Olive Ridge

First Come, First Served is NOT properly adhered to. Very misleading. 

My family, including little children, were all packed up and ready to camp when we arrived on a Friday morning of Labor Day weekend. Despite that at least 10 campsites were completely empty and claimed to be"First Come, First Served", they had Reservation tags on the site post. No signs of life at these 10+ campsites, as we drove by one after another, ourselves fully prepared and ready to camp. It was upsetting to be prepared and yet see others whom weren't be granted"reserved" access to so many FCFS sites. 

This is the consequence of allowing what should be called"Same Day Reservations", since it meant that people interested in camping SOME TIME over the holiday weekend came by the camp in-person and effectively RESERVED one of the many so-called"First Come, First Served" campsites. 

Can you imagine if this is how restaurants, or anything else, treated First Come, First Served? Campgrounds, especially when in such high demand nowadays and over holiday weekends, should not treat it this way. 

Unfortunately, Olive Ridge Campground does this to the extreme, leaving my fully prepared family out of luck despite being the ones to actually arrive first with our people and equipment, ready to camp. 

I understand this kind of poor practice doesn't only apply to Olive Ridge, but for a place that claims to have a lot of"First Come, First Served" sites, it's very misleading and negatively impacts those of us who took the proper time to be amongst the first ready to camp. Spontaneity feels almost possible these days when people are being allowed to game the system. If they won't change their rules, then we're stuck joining the others in gaming the system, which sucks for everyone.

This campground was easy to get to in a small Kia Forte. Fee was $18/night, reservations for some spots and a few are first come first serve with cash only. We had spot 17 and it was pretty spacious, could see other campers’ vehicles but couldn’t see or hear any people. Lots of trees for shade & hammocks. Spot included a picnic table, fire pit, bbq, tent pad, and bear box. My one complaint is there wasn’t much to explore beyond the campsite, a bit of trees but then it’s fenced off to the highway. We were close to the highway but only heard a few cars throughout the day, not a very busy road.

Spots 1-46 First Come/first serve. No water, no hookups, but beautiful forest around and very spacious. We love it

Olive ridge is a 15 - 25 minute drive from RMNP entrances, and close to Estes Park. Sites on the South end of the campground offer less privacy than sites towards the North. Bear lockers are available at every campsite. Most sites have space for one car, some have space for two. The vault toilets nearest the tent campsites experience high traffic and smelled pretty bad but were stocked with toilet paper. I'd recommend that you walk a bit to find a vault toilet closer to the RV sites since they get used infrequently and were generally cleaner. Hosts are active and offer firewood and matches for sale. Most campsites are partly/fully shaded. Some sites can fit two tents but not together on the tent pad unless they are small.

This camp is located a mile away from Allenspark. Most sites are well protected from the sun and there are a lot of trees. Access to the back end of Rocky Mountain National Park is 10 minutes walking distance through County Road 84. There are very demanding trails In this part of the Park. If you want to get less difficult trails, the one next to the old gallery in Allenspark is great (Fox Creek or Rock Creek loops). There is free internet access by the old gallery. No cell reception available at the camp.

Great campground near Allenspark, with a number of first come first serve spots available Friday morning (mid July). Only mark against Olive Ridge is the lack of drinking water.

Camping alone is always nerve wracking, but having people nearby was a nice saftey feeling, but they weren't too close. I stayed in #6 and had trees blocking my neighbors. Bear locker and campsite was clean except for cigarette butts that were not picked up by previous campers. Regardless was a great spot, near Meeker Lodge if you really needed a shower, they have public ones, and a small little market inside including ice. Bathrooms were clean and stocked with toilet paper. Would def stay here again. No service on phones!

Acres large campsite that opens to a boulder studded meadow. A little tight backing through the trees but doable. The roadway runs by so there is some traffic noise. Otherwise nearly perfect. No water. Here mud June and there are open spots FF. No one stays all that long with no water at hand.

No water currently, sites are $17.25 a night. Nice spot in Ponderosa pine forest, about 10 minutes from the Wild Basin area of Rocky Mountain National Park. Sites seemed mostly spread out for some room between neighbors. Camp hosts were friendly and attentive. Pit toilets were clean, though I could see them getting smelly as the summer wears on. Campground could use a little love from the USFS. Another review mentions last years forest fires wiping this out — that’s not at all true.

Great experience! Had tent pads and bear lockers! Cute area!

I stayed here with some family 2 weeks ago. Even though it’s off the main road you feel tucked away with the tree coverage and large sites. We stayed near the entrance but it didn’t feel very busy. There are some sites in the back with big boulders that re pretty cool. Some sites were reserved, others FCFS. camp hosts were friendly and helpful. I’d stay here again!

There are Pit toilets and no water. If you go down the road about a mile, there’s a frontage road that you can take to a drinkable spring water hut where you can fill up for free. They do have a post for donations. There is an art/community center on the left before you turn off to the business/frontage road. The ladies were very helpful with local spot recommendations. We bought a few things to help out. They also have free WiFi.

My partner and I loved staying the night here! The workers were so friendly and always checked in to have friendly conversations with all the campers. The bathrooms were clean and the campsite was so easy to get to. Nearby some decent trails off of 113N to get up Meeker via Horse Creek Trail. Would highly recommend it.

Stayed at walk in site #21 mid week.  Great campground and site, close to vault toilet and pretty good spacing from other sites.  Close to road but no road noise to be heard.  Campground is pretty large, mostly wooded and some sites have great rock features.  This is bear country and we heard dogs barking at bears much of the night.  Lock your stuff up!  Campground hosts were really nice.

The forest around this campground is gorgeous. The sites are nice but can be hard to get a FCFS at busy times. The bathrooms were not so nice and there is no water. I really enjoyed how close it was to Estes Park but not in the town so it was very quiet.

Very nice, well-maintained campground near Wild Basin section of Rocky Mountain National Park.  No water on site but it is available a short distance away from Crystal Springs in Allenspark (https://sites.google.com/site/apwaterandsanitation/gui-information/crystal-springs)

A mixture of reserved and walk-up sites.  Campground hosts were helpful trying to accommodate those who arrived without reservations but found campground full [a fair number of sites with reservations were not occupied during our stay].

Nice tent pads on all sites and bear boxes.  Site sizes vary and larger RVs had difficulty with tight turns or limited space in some sites.  Some noise from highway even on sites furthest from road, but not generally an issue.

I have loved this campground for several years now. What was once quiet, close to cool towns, and clean, now feels crowded, groups are loud at night, and cars can be heard on the nearby highway. The worst of it all though, is there are a few residential sites on either side of the campground. One blasts music all day each day and the other has two dogs that bark incessantly at night. I am not sure I’ll be staying here much more. It’s too bad.

Had a reservation for 2 nights but ended up only staying one due to the freezing cold and down pouring rain. Campground was nice, clean, well cared for. We did see some scrapes on a bunch of trees- moose? Bears? Not sure. Was a bit of a drive into Estes and RMNP with a ton of construction going on. When the construction is over that should be a nice short drive.

We stayed here for a night when we wanted to explore Boulder, but this campground is close enough to the Estes Park entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park that you could use it as your base for exploring the east side of RMNP. You can get up there in about 20-25 minutes. 

Tip: Don't pay attention to a 'Campground Full' sign early in the day, especially at campgrounds with non-reservation sites. People leave every day, even on a Saturday in July. Sites 1 through 25 and 38 (cool site) are non-reservation sites, and we managed to get site 7 at 9 am when we noticed people packing. They told us they'd be out in less than an hour; we paid the fee, put our tag on the post, and waited out front.

This campground has the usual 'amenities' of a Forest Service campground in Colorado (tent pad, food locker, fire ring, cooking grill, vault toilets) except water. Water spigots throughout the campground were wrapped up.  We always carry plenty of water to Forest Service campgrounds just in case.

The non-reservation loop has more private sites than the reservation loop especially if you have a tent. You can hide pretty far back on sites 5, 19 and 20 (and possibly others). This campground also has shade provided by pineand aspen; the pine beetle infestation is not prevalent in this part of Colorado south of RMNP's east side.

The sites in the center of the reservation loop are like one big open neighborhood. The trees are nice, but you can see all your neighbors. If you want privacy, stick to the outside of the loop if you have a tent. You can pitch your tent fairly far away from the road at some sites. (I love tents/tent sites but I don't like to sleep on the ground anymore. We have a teardrop.)

But....the coolest site is #38, and it's not reservable. See the photo. It's not very private, but the big rock is something no other site has. #34 all by itself on the inner part of the loop also looks cool.