The weekend is here, and it’s time to get the hell out of the city! With the weather warming up a little bit we decided to make our first camping trip of 2019 up at Bartlett Lake in the Tonto National Forest.
The route up to Bartlett Lake takes you through the very western feeling towns of Cave Creek and Carefree; it’s then about a 15 mile drive through the Tonto National Forest to get to the actual lake. It’s quite a nice drive.
We arrived on Friday afternoon, and the place was already filling up with campers. The water is at very high levels, meaning lakeside camping spots get taken quickly. We saw the spot shown above from across the bay and decided to race over there and claim it.
The front door of our screen tent had a great view of the Yellow Cliffs that line the east side of the lake.
While the daytime temps were great, it did get cold at night, so we opted to sleep in the Jeep. We’ve developed an excellent sleeping system with all the seats folded down, and this is kind of our go-to config for camping now.
This also happened to be the boys first camping trip!
Closing out an evening with a beautiful sunset is always nice, but once that sunset the temps dropped. Thankfully, we were well prepared with plenty of warm clothes and bedding.
What’s the point of camping on the shoreline if you don’t get out and play in the water, right? They do allow motorized boats on this lake, but the boat traffic was light, and we were able to paddle down the shore and find a secluded little beach for lunch.
We didn’t focus on fishing this weekend, but we did throw a line in near camp. The only catch of the weekend was this giant catfish, don’t worry, we released this little bugger so he could grow a bit more.
The nights were cool with temps dipping into the low forties. It’s this type of weather that really makes you appreciate a fire once the sun goes down.
With camp all packed up, we took a few parting shots before heading back to civilization. Overall, it was a great trip.
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