Balanced Rock Road

TACO ROCKO · May 15, 2016

Headed out for the first camp of the year this weekend. Headed out to Balanced Rock Road, which sits just off of Rampart Range Road in Pike National Forest. Got everything loaded up on Friday, and headed out early:

The goal set for this year was to camp in a new spot every time, since the last few years had basically just been repeated visits to the same half a dozen haunts. Balanced Rock was a close but pleasant trip, and sits very close to my most frequent hangout over on Mt. Herman Road. This made finding it very easy. It's not exactly a hard trail, but it's got enough with little spurs and hill climbs to actually make using 4WD a benefit. There are some whoop-de-doos that can elicit a little bit of flex.

We found a nice clearing and set up camp. I crashed in the hammock the first night, and let my buddy borrow the cot. Night two he opted to back the 4Runner up to the fire pit and sleep in the hatch, and I moved over to the cot. The stars came out late after some cloud cover, and it wasn't too cold at night. (Right click>open image to see the whole panorama).

When we headed out southbound on Rampart, we got a brilliant view of Pike's Peak. A cell phone picture can do no justice, as it looks miniscule. But the mountain looked every single bit of its 14K feet as it towered above us off in the distance from our 9K foot "summit".

Balanced Rock is less of a technical trip than it is a weekend destination. If you're looking for something that offers more than just a two hour out-and-back, check it out. Great for camping, shooting, hiking, and mountain biking, as there are numerous no-vehicle spurs for the latter two activities. There's additional and more in-depth wheeling right down the road at Forest Road 300U, if you want to make a point of playing with more hill climbs and off-camber situations.

Balanced Rock Road is Forest Road 322; an east turn off of Rampart Range Road. From Monument/Colorado Springs, take Mt. Herman Road (F.R. 320) west to Rampart, then turn north. From Castle Rock/Denver, take US 85 to Hwy 67, and take 67 southwest to Rampart, then turn south for a more scenic drive (note that Rampart was closed at 67 this weekend due to wet conditions. Check with the forest service before approaching from here).