We stayed at Lone Duck for a single night in the beginning of August because we wanted to check out Pike’s Peak before starting the drive home from our 3 week road trip. It’s a relatively small campground, but extremely welcoming and one of the best campgrounds that we stayed at during the trip. It’s located close to the main route through the area, but not level with the road so you don’t hear the road noise at night. Our water / electric site was level and backed up to a small brook, which was peaceful and full of little critters (squirrels, chipmunks, woodpeckers). The heated pool is awesome (and pretty darn warm!), the little trout pond is nice for the kids (you have to pay $6 for each fish that you catch, though, and there is no catch and release), and they have a really great arcade in the main office game room. About 15 arcade games total, 1/2 of which are pinball machines. The restrooms have large shower stalls and are well-maintained and clean. There is a smaller camp store and fishing equipment that you can borrow if you did not bring your own. They also have a small grill and they do breakfasts some mornings and I’m assuming some dinner options some evenings as well. We opted for the $5 pancake breakfast in the morning which included 2 large pancakes, side of meat (bacon / sausage), and coffee / juice, which isn’t bad. The campground hosts (who cooked the breakfast as well) were very nice, and the overall atmosphere of the campground is quaint and welcoming.

The area is cool and we enjoyed going up to Pike’s Peak. My family thought it would be better to go up on the cog railway train rather than driving the auto road, so that’s what we did. I would have preferred to drive at our own pace and be able to take pictures and really enjoy the mountain views, but my husband and two kids (8 and 10) loved the train ride. It was pretty expensive for the tickets, but the ride up was peaceful and informative (the announcer speaks quickly and is difficult to hear sometimes, but is a wealth of knowledge) and we saw a ton of marmots, some pika, some deer, and some bighorn sheep. The weather was not fantastic and we couldn’t see a darn thing at the peak, so it was OK that we only had 45 minutes at the top to scarf down some donuts, take some pics, and hop back on the train.

We ate dinner at Colorado Mountain Brewery (NOT the Roundhouse location) and it was horrible. The service was terrible, the food was awful (except the pretzel appetizer, which was great), and the beer was the worst. Would not recommend!!

However, the campground was GREAT, and I would definitely recommend it if you’re in the Pike’s Peak area.