Camping with Jeremy this weekend was so, SO nice. Quiet, peaceful, amazing. We attempted to drive up the 2, only to be thwarted by some type of accident blocking both lanes, right at the entrance to the Angeles Forest.
So, a little creative navigating and we found ourselves entering the Forest not through La Cañada, but through the nether-regions of Tujunga. Desolation, desert, and depression....for an hour. Jeremy was getting all disappointed that my California mountains didn't have any pine trees, and that everything in LA was a desert.
Chilao campground did not help. This was our first choice of campgrounds (once we got back on track and on the 2 again), since it was the closest. It has rave reviews, so I figured it'd be great! Not so much. The two best areas of the campground were closed to either protect a native species or for fire danger, so the only area left was the RV area called Little Pines. Little indeed...all the trees were 8 feet max! With almost no privacy, camp sites practically on top of each other, and to top it all off, just about everything was brown and dead, cause of the dry summer. This place might be a beautiful meadow area in the spring, but its awful right now. We didn't even bother getting out of the car.Onward to Buckhorn, 10 miles down the road.
Buckhorn is BEAUTIFUL! Tall tall trees, the camp sites are nicely spaced out, great hiking trail to a waterfall (at least, that's what they say...we only saw a trickle) and a creek running through the main part of the site. The creek was dried up into stagnate pools, but there was still water there, and it attracted all sorts of butterflies and chipmunks and stuff. Here's the view from our chosen site:
And our camp site:
We got there, found a perfect site, set up, and then went exploring. This campground is really well laid out. Lots of pockets of 5 or 6 sites, rather than all 38 being right on top of each other. So we hung out and just relaxed for most of the afternoon, playing cards and talking and stuff. Really nice. I gave Jeremy his birthday gift so he could use it that night:
A Jayne Hat! Made by me, in four days, and with much stress over the keeping of the secret. (My hubby is a hard man to surprise) He was so stoked, and had NO IDEA! Birthday surprise FTW!
We had fun cooking beanie weennies on our fire for dinner (Jeremy's choice), along with some biscuts and cocoa, and left s'mores for breakfast, cause we were so stuffed. Sometimes oldies are the best. Yay campfire cooking!!! I'm totally inspired for next time too...the campfire gourmet is on the case!
Buckhorn campground is totally my new favorite now. Its closed Nov-Apr but I can't wait to bring friends up for a group camping trip when it opens again. Its at about 6300 feet though, so very cold at night, and pitch black. Boy howdy were we thrown by how quiet is was, even with all the people camping and a youth group of about 20 teens screaming and laughing all the time. And dark. We totally failed our night vision check. Pretty stars though. :)
The next morning we took it nice and slow, slept in, and then packed up. We didn't feel like hiking again, so we drove up the road a bit to a picnic spot on the crest of the mountain called Eagle's Roost. Gorgeous view:
Those really blue mountains in the back are the mountains we see from LA, much shorter than the ones we camped on. So amazingly gorgeous. It was a great place to hang out, but eventually, it was time to come back to civilization....and take a nap (Apparently it was colder than we thought at night...we didn't sleep as well as we thought) :) I for one can't wait to go camping again (with a warmer sleeping bag) and I have the next place picked out! Just have to wait for some actual rain or snow and then its ON!
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