2025
Grace and I decided to utilize our Colorado State Park pass. A program Colorado has implemented to including a state park pass in every car's registration. This trip was also to scout out the Trinidad Gravel Race - Rad Trad, next month. Grace will be racing it, I am SAG support.
The location is fantastic. There are many good camp sites, unfortunately, they weren't available. We grabbed campsite #14, at a glance a good site. It is away from most of the other sites so it provides some privacy. It was a goodly distance to the camp restrooms. Also, the park has no provision for dumping daily grey-water, they expected people to walk to the dump station that the RVs used at the entrance to the campground. A goodly hike. The bathroom, although a distance, was nice with included showers and laundry facilities. One weird item, no soap in the bathroom. I guess they don't think people need to wash hands or that they will anticipate the lack and bring their own soap from camp.
The final 'flaw' in the campsite, was that the camping pad was partially washed down the hill. The front to back 'tilt' was over 5% grade. We ended up pitching our tent on the 'driveway' of the camp site. This was long enough to share with Subaru and Tent because it was designed for a car and trailer to back into. The group was near concrete hard and very difficult to drive tent stakes into. We ended up using the tent pad for our screen tent. I think this is the last trip we'll take with this screen tent. It really doesn't provide shade and would be more suitable for camping in a mosquito intense region like Minnesota. It also isn't very sturdy, even with guylines, the tent folds in on itself until any moderate breeze.
I tried a new cooking dish on this trip. Picked up 1lb of Cod and made fish tacos. Fried the seasoned cod in the camp stove and served with Cole Slaw (packaged), Cilantro, Lime and a Crema Sauce. Toasting the cord tortillas in the camp pots was difficult, the first several I settled for simply warming them up. To finish off the cod, I took a little more time to fry each tortilla to a crispier consitency. Take away - 1 pound of Cod is a bit much for 2 people. Didn't seem like it would be, but next time should back this down to 3/4 pound or less. Also, had the idea that following the fish tacos of a national chain, we could get frozen fish sticks and fry them up instead. The breaded version might be a bit less messy to eat.
The second night dinner was Sloppy Joes. Again, 1 full pound of hamburger might have been a bit too much.
We scouted the gravel route for the Rad Trad. Looks like a decent gravel road for the most part and not too much uphill/climbing.
We used the car carrier to haul the Yeti Cooler and the fold up chairs and table. With the weight in the carrier, it makes a loud racket. After Grace went into Trinidad to pick up more ice and hearing the rattle, we decided it would be wise to remove the carrier before scouting the gravel roads on Sunday. The hitch riser seems to have alleivated the super heating/buring a hole in our stuff issue we had on the Moab trip. For the trip back, we put the black camp box beside the cooler on the carrier. I also wrapped one of the bungee cables over the carrier, almost in line with the tailpipe exhaust location. Nothing melted and didn't even seem too hot when we got back to Fort Collins.
-
Central City Opera - The Barber of Serville