Fort Buenaventura

A few weeks ago we went to Fort Buenaventura. It's a nice county park, with several walking trails, and replicas of old buildings.  The old fort is the best of the structures.  It was built to resemble the fort built on the site- the beginning of the city of Ogden.  

 There are a few other buildings, a small indian village, and a pond that you can go canoeing at. 

The canoes are $5/half hour or $10/hour.  It made us think of our times in Fort Collins and all of the canoeing we did there. 

We ultimately ended up at the Weber River for a bunch of rock throwing.  It was peaceful sitting by the river and throwing rocks into the water.  One of the employees at the visitor center said that there are often tubers that go down the river from just below the railroad bridge down to the entrance road on the north end of the park. We didn't know about it, but it sounded fun.  The bike path on the west side of the river offers an alternative to paying the entrance fee if you're just interested in tubing. 

There is also camping at the park, but I thought it was pretty steep at $18/night.  The teepee rentals (also at $18/night) seemed more reasonable.  It was a fun visit.


Nearest City: Ogden, UT
Location: N° W°
Time Needed: 2 hours
Difficulty: Easy
Kid Friendly: Yes
Additional Info: Click here for the Fort Buenaventura Website  Cost $2/Adult

Tubing the Portneuf River in Lava Hot Springs

One of the big attractions of Lava is tubing down the river.  The river opened late this year because of all of the runoff, and was still high when we were there. 

The high water was a good thing though. It made the rapids bigger, and also made the water deeper so when you got dumped off you didn't get torn up on the rocks as badly.  The 4-man tubes were better able to take the rapids, while sometimes the single-tubers got flipped. 

We sure had a blast running the river.  The floats went pretty quickly, and then we'd hop out and do it again.  And again.  And again. 

The river wasn't as crowded as it has been, but I'm sure now that it's July it will be as popular as ever.  It was nice to not have as many crowds jockeying for position. 

Nearest City: Lava Hot Springs, ID
Location: N° W°
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Additional Info:  Check out this map of the route and where to get in and get out.  Tubes are available for rental at numerous places in town. 

Tubing the Poudre River- The Town Run

Tubing the Poudre is one of the great summertime things to do here in Fort Collins. The two options are either head up the canyon, or take to the river right here in town. The run up the canyon is longer, but it's not as convenient as the one in town.

The best place to start is at the bridge on Shields Street. There are plenty of parking spaces along the road. Some people walk upstream from the bridge before they get in, but it's easiest to launch just down from the bridge.

Much of the float is like a lazy river, but there are enough small rapids to make a few spots interesting. I've found that the best approach to a clean float through the rapids is to stay slightly off of center away from the side with the branches and other obstacles.

The float passes under two pedestrian bridges along the north edge of Lee Martinez Park and past a few rope swings. There's a dam a hundred yards or so past the second bridge, so it's best to get out at the second bridge. Trails on both sides of the river lead back to the top where you can start all over again.

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Canoeing through town on the Poudre River

Saturday we took the canoe out for another ride. This one is the longest one yet. We took it on the Poudre River and went over 7 miles from Lincoln Street down to the east end of Horsetooth Road. Ideally the flow through town would have been higher, it looked like the river had dropped about 2 inches recently, so maybe we were a little bit late in the year for this one. The higher flow would have been nice because there were several places we had to drag our canoe through spots that were too shallow to float through. Looking at the Fort Collins gauge station reports might have been helpful before we left. http://www.fcgov.com/flood-warning/streams.php Our starting location had 2.37 feet of water above the sensor (streambed) , middle 0.72, and up to 4.21 feet at the end. It's definitely low water. It took us 5 hours, the majority of which we just casually floated, although several spots took some dragging. It was a beautiful trip and we saw several areas that we'd never have seen otherwise. Since we had the camera packed away so it wouldn't get wet we missed a few great photo ops- a few old bridges, herons, etc. I saw the back end of a turtle as it disappeared into the murky confines of one stretch of river. The turtle was huge- it was at least 2 feet across. It was a beautiful Saturday spent in a memorable way.

Nearest City: Fort Collins, CO
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Difficulty: Moderate
Kid Friendly: Depends on the water level
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Camping up Pingree Park & Tubing on the Poudre River

Friday night we took off for the hills. It had been raining earlier, so we were mildly concerned about how wet it would be for camping, but excited because we knew the rain would deter several others from crowding the forest. We went up Poudre Canyon to the Pingree Park road. We turned off and drove along until we found what looked like a decent campsite. Well, decent for car camping anyway. (P.S. If you're the guy in the maroon car that arrived sometime after dark and set up camp with your headlights on and left your trunk open after you went to bed- it had a 12 pack of beer in it if you need help remembering. Anyway, next time, try to leave to go camping earlier, and at least have the decency to camp in a campground, or if not, at least don't be within a stone's throw of the people who arrived earlier and are slumbering peacefully. We at least thank you for not having your radio thumping.)

After we set up camp, we looked in the little stream nearby and saw a few little fishies. I tied on a little fly and fooled one of them. We then cooked dinner, built a fire, and enjoyed the evening. As the dark surrounded us, we looked up at the stars and loved how many there are. After we got home, we found out that there was supposed to be a meteor shower that night. We missed it, but when you've got a pregnant wife bedtime comes earlier.

The next day we went on a little hike in Young's Gulch. It's one of the many canyon trails up the Poudre. There's a creek that the trail follows. It's pretty, but not that pretty at the same time. To me, the abundance of people and dogs definitely detract from the otherwise average hike. We got home mid-day and thought that it would be fun for tubing on the Poudre. We changed into our swimming gear, and headed for the river. We started where the river goes under Shields, and floated almost all the way to College. We got out right about the second footbridge we floated under. It was super fun. There were a few parts that we had to paddle our way into the best part of the current to avoid logs and trees, but the float was pretty mild. It was much better than one of those lazy rivers that they have at waterparks.

The red balloon.

Nearest City: Fort Collins, CO
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Difficulty: It depends on your wife's attitude and if she likes camping. For me- easy.
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