Copper Basin 2016 Roberts Reunion

Yonder lies Copper Basin.  Years ago we used to take this road into Broad Canyon which was a favorite spot to camp for many a Roberts and all their cousins.  Now the hallowed spot is a full blown campground that you have to pay for with rules and so we have found it not to be as magical as it used to be.  We now have a new spot that we've used for the last few years which takes the loop to the left of the sign, not quite pictured in this photo.  This is one continuous loop and I am guessing it is around 20 miles if you start here and circle around back to here.  

You may remember seeing a few past posts over the years of our new campsite, some of  which might include a couple of fire starting contests with a bow and drill that I was forced into doing.  My skills were not appreciated as I had actually gone into the forest to obtain the proper items and built it myself rather than pre-fabricate it at home.  Other times there were cooking contests and shooting contests and bragging contests and eating contests and tests of strength which caused poor Hughy to do a loopdy loop.  Thankfully no contests happened this year except for a dutch oven burning of a few cobblers which cost a few tears.  Here is a foreshadowing moment:  All this will change as I am now the guy in charge for next year!   You may start wondering what will happen, even at this second, and I hope  you shake a little in your boots. 

But I'm sure you would rather hear about the current story rather than be worried about the future.

We, as in my family, left Victor about 9 ish am and showed up to camp around 2 ish on Wednesday the 29th day of June.  We were a little slow getting there, but found out that Dad had had a rougher time having,  popped a tire.  Luckily he met some local hombres that helped him change it.  Morgan hung back awhile and then showed up just in time for the helpful hombres to finish getting the tire on.  (I got to figure out how to do that trick.) Morgan and dad then proceeded on and came into camp together about 10 minutes before I showed up.

We palavered a second and then located our camping spots and then rounded up some firewood as  you can see in the next couple photos.  We basically stole it from another campsite that was temporarily abandoned.  A guy showed up later in that spot so we hoped it hadn't been him that stacked it, but I guess we didn't really care too much because we forgot about it quick.

me pulling a log

Dad, Katy and Macey with the stolen firewood.  My log wasn't stolen

Quinn and Katy with the tent set up

We had thought that Hugh was going to come up that night and so as it was getting later me and dad decided to drive out and see if he was coming.  Unfortunately we could not catch any service so we abandoned the idea of helping him out if needed and went back to camp.  We decided we didn't care enough to go further even if he might be stranded and that he could live in his camper anywhere.  We took the long route home around the Copper Basin Loop which is the right hand fork in the first photo above.  That is when I took that photo.  Also I took some other photos along the way of the scenery and the weather.  There were some really neat clouds with rain and the sun going through them.  I got a couple good shots and you can see them below.

Weird how its only raining right there

The sun is getting lower and catching the rain

The weather in front of us

The light changing again

I thought I would try to get the whole scene in

Same as the first photo

Heading around the loop

Muldoon Canyon and a rainbow to the side

Looking across Copper  Basin.  The rest of the rainbow from the picture above

Jon said, "Are you going to put that on your blog". Nope sorry I'm not going to.

Jon left, Dad center, Morgan right.  And we are clear over here behind me.

Don't get me started on how much it rained.

So the next day we decide to go up the trail to the lakes.  Dad took the Mule with Quinn.  I had Katy in the Wildcat, Jon had a RZR with 4 seats and also a 4 wheeler.  Jon had his 4 boys (Jackson, Dakota, Brockton, Bryson) with him and they took turns at the wheel. Morgan had his 4-wheeler and all three kids, Grace, Evelyn and Logan.  They balanced on the front and back racks and did pretty well from what I could tell.  I had originally thought I would like to try Round Lake again because of the Grayling that we caught there two years ago.  It turned out to be a very rough trail on 4-wheelers though.  My Wildcat had a little wider set of wheels and a longer length and so I had a little harder time making the tight corners.  I had to  inch myself forward and back quite a few times to get around them.  My arms got sore and tired because it was a lot of muscle without power steering.  I was surprised that the trail was so rough but I guess when you only hike it you don't realize how rough it is then.  Once we got up to Round Lake it was quite a bit more wet and marshy than a couple years ago.  We decided to go to the next lake , Long Lake, and then decided to go to Rough Lake instead and by then we thought if we were going to go that far we might as well go to Big Lake.   The trail  going across was just as rough and it took us an hour and a half to go a mile or so.

It turns out if we had gone right at the crossroads to Big Lake, the trail  would have been about 10 times easier.  But I'm glad we went down that way rather than go up because I think I would have had a harder time maneuvering on those tight curves that were present on the way up.  Both Katy and Quinn said it was really scary but it was also the funnest part of the trip.

The crossroads.  Which way do we go.  This is a loop road so it didn't really matter.  The left fork was a lot tougher trail and of course that is the one we took.  Had we gone up to Big Lake (the right fork) and back we would never have had such a long crazy ride.

Dad, Quinn and  behind him Jon and his boys.  Morgan took up the rear.  Morgan had Evelyn, Grace and Logan

Here we are all stopping to converse.  We sounded like a bunch of Harleys

The scenery south of Round Lake.  Here is where we decided not to go to Round Lake but to continue

What are we doing?  Katy looks perplexed.

You can see all the marshiness behind Brock here.  The lake is on the other side of the willows and over the hill.  Didn't look forward to sludging through all that.

Nope this is not Big Lake.  We kept coming to small lake after small lake.  It seemed like eternity.

We pause again to converse

Just another one of those lakes we kept coming too.  We sent Jon and his RZR with his boys up the trail to see if he came across Big Lake.  He didn't.  He found another small lake but realized he had a nail in his tire.  Time to go, so they left.

Finally we find Big Lake minus Jon and his boys.

Notice the ominous clouds rolling in.  There was Thunder and Lightning so we  decided to go.  We took just enough time to take pictures to prove we made it to the lake.

Dad

Evelyn, Grace, Quinn, Me, Logan, Morgan

Evelyn, Grace, Quinn, Katy, Me Logan and Morgan

I'm sure you can guess these fellers

Katy and Me

Katy and Quinn

Scenery

Weird moss but you can't really see it in the photo

Quinn waiting for me and probably annoyed that I'm taking his picture

It rained so much that water ran down the road

That night after we got home, I took a drive with Teresa around the valley.  I was able to take a few neat photos of the area.  It turns out that Teresa had had a hard day as well.  The rain was so bad that rivers were running down the road as she left to try to catch some service.  She needed to check on the girls at work but it turned out to be an ordeal.  The suburban has a way of stalling  when it gets super rainy and it stalled in the worst place possible which was a one way bridge.  Luckily some  nice local hombre pushed her out.   I wonder if its the same dude that helped dad with the tire.  It would not have been too far from there.

Just thought this was a neat perspective. You can see our camp at the base of the mountain and to the right

Looking Northish from the campground where the bathroom and water was

Just thought this rock and fenceline looked neat

The scene from the toilet

Buck and rail fence also from the toilet.  Just a little wider view

Boulders and scenery

Looking back along the road toward camp

To the West

North

West

Hey where's the turlet, Vern?  Or is this Little House on the Prairie?

The dump with a view.  If a bear chased me I would run in there to hide.

High Plains toilet.  Hope the wind doesn't blow it over while you're in it.  I wonder what kind of a seat arrangement it has?  Its awful skinny.  

As evening falls the lone outhouse looks more lonely than ever.

West.

West.  Broad Canyon is probably the farthest to the right.  Notice how the light changed after a few moments from the above photo.

Just thought the small little ripply hills looked cool

North from camp

Another north from camp

Water running down the road from all the rain

My camp

Looking from my camp spot

Water running through our camp

just another scenic photo to the west

The big peak Eastish of camp.  Notice there is a slight rainbow up there

I enjoyed taking photos with the weather

Notice again the change in light from the above photo

Sun starting to set

The prior images were different stages of this sunset and this last one is the best it got

Good Morning Grace and Jaden

It was so nice that the sun came out the next morning.  Nice steam coming off the bushes

Probably getting asked to do something she does not want to do

Macey in the morning

I bet if I look long enough I could see a goat on that mountain

On the way to Green Lake up Muldoon Canyon

The next day which was Friday, we decided to go up to Green Lake.  Green Lake is a fairly easy high mountain lake to access.  There's a road that goes up the side of the mountain which was to an old mine that is below the lake.  It is kind of a winding switchbacky type road which would be freakish if it rained and you had a large vehicle up there.   Most of us opted to take our ATV's up there rather than risk coming down in a muddy rainstorm.  With the little tilt to the downside and a little bit of moisture and with the type of dirt, that road could slip you toward the edge if there was enough water.  Jeremy was the only one with his mighty bravery to take a full sized vehicle up.

Looking toward the mouth of the canyon.  Its cool how the roads converge with the storm in the distance

Morgan and Jon talking it over.  Not sure why I was sitting where I was unless if this is actually after we came down.  I had waited here for a moment to see if I could see dad coming down.

Green Lake is really green

I bought a float tube just for this trip.  I was disappointed yesterday when I didn't get to use it on the upper lakes.  It is a very nice float tube in the fact that it  sets you up higher than most. I blew it up at the trailhead for Green lake and then used the straps on it like a backpack to hike it up to the lake.  It is around a .25 mile hike is all.   I didn't have a hard time casting once I got in it.  I definitely had more action than most.  It took me about 4 tries to get the right fly and then once I found it, I had a lot of action.  I kept 4 fish that were good sized and threw the other 35 back.  

I look like an old man

Katy was snapping these shots with my phone.  She seems to like this pose best

Note the riser in front of me.  I had quite a few fishes feeding around me

This was probably about the 41st fish I caught.  Somebody said I smiled when I caught fish.  That is not a smile.

The 4 I kept.  We had to leave because some heavy clouds started to roll in.  I took some time to clean the fish and we headed out of there.  

So once again, we found ourselves leaving the high country to escape thunderclouds.  We made sure everybody got down and then headed back to camp.  On the way there was some nice hailstones hitting us in the face.  Me and Katy spread a raincoat over our laps and we kept dry for the most part.  Once we got back to camp I put all my stuff on the car heater and ran it until they dried.  It didn't take too long.

Kids playing on the hillside behind camp

Camp games

This is a large home made game of Twister 

Quinn and Garrett who is Quinn's favorite cousin

Dishes.  Macey, Erin, Shaelynn and Liza

Another nice sunset starting to form

Campfire.  We had a small get together after dinner.  I took various photos of each person and tried to get them all in.  I don't think Dad was present.

Thats me up there heading toward the Twin Buttes.  It was a nice view to wrap up the trip

And now I'm a dot.






Morgan sent in these photos to add to it.  Thanks Morgan.  If anybody else wants to send in photos let me know.  I'll add captions later as its late now.

James sent me some photos as well.  They went hiking up to Bellas Lake the same time the rest of us were hiking up to Green Lake.  Here are his pictures.