Arapaho National Forest Stillwater Campground

I arrived after 6pm and the office was closed. However, self service was available. Though the only option was to pay by cash since the office was closed. Water Dump was not available and some toilets were closed. It has a great view of the lake from some spots, however, you can hear the road during night. Cell phone reception is poor but available.

Beautiful views of the mountains and water. Campground had flush toilets that were decently maintained. Got in around 5pm on a Friday in early september and had no problem finding a FCFS spot with a water view.

Incredible views, access to the lake, great and well maintained spots.

The reason I didn’t give it a 5 was that the management company employees were absolutely terrible and rude. Stay here just don’t interact with them unless you want a rude conversation.

Great campground. Majority of the sites had great views, a few sit lower if you like more privacy. A couple of the bathrooms have showers ( free ). Wood is for sale 24 /7. 

Small town Grand Lakes is absolutely charming lots of restaurants & shops. Stop on your way to or from RMNP. 

Host John, Luanne & Tim are very attentive and go up and beyond.

There are many large rocks surrounding the sites. Making it difficult for a rig over 35'. Views were wonderful and water access was good. Great for tents. Just very limited 4 large rigs.

My site (49) was set up on the hill near the water tank providing me with beautiful Mountain View's from my Class A. I did not use the bathrooms but there were very busy hosts around and available if there was a complaint. I was new to this type of campground where there is no check in - you just drive in to your reserved site. The only complaint I had for my site is the level. It was horribly downhill and just barely long enough for my rig so I had to really work to get things sorta level and since I was in a class A without a tow this means I had to go through this ritual every time I came in. Contributing to the difficulty was the soft gravel base that sunk under the weight of my rig.

Really nice campground. Close to RMNP. Big lake.

This campground has spectacular 180 degree view of mountains, including Rocky Mountain National Park and lake Granby. Has hook ups, dump station and access straight to the lake. Clean bathrooms and even has showers too. The views and sunset are worth the stay. We had a trailer site, which was great. Good distance between campsites. Near the bathrooms and killer views. Tent sites seemed tight and not much privacy between them. The only downfall is that you can hear the highway of cars at all times. Would stay here again

Nice scenic spots along the way with a view of Grand Lake. No fires allowed currently due to some bad forest fires but propane is allowed!

Beautiful location. The views of the Rockies are amazing!!! Super convenient and easy to get to! No rooftop tents ! Tents only on tent pads.

It was a gorgeous and well managed campground. However, trees are lacking - therefore privacy. We went before camping season actually started and had plenty of privacy because no one else was there! Host was spectacular. Lake was mountain cold and beautiful…albeit it seemed low. We didn’t “do” much this trip - so can’t speak to trails - rain was a hamper.

We camped here 23 - 25 July 2021. Arrived late in the afternoon on the 23rd and set up camp quickly. The pad was small (enough room for a 6 person tent, and a 1 person tent) the fire ring was taped up as there was a fire ban in effect. We had a walk to site, which was literally about 10 feet from the parking area. Sites are close to each other, we were concerned we may be too loud for our neighbors. The view of the lake was beautiful from our elevated site. Bathrooms were only about 200 yards away and water and dumpsters were another 100 yards in the other direction. We would stay here again for sure, but hopefully we could do it during a time of no fire ban.

Camp hosts were very friendly and kept the grounds very clean. Beautiful. Didn't want to leave.

I had an awesome time at Stillwater creek.

I was at site 71, one of the walk-up sites. The parking spot was close, and the bathroom and water were a short walk. And the bathroom had clean flush toilets! Showers were closed down but that info was posted in advance. The site had a picnic table, fire ring, tent pad, and bear locker.

There are no trees by the sites, so there’s a lack of privacy and shade, but it’s a fair trade off for the easy access to the lake in my opinion!

Would definitely recommend for folks interested in being by/on/in the waster!

This campground is well-laid out and has some great views of the mountains and Lake Granby, but there are few trees, which means little to no shade and little to no windbreaks. We had some stiff windstorms blow through during the three nights we stayed here and thankfully, our tent and extra strong stakes kept things mostly upright, but it was a close thing. Make sure you don't depend on building a fire to cook any meals because the wind is just too harsh to burn wood long enough for coals without starting a wildfire. We had depended on using the showers while we were there, but all of them were broken. Only on the way back from our trip did we receive an email from Recreation.gov that the showers were inoperable.

TL;DR

PROS:

Great views, good (but not great) amount of room between sites. The bear boxes are nice, especially if you park away from your site. Easy access to shoreline of Lake Granby for kayaking, etc. Clean bathrooms.

CONS:

Very windy, no shade. Showers might be inoperable for the rest of the 2021 summer season, according to email from Recreation.gov.

This is only about 90 mins from the front range and it’s amazing!

The views from most of the sites are phenomenal! And most sites have lake front views.

The beach is surprisingly not over crowded despite it being a full campsite.

The camp sites where a bit tight and open but that’s probably why the views were so amazing.

Facilities were all excellently maintained. And camp hosts even had fire wood for sale at the site.

Not to buggy when we went in June ( which as someone mosquitoes like that’s really important to me)!

Decent cell service for camping.

Great for SUP, and fishing.

The cons - while camp hosts are super friendly and maintain a great site, they were super lax on quiet hours. We were lucky enough to camp next to generator Jim who had his generator running all gosh darn night.

I was surprised with how much noise could be heard from the highway. It’s wasn’t disruptive but it wasn’t serene.

There aren’t many full hook ups, and the ones we saw with hook ups didn’t have great views

Love everything about this campsite best campsite of  2020

Stillwater campground is a decent size campground with Back in campsites and pull through sites. The entire campground is basically two loops next to the water so pretty much every campsite has gorgeous view of the lake and the mountains. I visited in July of 2020 and it was beautiful.

My only complaint is that I had made my reservations online a month before our actual arrival date. Yet, when we showed up at 7:30pm with the sun almost completely set, 2 hungry dogs, and 3 humans ready to stretch legs after a 13 hour drive, we discovered that someone had already set up camp in our reserved space (#106). The camp host on duty had circled our site as one of the ones available for a one night stay even though it was reserved (for us!). I got a little worried for a moment since all campgrounds nearby were at full capacity and we needed a site for 2 nights. I really didn’t want to make the people who had already set up their camp site move. After talking to the host we managed to find one site in this campground available for both nights and honestly it was better than the site I had originally reserved!

We ended up setting up camp in site 123. It was closer to the bathrooms, a little more private, and big enough for both of our tents. We had our own little pathway to a small beached area next to the lake where we enjoyed watching the sun rise and drinking our coffee. This place is a short drive to the south entrance of RMNP so it made exploring during the day easy. They campground hosts have firewood there you can buy (I think it was $6 but I can’t remember now) and the bathrooms were really clean. No showers though. Each campsite had a picnic table and a fire pit. And cell service was great with verizon!

I’d definitely stay here again even with our minor inconvenience when we first arrived. I usually stay in Estes Park but I’m really glad we didn’t this time. It was nice and quiet. Perfect for our quiet, social distancing adventure.

Camped September 14, 2020 for 3 nights. Had a great site overlooking the reservoir. Nice drive on Trail Ridge Road to Rocky Mountain National Park. The town of Grand Lake is nearby and a nice place to visit.

This CG is a great location to enjoy activities on Lake Granby with an onsite marina and nice beaches.  Also jumping off point for a trip into Rocky Mt Nat'l Park and many hikes into the park from Grand Lake or Arapaho Bay.

The CG's only downside is the wide open exposure to sun and wind.  There's no trees in the upper sites - but in return you get great 360 degree views.

For some reason this one is posted twice so check both for reviews if you're curious about this site. Be careful with setting up awnings or tents it can be very windy this close to the lake!

This park has a LOVELY location right on the lake; try and pay attention when you are booking to get a really good spot. Camp host was friendly and facilities were clean. Just walking around the loop of the park a few times was a great activity and saw lots of fishing and paddleboarding. Great stay!

Is there always first come first serves available for this campsite? Anyone know?

Really awesome views and close to the west entrance if the Rocky Mountain National park. Spacious sites, we had water view which we all enjoyed. Would definitely go back.

Pretty clean. Be warned, the spots are verrryyyy close together. If you get a spot with a view it's worth it tho. Beautiful view of sunset/sunrise.

We absolutely loved this camp ground! It was absolutely gorgeous, right on the lake, and the campsite was impeccable. It was quiet and not too crowded in mid-June. Absolutely loved it, will be coming back!

We stayed in site #47 with water & Electric hook up there is a dump station in this park. which was tight in length but just squeezed in, you can not park on the grass. We had a storm hit while we were parking the camper but were blocking the road so had to take the travel trailer off in the rain. We ran inside after getting everything set up & looked out there was a double rainbow so vibrant in colors over the lake.  We had a picnic table & fir pit in the site. 

We went over to Willow creek reservoir to kayak they don't allow motor boats in there so it's nice & calm. We had an eagle swoop down right behind up to catch a fish. There were white Pelicans in the lake too. We saw fox & deer as we pulled in.  Loved this little lake. My husband caught some trout.

This side of the National Park you see moose, it's greener here in vegetation.  We did a lot of hikes in this side of the park they were all good. In Grand Lake there's a nice hike called Adams falls. It was busy but you could take your shoes off & get your feet wet. 

The best Margaritas are found at the Roadhouse Bar & grill.

I stayed here in 2016 on a bicycle tour across America. It featured some fantastic views of the nearby lake and mountains and had very clean facilities. Only problem, from a camping in a tent perspective, is due to its location if a storm rolls in the wind can really hit from every angle. Otherwise the price is very reasonable.