More from Heaton Bay Campground

While at Heaton Bay we enjoyed biking on the Dillon Reservoir Recpath, a lovely trail with breathtaking views and breathtaking hills.

We did a hike to Lily Pad Lake, deemed an easy family hike of 1.8 miles to a lake full of lily pads. It’s a popular trail since it’s close to Silverthorne and not very long or steep, although we are finding just brushing our teeth gets us out of breath at 9,100’, so we didn’t find the hike all that easy.

There is a nice open view at the start, but then the trail climbs through a forest of dead trees from pine bark beetle damage, so it isn’t very scenic.

The vegetation was more lush near a creek.

There are two lakes, a small one full of lily pads.

And a larger lake with only a few.

It was entertaining watching a family of ducks swimming amongst the lily pads.

Dragonflies were plentiful, too.

Strange looking creatures.

The Old Dillon Reservoir trail is about a quarter mile walk across the road from the campground. It’s a short, easy trail but we added some distance and difficulty by taking a dirt road up a hill to some communication towers.

You can see the bike trail winding through the woods on the lower left, and the campground to the right.

The hill we hiked up is across the reservoir. It seemed much higher than it looks.

On the way up.

Looking down over Dillon.

We also visited several times with Kurt (The Kuhl Odyssey), who was staying at another campground just a few miles away. He seems to be hanging in there after losing Toni in February, and we were happy to share a few beers with him. He’s an even bigger craft beer fan than we are, so we followed his recommendations and went to Broken Compass Brewery in Breckenridge and Outer Range Brewing Co. in Frisco. Both were good but the IPAs at Outer Range were outstanding.

Kurt and Jim deep in conversation at Outer Range.

We’ve also gone to the very nice Silverthorne Recreation Center to work out several times. It’s a good place to hang out during the afternoon thunderstorms we’ve been having.

Yesterday we had to move from our site at Heaton Bay, and although we still had 4 more days before our 14 day limit was up, there were no sites available. Lucky for us, Kurt had to leave Pine Cove Campground yesterday for a reservation in Denver, so we stopped at the dump on the way and then slipped into his waterfront site at Pine Cove, which does not take reservations, just as he was leaving.

Our view is fantastic for $11/night with the senior pass. No hookups, but a water spigot and vault toilets.

Unfortunately it’s just a big parking lot. We can stay 14 days here but not sure if we will. We’re closer to Breckenridge and there are a couple more hikes I’d like to do near there, and bike and hiking trails begin right behind the campground, so there is plenty to do. It’s hard to complain!