Best Equestrian Camping near Walden, CO

Drove a long ways to find out the gate isn’t open like prior post of members and will not open until June 15 on the steamboat side as posted at gate. We drove to the east side from Walden to find out you can’t even make it to the gate as the road has way too much snow cover yet even with a 4 wheel drive . That side isn’t expected to open until mid July . But plenty of camping on the east side leading up to the pass .

This is one of my all-time favorite places to hike and camp in Colorado. I have not yet stayed in any of the campgrounds but have backpacked to the top of the American Lakes Trail. Not only is this hike fantasticly beautiful and full of wildlife (tons of moose especially) but there is great dispersed camping along the trails. You simply cannot find more scenic and free camping in Colorado. I would highly recommended camping anywhere in State Forest State Park!

Also, there are quite a few huts, cabins and yurts that can be rented year round in SFSP!

You had better stock up before you head out to State Forest State park but WOW definitely a stop. There is no gas or groceries til Walden. Beautiful and sweeping vistas. Visit ranger lakes. Totally worth it. Lake Agnes was still closed when we were there. NO service.

A lovely wooded campground literally on the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park - we even saw moose from the back window of our RV!  Options for everyone from cabins, to FHU RV sites (limited and not the ideal locations, but still nice), water/electric sites and tenting areas.  Even Conestoga wagons!  There is horseback riding on site and we loved watching the horses run in and out each morning/evening and you just have to cross the road for a pretty hike along the Colorado River in RMNP (no dogs on the trails).  We camped with our Great Dane - very dog friendly with bag stations around the park.  Friendly and helpful staff, a small shop with supplies and souvenirs, a cute little petting zoo with goats, sheep, and pigs.

This is a beautiful campground with lots of family-friendly activities to do.  They have direct access to the headwaters of the Colorado River.  We visited a little late in the season (August) to catch many fish, but we still had fun.  We found some tailwaters below the big lakes and caught some trout on the fly rods.  

This site is minutes away from an entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park.  We got up early and hiked a trail in RMNP and had a few moose walk right past us.  It is also close by to the major lakes of the area.  

They rent ATVs and lots of people bring their own horses to this campground to enjoy the many back-country trails that begin at the back of the property and go high up into the mountains.  

Facilities were well kept and clean.

After driving for nearly 4hrs to find a spot in any of the first come first serve camp grounds up Poudre Canyon we started to head home only to pull into Pingree Park for one last cry for help... we stumbled upon Jack’s Gulch, a little hidden gem, tucked inside a cute mountain trek to the CSU campus at Pingree Park. It didn’t have any “water features” like a stream or a river but it was a quick car ride to find that. The spots were clean, noise was minimal, and there were bathrooms if you needed them. A lot of options as far as camping goes - electrical sites, walk up sites, equestrian sites, and mixed use (what I like to call a mixture of tent and RV). There were also trails all around the campsite that were accessible for bikes, or hiking. It was definitely a Father’s Day to remember. Oh yea, some coyotes at night definitely woke us up! I don’t believe they made it to the campsite but they were close 😳

Winding River Resort is a hidden gem. There are plenty of campsites and a few cabins. All spaces are well laid out with plenty of space between each spot. The facilities are clean and provide everything you need for a great stay.

Be sure to book a horseback ride and get to the cowboy pancake breakfast on the weekends. (Pro tip: Bring a couple eggs for the cooks to throw on the griddle while cooking your pancakes!). If you enjoy trout fishing, be sure to explore the North Fork of the Colorado River that flows through the southend of the property. If you have a disc golfer in the group, bring the discs to play a round or three on the 9-hole course throughout the campground.

Moose have a tendency to wander through the campground toward the evening and the local elk herds like to eat with the horses. There are bear in the area, so take the proper precautions with your food and cooler storage.

Winding River is close enough to Grand Lake to get out and explore for the day and you have easy access to nearly all amenities between Grand Lake and Fraser, in case you forgot something. The cabins look great, but we have not stayed in them during our visits.

To say we love Beaver Meadows would be a huge understatement. We spend just about every other weekend there all year long - winter and summer. We got married there in 2014 (as our photos show) and it was beautiful. The outdoor wedding area is amazing and right by a river. The reception hall for after is so cool with giant windows so you can look out in every direction on nature and you celebrate your big day. Ever since we've been hooked. They had cabins, condos, lodges, and camp spots so every guest had a place to stay the night.

When you pull around the corner and into the valley it takes your breath away every single time. Lush green fields, ponds, stunning mountain backdrops, wildlife, horses running free, people fishing and riding horses. It's a playground for adults and kids and it's only an hour from our house in Fort Collins - we can't stay away. They have a yummy restaurant too so we never even bring food - we just eat there.

In the winter we go snow tubing (12 + runs with a lift) and stay in one of their little heated cabins which is so cozy but also provides all the amenities of home (kitchen, bedrooms, entertainment, etc). We love to go up before a storm and watch the snow start to fall. In the spring and summer we are up there camping along the river all the time. Each site is unique so we like to change it up each time - we go hiking, horseback riding, and fish in the stocked ponds! There are some unique fish in there - really neat. In the fall we like to go up and do the "river walk" - a series of paths and bridges through tall foilage that feels like your in a different world. Watching the leaves change is awesome in the fall - compares to any drive you can do in the state - soooo many aspens.

If your looking for a romantic weekend with the significant other or a family vacation with the kiddos - I would highly suggest making the drive up - I bet you will fall in love with it just like we did and won't be able to stay away.

We camped here July 25th-29th, 2018 with our 5 children (4-13) in our pop up camper. 

First thing to know is this is a remote area of CO at 9,000+ ft. elevation. It is also an area that has been affected by wildfire (2016). It is still absolutely gorgeous!

Worst part—> You will have to travel down a gravel/dirt road for ~30 miles to get to the lake and campground. Sections of it are TERRIBLY washboarded. Plan for over an hour to navigate through. You will be rewarded at the end! 

There is zero cell service (we have Sprint and Verizon), no electric/water/sewer hook ups or bathhouses. There are pit toilets throughout the campground that appeared to be very well maintained and cleaned often. There are also numerous water spigots throughout with potable water. 

The sites are all HUGE, almost all are pull through and many offer beautiful lake views with trails directly from your campsite to the water. We were in site 14. It did not have a water view, but was still amazing. All sites are gravel and appear to be fairly level. Most have pine trees, boulders and other natural landscaping that adds to the beauty of the campground. Very nice metal fire pits and sturdy, large picnic tables (though many are slightly bowed) were present at each site we saw. Bear proof dumpsters were easily accessible. 

We had hundreds of chipmunks visit us each day to clean up the kids’ crumbs. We also saw antelope and deer on the drive in and several moose, elk and a coyote off the highway heading to RMNP. 

There are two trailheads in the campground, lots of areas to fish, a boat dock and horse corral. 

This was our very first run at dry camping. We were 10 hours from home with 5 kids! We may be crazy, but lots of memories were made and we are calling this trip a big success! 

This campground was only $10/night and a true hidden gem in the Rockies. (Those roads though...ugh!)

**Campground Review: **

We really enjoyed our stay at Estes Park at East Portal! I can’t say enough good things. We passed so many parking lot campgrounds and were so happy we chose here. We had trees! Our space was large enough to accommodate our 20 ft travel trailer with our truck next to it, still leaving plenty of room for the picnic table and a chair circle around the fire. We chose to park next to the camper so as to not obstruct the view. Water and electric and a large bear box were provided. Our spot A66 overlooked a little field that every morning a little fawn would come up out of and sniff around. My kids enjoyed playing with sticks and rocks in this little field-something every kid should get to do! We had beautiful views in 3 directions(bathroom behind us). Speaking of bathrooms, they were large and clean! Auto flushing toilets, toilet paper and hand soap! A cleaning crew came in often and quickly. Individual shower rooms make for a comfortable and private hot shower very welcomed at the end of a day of nearby hiking. Mule deer came through every evening right by our camper to eat grass. One morning 3 large Bull Elk and a young bull came through the valley and up through the campground. It was so surreal! The stars were stunning too. We saw shooting stars and even the northern lights (flashing kind not curtains). Then on our last day, a rainbow could be seen right next to the campground. We could not have asked for anything more! The camp hosts were all awesome and very helpful. The location was central to most things that we wanted to do. No cell service and it was glorious! But if we did need it, about a mile down the road we picked it back up. There is a geocache very near to the campground right by a hiking trail-my boys enjoyed marking it off their list . I could watch them walk to it from the site. On our first hike we saw horse back riders from the YMCA and stunning views including a small waterfall. Wildflowers were scattered across the mountainside and there is a small reservoir for fishing-though we didn’t. The air was so clean and you could smell the pines. The site next to us was a walk-in I believe as it cycled through a few times in a week. The playground was small but my kids were satisfied. There was a rock climbing wall and swings. My husband said the dump site was not positioned perfectly for our camper but we were so happy they had one. The office has a small little store with maps brochures and some essentials or souvenirs. If we go back to Estes Park, this is definitely where we will camp again.

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Product Review: 

As a Ranger for The Dyrt, I get products to test from time to time and this time we chose to review  Fiber Light.

https://fiberlightfs.com/collections/fire-starters-tinder/products/original-fiber-light-fire-starter

My husband has been showing our 12 year old some camping how to’s and this was a fun thing for them to mess around with. They used a spark wheel to get it going (survival mode they said lol) and it lit quickly and burned for a long time! We timed a large pinch and it burned for over 5 minutes. Lights immediately with a flame lighter. Comes in a large fully packed round tin with a thick rubber band around it to seal out moisture. My son was the first to try and was not able to get lit with his Firebiner (first time using that too), but my husband got it lit right away lighting the kindling and a log. I was impressed with how much time we had to get the rest of the fire set up! This will definitely be useful in a survival or long hike situation. Thumbs up from us!

We found State Forest State Park on a whim this past July 2018. We were on a road trip from California to Colorado for a wedding in Granby, CO. We were camping in Utah at Dinosaur National Monument, but due to the smoke from a nearby wildfire and the high heat of the summer, we decided to cut our stay one day short, and head over to the Rockies a day early. We wanted to be fairly close to our final destinations, Granby then RMNP, but wanted to go somewhere we hadn’t been before. My boyfriend and I are both animal lovers, and our dream was to finally see a moose on this trip out to Colorado. In researching moosey areas on the internet, we found the Moose Visitor Center at State Forest State Park. We figured that a place with a Moose Visitors Center was as moosey as it comes, so we reserved a site online and headed out to Colorado.

It was late afternoon when we arrived, but since we had already eaten, we didn’t have much to do besides set up our tent and sleeping pads for the night. Getting to the campground and visitors center is easy as they are both right off the highways 41 and 14, but it is quite a drive to get to, in general. The scenery is so pretty, that we did not mind the drive to or from SFSP. North Michigan Campground is right by a lake, it is pretty.

The sites are primitive - each site had picnic benches and a firepit, but at the time we visited there was a Stage 2 fire ban in place, so we couldn’t have a campfire. The fire ban included the burning of wood and charcoal - using a propane stove was OK.

There were pit toilets, and they were well maintained. The sites appeared to have once had more in the way of trees and shade, but it looks as though SFSP was hit by the pine beetles, like so much of Colorado. It’s sad to see the destruction the beetles left in their wake, and fewer trees mean less privacy and less shade for tent campers. We would have had a hard time setting up extra tarps in case it had rained that evening. Bringing an easy-up or canopy would be smart in the summer to protect against sun and heat, or a passing thunderstorm.

WARNING: You ARE in bear country and there were no bear bins in the campground - be bear safe and bear smart, lock all of your food and toiletries inside your car at night. I was once told by a ranger in Yosemite NP that bears can recognize coolers when peering into car windows, so we always put a towel and gear over our coolers when keeping them in the car overnight.

We packed up early and arrived at the Moose Visitors Center when they opened. The visitors center was educational and interesting, and the staff was friendly and knowledgeable and answered all of our questions. After studying some maps of the area with the rangers, we decided to try our luck driving along Highway 14 towards Fort Collins.

We stopped at various spots along the highway, and ended up walking around the Joe Wright Reservoir for a while. Thunderheads were rolling in, and some rain and thunder started, so we decided to start making our way back towards SFSP then head down to Granby, our next stop. We were around Cameron Pass and had given up on seeing any moose when we saw traffic slowing and cars stopped alongside the road - there were two young bull moose snacking by a small river on the side of the road! We pulled over, turned our hazard lights on, grabbed the camera, and jumped out to see our first moose. The moose seemed unconcerned by their growing audience, and continued to chomp away on their lunch - there was a small ravine between the moose and their human audience, so neither moose nor humans felt threatened.

According to the staff at the Moose Visitor Center, there are only about 1,000 moose in the entire state of Colorado - and here we stumbled across two moose at once! We were ecstatic, and so happy we made the impromptu, unplanned trip out to State Forest State Park! We returned to the Moose Visitors Center to share the experience with the rangers (they record the specifics of moose sightings in the area on a board), and the ranger gave us a high five for spotting our first ever moose.

I would like to return to the area someday to hike, I imagine the nearby trails must be goregous!

CAMPSITE SPECS

Fees: $18/night

Plumbed Toilets: NO - pit

Drinking Water: Yes

Showers: NO

Picnic Table: Yes

Firepit: Yes

Cooking Grates: Yes

Shade: Limited!

Cell Service: NO

Animal Bins/Food Lockers: NO

This is a really well run campground. They have tons and tons of activities on site and you could honestly spend your entire trip just at the campsite. They have horseback rides, ATV rentals, an animal farm, social events, pickle ball court, volleyball court, a nice general store, clean showers, bathrooms, laundry rooms, really everything you could ever want. The only downside is that it’s quite pricey, basically double what I would normally expect. But given the amount of amenities they have, it’s not surprising.

A cool fact is that you’ll be right next to the Colorado River. This is not far from where the river begins so its journey starts around here as a fairly unassuming creek.

Fee box at entrance with all current information.

"Reservation Only" 800-244-5613 or cpwshop.com or come to the Moose Visitor Center Campground is very open. Gravel sites with picnic table 

Electric $36.00 plus reservation fees Basic and tent $28.00 plus reservation fees Dispersed $18.00 plus reservation fees Small cabins $90.00 Large cabin $120.00 Yurts & Huts $80.00-$275.00 Backcountry no charge 

The park encompasses almost 71,000 acres. You will find a visitor center 187 campsites for RV and tent and over 60 dispersed sites, 15 cabins and yurts, boat ramps and 94 miles of hiking trails. There are all types or recreation throughout the year.  The park forest is being decimated by the Mountain pine beetle so the dead trees are being removed. This leaves a very stark deserted look. It is very difficult to observe the devastation that the state of Colorado is dealing with.

LNT 

Better than when you found it 

Stay safe and happy travels

Stayed here for a night while hitting up some local hikes. It's reservation only and was fairly full on a Saturday night so made sure to book a spot in advance.

The campsite has two entrances - one from the west passing North Michigan Reservoir and one from the South East which is basically from Lake Agnes Trailhead. We took the latter and luckily have a truck with a lift and skid plate otherwise would have been a really tough drive. So just a warning for those who don't - really rough!

For the campsite - really nice and spacious! Amenities like restrooms were really spacious, each spot had a table and nice fire ring, and lastly the gravel patch for tents, etc were in excellent shape. A nice mix of shade and open areas which we liked. The one downside - tons of mosquitoes. Likely hard to get away from considering the amount of rain received but was pretty brutal and had to stave them off towards sundown.

Overall a really nice campsite and the North Michigan Reservoir is a blast if you have a SUP. If you want a really low key, not terribly crowded, well maintained campground in a beautiful spot of Colorado check this out. State Forest State Park is amazing!

For those looking for dramatic scenery and endless wildlife, State Forest State Park should be at the top of your list. This is one of my favorite places in Colorado for hiking, backpacking, backcountry skiing and of course, camping! The campgrounds in the park are wonderful and offer plenty of amenities, this review in particular though refers to my experiences with the dispersed campsites in the park and my winter camping adventure near Montgomery pass. According to their web site, there are over 60 dispersed camping sites throughout the park. Due to the winter season of our trip in particular, we were snowshoeing to our campsite and didn’t go too far into the park. We approached along Montgomery Pass and camped at approximately site #416. This is a high elevation site and there was plenty of snow, so there was no access to toilets that we could find. However, there were toilets at the trailhead which were still open during our trip. Overall, I cannot express enough how wonderful this park is and all of the campgrounds and dispersed sites are very well maintained. For those looking for well maintained and scenic campgrounds, there are 4 awesome campgrounds to choose from. Those looking for more of an adventure should check out any of the dispersed sites throughout the park. Note that camp fires are not allowed in the backcountry. Also, this park is home to a large population of moose, and visitors should educate themselves on safety precautions specific to these giant and beautiful animals!

Stay tuned for my reviews of their campgrounds which are coming soon as well.