Eleven Mile State Park Backcountry camping July 26

Since I have now taken the kids camping 25 times, I decided that we could be a bit more adventurous and do some backcountry camping.

We don't have true backpacking supplies, so we just packed lightly.

It was about .75 mile to our campsite and was a pretty good workout.

When we got to the site, the girls were super excited that there were trees, rocks, and water everywhere. Someone had also created a little den among the rocks.

We loved backcountry camping so much that we want to do this all of the time when we camp. It is so quiet and you don't have to deal with neighbors.

Lola was able to remain leash free without any rangers yelling at us.

The reservoir water was so clean and clear.

It was pretty cloudy when we arrived and we knew that it would rain all night. So, we got our stuff put up as quick as possible.

Then, we went for a walk.

Carly saw a few crayfish claws.

My happiest memories of camping at Eleven Mile State Park as a kid were climbing on rocks. The girls loved this too.

Our tent is the little dot among the trees.

We were tent site #924

The views were amazing.

When it got dark, the kids went in the tent and were having tickle fights. Lloyd and I stayed outside and talked. Thankfully, we were shielded by a huge tree, so the rain didn't come down on us.

We kept seeing little critters running around but we couldn't figure out what they were until one crawled up my leg.

It was a kangaroo rat and I didn't like it at all that it was brave enough to crawl on me. When we shined the light, we saw a bunch of rats running around everywhere.

There were also a lot of ground squirrels who took no time to chew through our box of milk.

The little rodents were the only critters that we encountered.

We had to put our food in a bear proof container because of black bears.

When Lloyd and I got in the tent to go to bed, he noticed that he had a box of Whoppers in his bag. He had to walk to the bear proof container to put away. The container was a bit of a hike.

We felt like we got so much exercise on this trip.

We saw that some of the people in the backcountry sites actually canoed into the sites.

So many trails surrounded our campsite and there were so many Aspen trees.

The trails were actually a bit confusing and we made a couple wrong turns trying to get to our site.

Lola loved having such close water access.

Our big tent finally bit the dust on this trip. So, it looks like we will be using backpacker tents from now on.

I am excited to buy some backcountry camping equipment and see what other places we can explore.