Got its name from Texas Longhorn cattle back in the early 1800’s, Texas Creek remains a popular recreational area today! If you like to ride motorcycles and ATV’s or you like to hike like I do, then you’ll love this area as much as me. My name is Don Clever, founder of CampWildRide.com and creator of the Rhino Zing product line.
In addition to camping, there I’ll be covering the history of the Texas Creek and the many activities you can do in this area.
Texas Creek is located about 30 miles west of Canon City on Hwy 50. Texas Creek used to be a popular railroad junction and loading location for cattle. What made this spot so special is it connected the East/West rail along the Arkansas River with the South connection to Westcliffe. It was quite an engineer marvel for its time, with loop around a hill and massive trestle. You can learn more about the history of the area with this CoZine.com article, The Lariat Loop: An Engineering Marvel at Texas Creek.
Being located in the valley, with an altitude of less than 8000 ft., this is a perfect place to go camping on Memorial Day weekend. Most of the time the snow melt is gone at this altitude, as opposed to some passes still being closed by snow in the higher elevations. I usually go out a couple days early to claim a camp site while the rest of my friends and family come out on the weekend. This year we had our entire family and a couple friends as part of our camping party.
Texas Creek sits right on the Arkansas River and is a popular launching spot for white water rafting. This section of the river offers class 3 and 4 rapids that gives a challenge for almost anyone. Sometimes a few of our campers will chose to do go Rafting for part of the day and then return to camp for riding an other activities.
Another popular activity, and the reason we go there every Memorial Day Holiday, is the off-road riding. There are about 45 miles of trails to accommodate all types of off-road riding. From 4X4 roads, to ATV trails to single-track (motorcycle only) trials. One of my favorite rides is a motorcycle only trail up Bull Gulch. We feel like we really had a workout when we finish this ride!
Camping is what we call “Dry Camping”. Meaning there are no hookups for water, sewer or electricity. Despite the lack of these facilities, on Memorial you can plan on over 100 campers in this area. There are nice flat open areas along the river and a little more wooded area as you head North away from the river. We like to have a few tree in and around our camp site so we head in about a quarter mile to find our spot.
In order to really enjoy the area you should plan on two or three days of riding and hiking. Spend a little time down by the river teaching the kids to skip rocks and getting your feet wet. Then maybe hike to one of the many hills in the area. At night enjoy a campfire with your family and friend (I recommend roasting marshmallows), if there is not a fire ban that is! During our trip we did a little experiments with different ways to eat marshmallows, like using a waffle cone or between Oreo cookies.
As you probably guessed, we had a great time on this camping trip and I hope you enjoyed our story as well. I shared a little about our trip, the ride; and a few of the many fun and challenging trails in the area.
I love to shave and have many more picture and videos of this trip on my social media site, so just click one of the links below to visit our sites.
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This is Don with Camp Wild Ride, and as always, Show us your Wild Side!
Donald Clever
President
Camp Wild Ride ®
www.campwildride.com
