Best Equestrian Camping near Norwood, CO

Nice little campground on the Million Dollar Highway heading between Durango and Silverton, with the Colorado Trail passing right through the campground. There is a main road with sites spread out over a few close ridges, and a small loop that ends in at the day use parking and vault toilet. It seemed that the “group” sites were closest to the vault toilets next to the day use parking, which could present an issue as it was very busy. The “group” sites were very crowded, which could have been just too many people in a small area, or the area could have been just too small.  Sites further away from the toilets were more spacious, but no site was huge. All sites seemed to have good hammocking trees. It seemed the best sites were the ones closest to the entrance: the parking pads were up next to the road and the tent pads and fire rings were set back from the road down a steepish grade. This was a great spot to camp as a home base for hiking the Colorado Trail. There are great trails heading out of the campground in both directions. The usual picnic tables and fire pits could be found at all sites we looked at.

We stumbled upon this campsite through Dyrt. We left on a 10 day honeymoon to the mountains with no real plans. This was our first time to the Silverton area and this spot was perfect for us to spend two nights. The spot we camped at was the first one when you pull in. This spot would be great for large campers or campers with horses/trailers. It had several large pines for us to put our tent between to help with the rain coverage as it rained both nights we were there. This spot is closer to the highway but we weren't there during the day and at night there was not a lot of road noise. We did have to drive to the bathrooms from this site due to the rain and distance. Would stay here again.

According to the campground host our site (16E) is one of the most desired sites.  The site has 30 amp electric service.  It is adjacent to flush toilets.  A few steps from the back of the site is a nice view of the reservoir.   The site offers ample space for a tent in addition to the back-in paved pad that accommodated our 32 ft truck/trailer combination.   A picnic table and fire ring is provided.  Numerous trees offer shade and privacy.  

The roads and pads could use some maintenance.  At one time a nice dump station was provided but has since been abandoned.  We dumped at the Maverick's in Cortez.

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.