Penitente Canyon, Colorado (April 21-22, 2012)

By way of invite from our friend Meg, Shamus and I packed up our car early Saturday morning (7:00am!) to head to Penitente Canyon for the weekend. We drove out to Gunnison to meet Meg at The Powerstop to fuel up our gas tanks and more importantly- our hungry, hungover bellies. The Powerstop is a gas station/convenience store in Gunnison, CO that has an amazing and fulfilling list of breakfast sandwiches. They cook them right there on the grill in front of you. My favorite sandwich is the "Gutbuster"- chicken fried steak, egg, hashbrown, bacon and gravy piled between two buttery pieces of Texas Toast.

After gathering some necessary provisions from Walmart & City Market (like bullets, alcohol & energy drinks) and then taking a few glances at the Penitente Canyon map, we hopped on the road. After about 2.5 hours of beautiful scenic driving, we turned down an empty road, past the quaint & inviting La Garita Store and then down a dusty dirt road to Penitente Canyon.

Penitente has several paid camping sites upon entrance to the park. Each site has room for about 2-3 cars to park, 2-3 tents to setup for the night, along with a large concrete picnic table and man-made fire pit.

After setting up camp, we decided to go explore for a bit. We hopped on a trail that crossed directly behind our campsite. After following the trail for a half mile or so, we hopped off and decided to climb up a nearby hill to get a better view of the land. Off in the distance you can see a beautiful mountain range and a small glimpse of the Great Sand Dunes National Park & Reserve.

After our hike, we relaxed for a little bit in the convenient travel hammocks Shamus always has on hand. Then it was time to get down to business- break open the beer, the whiskey bottle, and the dice-rollin' drinking games. We also eventually started a fire, cooked up some delicious dinner and proceeded to finish off the bottle of Tullamore Dew Irish Whiskey between the 3 of us. As the sky darkened, the fire dwindled, and the stars starting poking through the black sky we all decided to retreat to our tents for the night.

The next morning I woke with a fierce craving for some coffee (probably because I knew none of us had any). So with our hopes high, Shamus & I hopped in the car to drive back to the La Garita Store just a couple miles from the canyon in hopes they 1. Were open (it was 7am) and 2. Had some fresh hot coffee for sale. Thankfully we lucked out. We walked in the old log building to find a kind, old woman behind the counter eager to greet us. She scurried into the back to get us our coffee so we took the chance to look around. There were some cute souvenirs and other necessities for sale. Also the place was adorned with pictures of proud hunters next to their elk kill. An older man, who I assume was an owner along with the friendly old woman, saw us fascinated by the elk photos and called us into the adjoining room to take a look at the enourmous elk head proudly mounted on the wall. After paying for the coffee and taking a peek at their food menu (which we definitely will have to go back and try), we headed back to camp to make breakfast, pack up our tents, and take a nice, long sunday morning hike.

We hopped back on the same trail we had started down the day before but this time followed it all the way out to some other trails. One of the trails lead us to some old wagon wheel tracks rutted in some large boulders. The tracks were made by carts of Hispanic settlers in the 1850's. We also headed down the Witches Canyon & Rock Garden trails, where we also ventured off and did some more exploring over tree limbs and large rock scrambling cliffs. After about 3 hours we ended up back at our campsite, continued to pack up the car and said our goodbyes.

Shamus and I happily headed toward home after another wonderful weekend in Colorado...but of course not without stopping on some public land to shoot our guns ;)

wei-wu-wei,
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