Best Equestrian Camping near Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests

This is for "Soap Creek Corral/ Coal Mesa Horse Camp" dispersed camping not the actual Soap Creek Campground. There were spots at the formal campground but they were small, unconcealed, and within close proximity to all other sites. However, there were true dispersed spots near the horse corrals where lots of horse trailers and off roaders park to ride the trails.

Off of HWY 50, we turned on to HWY 92 and then took FR 721 to FR 721 E where we turned and went right down to the proper campground before looping back out. We went out the same way in (FR 721) but split off onto the side road to find the horse corral area. Bear country. Pros/Cons: no mobile service, primitive, right next to a creek, lots of OHVs, milky way visible, mountain views, shade, creek sounds at night.

We decided to try this campground out on a whim, unsure how it would turn out. I’m glad to say it blew our expectations away! The campground was very well kept and quiet which is super hard to find nowadays. Many of the sites are shaded by the trees and the nearby creek provides soothing background noise during nights. Trails near the sites are very accessible. Views are gorgeous.

One warning: the road in gets narrow at times so if you’re bringing an RV or a larger sized car be extra cautious.

This has been our favorite campground in Colorado so far. I give this a 9/10!

It was an hour and fifteen minute drive up. The road was very windy and gravel/dirt. It wasn't too bad until the turn off to the campground. That road was almost all dirt. Wash out in some places. Single width for most of it. We trucked along though. We got to the campground and we could see one site from the trailhead, which is also where the restrooms were. It was occupied but looked nice. Plenty of space to park and a lot of space to set up a big camp. However, the other sites were down a much narrower road, that had water crossing it. We opted to not venture down that road. It is a free campground. About 25 miles from the 141 turnoff. You have to really want to be in the middle of nowhere. It is so secluded that not a soul will find you if they didn't know you went. Side note, we did read that the road gets dangerous when wet, we totally can see that as the case, which is one reason we left. Although it didn't really look like rain when we started, it definitely was going to rain once we got there. I imagine with functioning four wheel drive (ours is broken) it might not be so bad, or a jeep, that would probably work great. Being a single width road, it does get kind of scary on the huge cliffs to have to pass a vehicle, we were fortunate enough to be on the inside and pulled off as much as we could, but the other drive stopped next to us and said his wife was freaking out since she was on the cliff side. It was, however, the only car we saw on that road for our two hour drive.