Camping Season Started Early This Year: Camping in the Rockies in March!
- Rachel
- Apr 4
- 6 min read
Camping in the Rockies in March? Don't mind if I do...
It started with a quick check of the weather. Then another. And another. March had no business looking that good in Wyoming. I checked five more times just to make sure the forecast was real. And then we made the decision: we were going. I had three days to get ready — three days to do everything I had told myself I’d have more time for.
I had spent all winter telling myself I would be organized this time. I had made mental lists, actual lists, lists about the lists. And then the moment I started pulling gear out of the garage, none of it mattered. Bins I had packed in November sat in the order I had thrown them together when the cold rolled in and I was racing to get everything out of the camper before it froze. Labels that had seemed so clear four months ago now meant nothing. Where did I put the water filter? Why is the dog bowl in with the solar cables?
Who packed this?
Oh. Right. I did.
I still haven’t found the remote control for the TV...
I was reorganizing and packing up until the moment we left. And underneath all of the excitement, all of the anticipation of finally getting back out there, was the grief. Quiet but constant. This trip belonged to Penny and Luna. My boys, just a memory now.
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Right before we walked out the door I saw the boys’ pictures on the mantel. They needed to come with us too.
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In true Wyoming fashion, the wind made an unwanted appearance. Roads closed to high-profile vehicles, then opened, then closed again. I kept checking, kept refreshing, kept telling myself it would clear. For a while it felt like the trip was dead before it started.
But then the roads opened on the service routes and we made the call. We were going.
The plan was Vedauwoo. I had checked the website, confirmed that Roads 700 and 719 were open, and pointed the truck in that direction with the Dawn hitched up behind us, spirits finally lifting.
And then we got there. The roads were open, technically. Open right up until the point where the actual campsites were. Closed from there.
Of course.
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So we made a last-minute call. Colorado.
I have always said I would never be that person pulling into camp at nine o’clock at night. I have judged that person. I have shaken my head at that person.
Reader, I became that person.
The forest service road to the campsite was fifteen miles of narrow, winding, washboarded chaos in the pitch black. It felt like fifty.
But we made it. The truck stopped. The engine clicked off. And for a second, everything was just quiet.
Then I opened the doors and Penny and Luna exploded out of the truck, running wide circles around the campsite in the dark, noses to the ground, tails going. Around us, through the trees, campfires glowed. Pine and cold mountain air. The sound of the dogs crashing through brush they couldn’t even see.
We didn’t set up much. Leveled the camper, unhooked, crawled inside. That’s one of the things I love about the Dawn. When you’re exhausted and it’s dark and nothing has gone according to plan, she’s still ready. Quick setup. Bed waiting. Home.
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Luna was restless that first night. Tossing, turning, rearranging herself on the bed like she was trying to solve a geometry problem with her body. Penny, true to form, was out cold in thirty seconds. I lay there listening to Luna shuffle and resettle and shuffle again, wondering if this was going to be our new normal.
Eventually, she slept. Eventually, we all did.
When we woke up, it was way past their normal wake-up time. I don’t know if it was the altitude or the exhaustion or the sheer novelty of waking up somewhere new, but all three of us had slept in. I opened the camper door and both dogs bounded out into the morning. Pine trees. Mountains. Open meadow stretching out in front of us. Everything we couldn’t see the night before, suddenly there.
Luna had a permanent smile on her face. Ears up, tail wagging, nose working overtime. This was her first real trip in the Dawn and she had decided immediately that she was a fan.
And Penny. My steady girl. She was so thrilled to be back in the camper! She bounded out of the camper with the energy of a puppy, not an almost 9 year old girl! Camping is her happy place. But she is still undecided about having to share with Luna.
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But first, coffee.
The Joulle kettle heating up thanks to Pinky my littlest Bluetti. The AeroPress doing its thing. The familiar sounds of a small space waking up. The smell of it filling the Dawn while the dogs explored outside the open door. Both Pinky and the Joulle got their workouts in and both proved great new additions to our lineup. We didn’t turn the propane on the entire weekend!
It wasn’t a big moment. That’s the thing. It was the smallest, most ordinary moment. And it was everything.
I stood in the doorway with my mug and looked out at a place I had never been, with a crew that looked different than it used to, after a year that had broken me open in ways I’m still understanding. And I thought: okay. We’re doing this again.
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After coffee, I tackled the rest of the morning chaos. I was still putting away things I had thrown through the door in the final minutes before we left. Finding spots for gear that didn’t have spots yet. Reorganizing bins that had been packed by a version of me who apparently had no system at all.
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This trip was also a test drive for some new gear. The BLUETTI Elite 300 got its first real run and it did not disappoint. It powered the Iceco and the Starlink all weekend and still had enough to recharge Pinky. The new Starlink stand that fits in the hitch receiver worked brilliantly, which means we should be safe from any more cow-instigated outages. And my new under-sink organization was a million times better than the old setup, even if it still needs a few tweaks before it’s where I want it.
More on all of that in the prep checklist post. For now, it was enough to know the systems worked. That the Dawn was ready. That we were ready.
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We stayed two nights. Nothing dramatic happened. The dogs explored. I drank coffee. I sat outside and watched the light change across the mountains. I remembered how to breathe at a pace that the road sets for you, not the one you set for yourself.
And there was a Pasque flower pushing up through the dry grass at our campsite. Just one. They come out in the mountains around Easter, tiny and stubborn and impossibly alive in all that brown. I took a picture of it because sometimes a metaphor just shows up and you don’t argue.
On the drive home, I already missed it. That’s the cruelty of camping in March — you get a perfect weekend and then winter reminds you it’s not done yet. But the summer is coming. And we’ll be ready.
Nothing about this trip went according to plan. The packing was a mess. The roads were closed. The campsite fell through. We drove fifteen miles in the pitch black on a road that had no business being called a road. Luna kept me up half the night. And I spent the first morning still unpacking.
And it was perfect.
Not perfect like a checklist. Perfect like a deep breath. Perfect like the first day of a season you weren’t sure would come.
If you’re gearing up for your own first trip of the season, I’m putting together everything I wish I’d had more sorted before we left. Prep checklist coming soon.
Keep Moving.
Rachel
This is what I write about — the messy, beautiful, imperfect trips and the life we're building around them. If you want more of it, the Sol Season Letter lands in your inbox once a month. Sign up here.
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