West Creek Campground, Mt Evans, June 6-13, 2022

I went to Mt Evans a couple of years ago and saw that the campgrounds at the base of the 14er looked really nice.  They are woodsy and near a creek with lots of shade.  After some research, I found that the West Chicago Lakes Campground was the best. 

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Since this was our first camping trip for the summer and the campground didn’t have water, I decided to only stay for 1 night.  I wanted to go Paddleboarding, but Echo lake does not allow Paddleboarding or swimming so we went for a hike.  We hiked from Echo Lake to Idaho Springs Reservoir and back.  It was about a 4.5 mile hike and pretty strenuous.

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It was a beautiful day and very hot in town.  However, it was cooler in the mountains.  It really was the perfect weather.

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When I am hiking, I see so many poop bags lying on the trail so I thought it was interesting that someone wrote a note on it.

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Chicago creek was very cold.  It was so cold that it stung my feet.

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Our campsite was 15 minutes away from Echo Lake and we loved the views.  There were so many Aspen trees everywhere.

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We did a lot of exploring on the creek and collecting of firewood.

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This was a perfect spot for a hammock because there were so many trees.

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I had just recently bought a horseshoe set and we had a lot of fun playing horseshoes in the trees.

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The water at the creek was quite high and loud.  It was a wonderful sound to fall asleep to.

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Lola was in her element in the woods.  She stays right next to us and loves to play around in the creek.

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Idaho Springs reservoir was a nice peaceful bit of water only accessible by hiking.

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When we hiked up there we sat down and had lunch before heading back.

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Echo Lake is beautiful too.  It is only open from May-October so it is definitely worth seeing during these months.

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We have become pretty good at getting all of our gear set up quickly.  The kids can do a lot of their own cooking now, too.

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We always love sitting around the campfire and talking.  Thankfully, there were no fire restrictions this time.  It was really fun grabbing more sticks to put into the fire.

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The campsite next to us was vacant so we had a lot of space to play.  Our campsite was right next to Hells Hole trail, at 9680 feet, and provides access to Mount Evans, Mount Spalding, and Gray Wolf Mountain via West Chicago Creek.

Location: Mt Evans, Colorado 80439, USA

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