A Stock Photography Fail: My Scary Solo Female Camping Experience in Kebler Pass - Part 1

Back in 2021, I had this wild idea that if I went on solo camping trips, I could slowly build my nature stock photography portfolio. I mean, in truth, it wasn’t the craziest idea. Camping = close to nature = epic photos. No brainer, right? The only drawback - camping, much less solo camping as a female can be a little scary, and mostly, I knew very little about shooting stock photography, the kinds of photos I needed, and the planning involved to make sure I came home with worthwhile content.

Historically, though, I’m someone who likes to just jump in the deep end and see what happens. Back in my gamer days, it resulted in a lot of bum-rushing and unnecessary deaths, and such a history should have informed me about what was to come. But alas, I naively marched onward.

Because I live in Kansas, Colorado was the easiest/closest/most epic option, and I had just heard that the aspens were starting to turn. For those of you that don’t know, Colorado is covered in Aspen trees, those epic, white-barked, trees that turn the most brilliant shade of yellow in the fall. Due to the climate, fall comes early in Colorado, and in the event of a sudden drop in temperatures, it’s not uncommon for the aspen trees to turn and abruptly drop their leaves. Not wanting to miss my chance, I didn’t even hesitate, and I loaded up my car and made my way for the mountains.

Colorado Camping by Joshua German, published by Moon.

Now, Colorado is no small state, and I needed to find the best location to a) leaf-peep, and b) camp. In an attempt to plan this trip in an analog fashion, meaning I would only use books and word of mouth references to decide on my destinations— I turned to two books to help me in my decision-making process:

Colorado Camping and Scenic Driving Colorado. I found them to be tremendously helpful and information.

—Disclosure: I may receive a commission from purchases made via the links in this post.—

Scenic Driving Colorado by Stewart M. Green, published by Falcon.

Colorado Camping helped me find some pristine camping sites, being ranked by accessibility and beauty while Scenic Driving Colorado helped direct me towards the best locations for fall sightings.

After driving all day, armed with ample water, fuel, and local beer, I found myself in the Colorado Rockies. At this point, I was still unsure if I would see aspens, having very little intel to go off of, but I drove onward to the Kebler Pass area.

It’s known for looking especially magnificent during the fall season, and one turn in the mountain pass at a time, that proved to be true.

I slowly started to see pockets of aspen trees, some green, but some bright yellow and absolutely stunning. Unfortunately, those roads made it difficult to pull over and stop, and I was relatively confident that my best views were ahead of me, so I kept driving, grabbing my last to-go coffee in Salida as well as some local beer and continued north to my destination.

Taking an unassuming left off the highway, I turned off the main route, which indicated to me: I was leaving the majority of civilization. By that I mean… cell service. But worried I was not. Except for one small fact I forgot to mention - the campsite I was headed towards was a first-come first-serve campground, meaning - finders keepers, and I would have no way of knowing if there’d be a campsite for me. I was a verifiable Lewis sans Clark.

The highway to the campsite was immaculate. It was partly paved - partly not - and included aspens a plenty, lone ranches, and a cow in the middle of the road… which I was not expecting. Occasionally I would bump into groups of photographers, getting their tree-photography on, I right along with them, pulling over, and soaking up the sights with our zoom lenses. This road did not disappoint, and I absolutely recommend the route if you’re ever in the area. While my shot count was raising, and I was certain that even at this point, I had enough content to make the trip worthwhile, I knew that I still needed to get to my campsite. To me, it was a race against time, and I had to hope against hope there’d be a spot for me.

Now, you might be thinking - Emma, why didn’t you prioritize getting to your campsite first? That’s a reasonable question, and I’m happy to answer it for you. My travel philosophy is to take the photo in the moment. There’s no way of knowing where the road of life will take you, and I had no idea if I’d ever be back on that road again. This happens almost every time I travel. If I ever hear someone say, “We’ll get that photo when we come back,” I’ve learned those are famous last words and practically a curse: you will NOT get that photo on the way back. You’ll be too tired, too rushed, too busy, too pre-occupied to do it. So, I prioritized taking the photos first and then went on my merry way.

Trusting my physical maps, and the hope that my cell phone, despite not having service, would somehow remember where I was and keep GPS functioning, I drove deeper into the aspen forest, filled with hunters, photographers, and uncertain roads. The sun seemed to be setting (it’s hard to tell in the mountains), and I had to simply trust that I was going the right way, that I hadn’t passed the turnoff for the campground, and that there’d be a spot once I got there.

With great relief, I came across the sign for my campground. I was actually going the right way! It was a secluded camping area, with around 20 or so campsites, nestled right next to a lake and practically making out with the mountains beside it. Lost Lake Campground did not disappoint. 9/10 stars for scenic views was merited.

The only thing it lacked? A campsite. I drove a couple loops, only to find nothing was available. The sun was low, and because I was so unfamiliar with the area, I was not about to leave and be stuck on dark, gravel roads in the hopes of finding shelter along the way. What I would do, I didn’t know, and blame it on a slight worry in my expression or the absolute grace of God, matters turned in my favor, and I’ll share the rest of the story and what happened on the rest of my trip in Part 2

The books mentioned in this post are linked in the article above. View the whole video (including many more photos as well as vlog footage) on YouTube here: