State Forest State Park Camping

Posted: July 23, 2021

We went up into the mountains this weekend for some camping. Katie wanted to camp in State Forest State Park because that area has one of the largest populations of moose in Colorado. So this year's camping trip we were focused on wildlife and we saw more than we thought we would! In total, we saw one moose very close up (safely from the car), several foxes (including one that visited our camp both nights trying to steal food), a pika with its mouth full of food for the winter, and a wild porcupine.

On the first day, we got to the campground and made our camp and went for a quick "hike" on the Mountain View Nature Trail. This wasn't much of a hike since it was barely a mile, but we were in the middle of a forest so I think it counts. On our drive to the trailhead, we turned a corner and saw a moose. Katie slammed on the brakes and the moose hid back behind the bush it was eating. After sitting for about a minute the moose came back out. We were probably only about 30 feet from the moose, but since we were viewing from the car we were able to stay safe and I was able to get some spectacular photos of it. Since we were only in the park for a couple of hours and saw one moose, we figured we'd see many more during the trip, but that one ended up being the only one that we saw the whole trip.

Trailhead Location

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1.2 mi

0.5 hr

8,899 ft

102 ft

View Graph

To the Overlook

There was an overlook not too far from our camp that was our first attempt at seeing a moose. The actual overlook was down the road a little bit, but the overlook was basically looking into trees. This spot was much more open and showed the vastness of State Forest State Park.

Moose Spotting!

We were driving to the moose overlook when we came around a corner and saw this majestic creature eating a tree by the side of the road. After he came out of hiding once we stopped for a while to wait, he gave us some fantastic head shots.

Big Bite

After a minute or so, the moose kept eating the tree and then moved on from this area. I don't think the moose cared at all about us after it was initially frightened by the car.

Wild In the Mountains

It's really hard to think about photography best practices when something unexpected comes into the frame. For me, when we came up to the moose (and any other wildlife on this trip for that matter), I try to shoot as many photos as I can hoping that I get a good shot. It's not until 20 shots in that I realize that I'm shooting with a poor shutter speed for the light or that my composition isn't that great. So for this photo, I realized that the composition could be a little better to show where we actually were when we saw this incredible animal.

At the End of the Hike

The hike took us to an overlook where you were supposed to turn around. The trail continued, however, so we decided to venture on a little ways so that we could make the hike truly a mile long.

Golden Hour

We were back at our campsite for golden hour, and our campsite had an incredible view. This view is of the Crag's which is where we hiked on our last day of our camping trip.

Sunset

We watched the sun go down right over the mountains where we camped last year. The sunset gave us a spectacular show.