Father Dyer

Quiet forest service CG. Not on the water but close by. Beautiful area

This campground is on the East side of Turquoise lake and the sites are within a 2 min walk to the lake. There is a beach down by the lake for relaxing and hanging out. 

The sites are good sized and the trees help make the sites feel more private. They are pristine and the bathrooms are super clean. 

Campground includes picnic tables, fire rings, pedestal grills, potable water, and vault toilets. Firewood is available at the host site.

$24.00 fee per site for overnight camping. Maximum 8 people per site: 2 tents and 2 vehicles or 1 recreation vehicle. There are first come first serve sites as well as reservation sites.

We went up last weekend to FD near Leadville. It was gorgeous. We stayed at sites 21/22; we booked both, as they were side by side. Turquoise Lake is a super quick walk down. It was very quiet, even at capacity. The moon shines extra bright. We did hit a storm, but were expecting to since were at 9k+.

If you stay at father Dyer (or the other sites near there) your car tag gets you in to the lady of the lake day use area! We didn’t realize that and paid for the day, but the host quickly returned the money and let us know!

Make sure to remember that the campground is a one way road. :) we made that mistake once and never again.

Tent camping spots didn’t really have a flat spot to put the tent (atleast the one I was in). Had to put my tent in a slope. But restrooms and camping sites were clean.

Short walk to the lake but far enough that you may need to drive down to the day use area if you want snacks, beers, etc. Quiet and clean campground but there are lots of mosquitoes and the lake can get very windy. Beautiful area and a quick drive into Leadville if you are looking for a quick stop in a cool town.

this campground was very quiet and the bathrooms were really clean! close walk to the lake!

This is a yearly stop for us. Access to beautiful Turquoise Lake, mountain biking. the facility is spotless!

I wanted to camp next to the lake but was glad that I ended up here instead! The sites are clean, and the facilities are clean... there is a beautiful short walk to get to the lake, (5 min) from which you can see incredible views of Mt. Elbert and Mt. Massive. Less crowded, with decent space between the sites.

Memorial Day Weekend. Last minute decision to go booked one of only three sites left all gone the next day. We arrived on Friday afternoon to a weather forecast of extreme spring fluctuations. Ambivalent about how camping would be with the forecast to say the least. We had reserved site #5 which we realized as we pulled into the loop was mostly under water from snow melt and had a large berm of snow still sitting in the pull in. As we sat there trying to figure out how we were going to make this work we noticed the site across from it had a reservation for Strayer! Yup the wonderful camp hosts had seen the issue prior to our arrival and with the cancellation of someone less willing and adventurous than us the camp host proactively moved us into the most lovely and expansive camping site #6. It was love at first site er sight! The Hosts were around within moments to check on us and we're just lovely. The site was obviously well tended and there were no issues what so ever. The facilities (pit bathrooms) were impeccably clean. My husband commented and I concurred that they were the cleanest best smelling pit bathrooms we had ever seen. Of course we were there at the beginning of the season but obviously the hosts did a great job of keeping them clean over the entire 4 days we resided there. The only time we had any issue whatsoever was with a loud group next to us who showed up at 3am slamming car doors repeatedly and yelling to each other for 30 minutes. My husband had ear plugs so he slept thru it mostly but I didn't have any as I don't use them. Next night I did as a precaution and had zero problems 🙌🏼😃. This campground is one of many surrounding Tourquise Lake. It is less than two minutes from the lake via car and 10 mins at most from the town of Leadville, CO. The lake levels at the time that we went were still extremely low and required you to hike down quite a bit to get to the actual lake. However if was beautiful all in all and we had a wonderful time there even with getting snowed on and 21 degree temps on one day. The rest of the trips weather made up for it and we had fresh caught trout over the fire for lunch on Sunday. Doesn't get any better than that!

Used Father Dryer Campground as one of our base camps while hiking a few 14ers during a week on Colorado. Found it to be clean and convenient. Vault bathrooms well maintained and tent sites were spaced far enough apart to provide privacy.

Made our early morning trip to Mt Elbert easy. If you don't want to hit a 14 er but like hiking, the campground has some great trails of its own. The Turquoise Lake Trail is a long and beautiful hike.

Will be using this campground again!

We showed up and raced a rain storm to get our tent up and toed a tarp over the tent. As soon as the storm was over, the host cam and told us nothing could be tied to the trees. I have no problem with them enforcing the rules and honestly didn't know you couldn't tie anything to the trees. Where my problem lies is that the folks camping in the site directly next to the host had stuff tied to the trees when we pulled in, never had anything said to them about it, and still had the stuff tied and hung in the trees when we left the next morning.
Now I'm 31 years old, but am often told I look 25 or younger. I definitely felt profiled by the host. All I ask for is consistency! I have no problem following the rules, but if you are going to enforce a rule for 1, you must enforce it for all.

Also, the nightly fee of $20 is rather steep for what is actually provided at the site. The fees have gone up steadily in the last few years at the Turquoise lakes Camp grounds.