Best RV Parks & Resorts near Nucla, CO

If you are looking for a quiet and serene camping experience in the winter, this is your campground. Ridgeway State Park has one loop open during the winter in Dakota Terraces. They have winter rates. And they have great cell signal if you have Verizon and supposedly AT&T. (There’s a cell tower in one of the park’s campgrounds.)

[Internet. Verizon via iPhone 12: 14 mbps down and 4 mbps up with 51 ms ping.]

Read all the campground details straight from the park’s website before winter camping. Keep in mind the guest services building is closed for the winter. That means no laundry or showers. The restroom building is open. The dump station is open but the water fill is shut off. You can, however, fill you tanks up using the water spigots throughout the campground. We use a 5-gallon jerry can to transport the water. We’ve been here through a winter storm and they haven’t frozen yet. They also plow the roads.

The visitor center is open which you should check out! There’s an overlook there. This time of year part of the reservoir is frozen. You can get loaner snow shoes at the visitor center! How awesome! Since it’s snowed almost a foot, we’ve been snowshoeing all over the park and through the trails and closed campgrounds.

There’s like 5 campsites occupied. It’s so quiet. We have our own little winter wonderland.

Fantastic national forest campground. Mountain views all around. Woods Lake itself was a short hike away. Enjoyed fishing there with beautiful views. The campground is over 9400 feet in elevation. I did some huffing & puffing while walking around there. Our campsite, #4, was narrow & deep; no problem for a camper van. It has a table, metal fire ring/grill, lantern poll and a tent pad set back deeper in the woods. Surrounded by aspens. Camped there in early June. Vault toilets were not yet open, but clean portable chem toilets were provided. Potable water stations were not yet turned on. Helpful camp host was on duty. Firewood was available at $10/bundle. Our site, as well as others, were private & reasonably separated from others. No shower and hookups. Deer everywhere. Saw sign of mountain lions & bears on the nearby hiking trails. This is one of the prettiest national forest campgrounds that I ever camped in.

This area is one of the best places to set up a base camp for exploration and adventure. Busted Arm Draw is free and the designated campsites are dispersed, making each site quiet and private.

Right off 44ZS (Lone Cone Road), there’s easy access National Forest access to gravel and 4x4 roads that connect Norwood to Telluride, Rico, Dunton, Dolores, & Naturita. There is great boating and excellent fishing right down the road at Miramonte Reservoir (Dan Noble State Wildlife Area), as well as the San Miguel River. And the area is in close proximity to the Thunder Trails (mountain and dirt biking). And there are a number of NF trails around the Lone Cone. Lone Cone Road itself is along a designated OHV route from Norwood to the National Forest.

The road thru the camping area is very well maintained gravel. Each area is designated with signage and has a fire ring. To protect the vegetation, travel off of designated areas is not allowed. The sites are pull-in, and many are pull-thru, and all can fit large rvs and trailers.

The entire area sits at about 8,000 ft in ponderosa forest. Many of the sites have excellent views of the Lone Cone mountain. The area is a designated dark sky zone, the night sky and the stars will blow your mind!

In the winter, the area closes and locals turn the road into nordic/x-country ski trails. The large parking area at the entrance becomes a snowmobile staging area also. The parking are remains open and is perfect winter camp spot.

Facilities were a five. Unfortunately as guests we weren't allowed to use them. There is a main community building with a workout center, games, big screen TV, laundry, showers, and pool. I would have liked to have worked out in the AM but was confused by if the facility was intended to be available for us and again, judging by pool hours and the locked door, was closed. The pool had very limited hours- opening at ten and closing at seven. The long term families essentially told us we were not welcome- my son was told by one child that he shouldn't go in because he didn't live there. I went to check out the pool after a long day and the owner's family was using the lodge as a living room, it felt awkward and intrusive to go into the lodge to get to the pool. There was a wagon complete with hay outside that fascinated the kids because they loved the idea of a hayride, but no mention of how to get one if it was offered.

There were tons of outside games- shuffleboard and basketball, but no mention of where you could borrow items to use them. If it was the camp store, the hours inhibited that because most families won't be back from sightseeing in time.

The camp store had super limited hours, and although you were supposed to check in here, it closed at three.

When we arrived we were assigned a spot that was decent enough, but had two hoses attached to the spigot. One was going to the spot of a long term guest and the other to a hose used by the campground. The sewer connection was buried under discolored gravel. I paid a little extra for this premium spot. There was a piece of plywood by the connections. I felt like if you are assigned a spot it should be ready for use. Allowing another guest or maintenance to use the spigot leaves the guest in the awkward spot of finding the owners or not using the water spigot.

While we were driving around to find our spot, we drew the attention of the residents, which felt a bit territorial?

If the owners hired more outside staff to keep facilities open longer and were more welcoming to short term guests, this place would easily be worthy of the resort name and could charge a bit more. There are mild signs of neglect- wire fencing tacked up in dog park area, playground overgrown a bit, landscaping with lots of dead grass (but I believe it was due to weed killer being used to get overgrown vegetation under control). The long term sites had very tall grass and weren't very tidy.

The landscaping showed signs of being refreshed, which was positive. The buildings are in good repair.

The owner himself was nice enough and quick to reassign us. I think it is safe enough, so if you want to keep to yourself and not be able to use the facilities, this is the place for you. It does, however, seem to be in an identity crisis. It can't decide if it is essentially a trailer park geared towards RVs or if it is a resort. At this time of the year, it should easily be booked solid with overnight guests, but wasn't. The short term guests typically don't receive the discount long term residents get, so I feel they should have access to all facilities. I have been to true resorts where no distinction was made between guest types and they had a more welcoming feel. I booked through the dyrt when the campground website showed spaces were not available. Most guests will go through the direct website and I was confused by the discrepancy. In summary, great bones but confusing business model.

The best thing about this park was the location. It is located close to Ouray and many activities in the area. The park also offers beautiful scenery and it is a wonderful Basecamp for exploring the area. There is a state park nearby with a beautiful lake and kayaking. There are hiking trails nearby and many wonderful off road four wheel trails.

The park can accommodate big rigs and we were able to get our 38 foot 5’er into the parking and into a spot, but I would not call the park big rig friendly due to tight turns and small sites.

Amenities include a nice camp store, laundry facilities, restaurant with a nice outdoor deck, on property horseback riding, on property jeep rental, hiking trails. There were bathrooms and showers at the back of the property but it was too far to walk from the front of the property so we never used them. The laundry facilities are a little small for this sized park and we weren’t able to do laundry because it was too busy.

One big problem was electrical outages during 100° weather. The electrical system in the park just cannot keep up. Luckily we had solar and were able to maintain AC until evening hours.

There is one small hot tub that was usually very busy we didn’t use that either.

There are nice tent camping spots.

Most of the people in the park Had four wheelers or motorcycles for off-road trails. The off-road trails in this area are amazing and shouldn’t be missed. We took a tour from Ouray and thoroughly enjoyed it.

We took a horseback ride from the park and had a lovely time. The horses were very safe and great for a family experience. They also offer 15 minute rides for children.

We would stay again if we were in the area.

Pretty campground with grass at the sites, a river a short walk away (there's a good portion of the campground with riverside sites, but limited for larger rigs). We were up by the highway, so the traffic was loud and the neighbors were fairly close. Not too terrible, and nothing a fan couldn't drown out at night. Could not park our tow vehicle at our site, but got a spot nearby across the road. We had some long term neighbors that let their dogs poop around our hookups, so the day we left was a nightmare. But that's not the campground's fault. They just need to enforce dog cleanup a little more maybe.