Barbara Lawlor, Peak to Peak.  The Memorial Day weekend has evolved from the traditional decorating of gravestones with American flags and honoring the military men and women who lost their lives due to their service, to party time in campgrounds.

Known as the ‘Gateway to Summer’, the beginning of long, warm days draws people out of the woodwork, their homes, and into the mountains and forest service campgrounds to cook over campfires, to sleep on the ground and to live, if for only a weekend, in nature.

This weekend in the mountains has a bad reputation as far as weather goes. The end of May’s mercurial nature can bring springlike skies in the morning and a blizzard in the afternoon; balmy breezes at sunset and hail before the sun rises. One never knows for sure what the heavens will drop on the last weekend of May.

On Monday morning, the sun was shining, slicing through the chilly breezes, as Kelly Dahl campers began packing up their tents, cooking gear, loading their four-wheelers, bicycles, jackets and hats. Most of those who arrived on Friday, stayed throughout the not-perfect, but doable, weekend.

Jeremy Thomas, from Wheatridge, was loading up his SUV and watching his son run around the campsite. “We lucked out,” he said. “The weather was great, not a cloud in the sky. We would definitely come back. Last night we saw some shooting stars, and here, we can just let the kids run amok.”

Jeremy’s son Ethan said his favorite part of camping in the mountains was S’mores he had for breakfast, cooked over the fire.

American Land and Leisure Recreation Management host, Mike Adams, says that this was his third year at Kelly Dahl. When he is not here living in his RV, he is somewhere else living in his RV. He says the campground was all filled up with reservations but some people cancelled because of the stormy skies hovering above the foothills.

Adams and his wife are on site until September. He looked around at the barren campsites, no longer very private due to fire mitigation and said the lack of trees didn’t seem to bother the campers.

“They were up all night partying. It isn’t legal to use marijuana in the campground because it is a federal site but I’d rather have them smoking than drinking. There was definitely a bunch of alcohol here last night. I think people get tired of being cooped up all winter long, tired of the crappy weather and they come up here to let it all hang out. This weekend is a big deal to a lot of people, they wait all winter for this.”

Kelly Dahl has 47 campsites and 45 fire pits that have to be cleaned whenever the campers leave. Adams says people think the campfire spots are trash cans.

“For awhile last night I thought we were going to have a circus. There were people walking on wires strung between trees, hula hoops and jugglers. It was almost entertaining.”

Adams says that 97 percent of the campers come here with the right intentions, that it is the three percent who ruin it for the others. He thinks reading the campground rules should be a prerequisite to entering, that if people obeyed the quiet rule between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. there wouldn’t be many problems.