El Dorado National Forest

by Nick
(U.S)

This camping story took place many years ago up at Loon Lake. For those of you who have never been there, Loon Lake is actually a reservoir within the El Dorado National Forest in California.

The reservoir is all snow runing off, so the water is extremely cold. Within a short hike from Loon Lake is the Rubicon Trail, so if you’re into four wheeling this is a great area to go camping. It was back in 1992 when I and two buddies from High School decided to take our motorcycles up to Loon Lake and go camping for the weekend.

The first day was very enjoyable, riding around on trails for a little while, good old fashion fun around the campfire roasting hotdogs and not to forget the excellent chorizo and eggs my buddy made for breakfast that morning!

Later we took a small hike around the area checking out some of the cool rock formations, hidden opening with a large area surrounded by trees and a large beautiful pond with the biggest lily pads you’ve ever seen!

Later on cleaning up and kicking back by the campfire sharing stories. Well during our outing that day we had some new camper’s setup camp in the next camping spot, right next to us. It was an older couple who seemed nice. We exchanged the brief waves and smiles back and forth and briefly conversed with the basic introduction of names and where we were all from.

As it grew later into the evening we were getting ready to turn in, when we noticed the husband in the next camping spot gathering and cutting up firewood with a small hatchet. We didn’t think much of it, but suddenly he looked over as we were getting ready to put out our campfire and said with a snaky and raspy voice “I guess we’ll be reading about you fellows in the news tomorrow!

Shocked the three of us just sort of looked at each other with a freaked out look. What the heck did this old timer mean? The evil look in his eye along with the evil tone in his voice suggested we just might not make it thru the night!

I don’t think any of us slept much that night. But I can tell you this, one of my friends jumped about 5 feet in the air from a sound sleep when hearing a slight snap in the middle of the night! Out came the biggest buck knife I’ve ever seen! He was ready to brawl with the old guy! Ha-ha


Me and our other friend were cracking up, and quickly made sure our sleeping bags were as far away from our friend as possible as we didn’t want to be mistaken for the evil old man.

The next morning we packed up everything and didn’t spend much time hanging around. On the way out we gave the peculiar campers next to us a quick friendly gesture as we got the heck out of there!

Never did hear anything on the news about that lake or camping area. This camping story took place many years ago up...

Conclusion : Go to the Loon Lake at the Eldorado National Forest its great but beware of the strange old timers.