Best Cabin Camping near Watkins, CO

Beautiful lakeside camping just outside of Denver. Campsites are a bit close together, but great for groups! No hookups here but you have bathroom facilities and a visitor center where you can buy firewood. Campfires allowed in the fire pits. If you have an RV beware quiet hours from 10pm to 8am, no generators allowed. Lake is perfect for paddleboarding, kayaking and fishing and you will most likely have phone service if you are with AT&T or Verizon. Many day use areas, however vehicles and individuals are charged. For campers, if you bring more than one vehicle you will be charged daily for any additional ones. No drinking water is available, you must bring your own. Dirt roads to the lake are rough and narrow. Close to Deckers for incidentals. Intersects with the Colorado trail for hiking and biking and close to the Colorado River for tubing!

Super close to Denver and offered through the City of Lakewood. The sites are for tent/RV and have electric hookups. Beautiful area. There's a few playgrounds within the campground and park area, with access to trails to the lake, a boat launch and boat rental, equestrian stables, and archery. You get a bench and fire pit at your site. Only drawback might be the bathrooms have no night lighting and you have a dumping station instead of sewage hookups. Also water is available but not at the site. But all in all a really great find and affordable for the area!

We stayed at loop A of Reverend’s Ridge for 1 night on our way to California. We were the only ones in the campground and the views are gorgeous. Fire ring and picnic table at each site. The road to and in the campground was plowed. Pets allowed. Tons of beautiful hiking trails.

Things to keep in mind when visiting in the winter- water is not available, there are vault toilets near the pay area but not in campground itself. The GPS will tell you to take mountain base rd to the campground but it is closed for the winter. You need to take highway 46 to 119 to Gilpin road (see map).

Appears to be kid and pet friendly or just a nice place to stay overall but I will tell you first hand it was not. I’ve never in my life spent so much money to be treated with so little respect in my life. My family and our dogs stayed for a week (mind you we are quiet and keep to ourselves, our kids are respectful and we always clean up after our pets) during this time we had a woman that worked here at our camper at least 50 times a day “checking in on us” first thing was she didn’t like our solar lights we put out so we could see to put our shoes on when we had to make midnight doggie deposit runs (and not have to turn on our big light and disturb our neighbors)… next big thing was it rained for 3 days straight while we were here… which didn’t phase my kids who strapped on their rain gear and went to play on their play equipment… when the rain stopped and the sun came out- the same woman came knocking to let us know my kids had gotten their play equipment muddy and she expected them to go clean it off- which was no problem I sent them with the broom and some spray bottles. Little did I know, she was going to have someone power wash it 25 min after they had spent all day scrubbing and cleaning it… but my final straw was our last night here… we had left for a few hours to go do some things and we came back and my 2 year old daughters wagon (very clearly not a utility wagon- it’s pink!) was completely full of all the pet waste from the day I’m guessing, with a note taped to it saying “dump pet waste here” needless to say I’m fuming at this point.

As far as the facilities… We paid for 50 amp power and full hook ups for the duration of our visit- they instead put us in a 30 amp campsite (which is not a big deal we had adapters) but for the price difference I’m a little pissed looking at how we were treated. The shower houses are nice.. And the price gouging in the store is outrageous… almost 600% markup for even just a cold drink. I will try to add a positive note, as I try to do for even places such as these- they did have a very nice wash room for laundry. But having only one dryer that kinda worked (2 hours to dry a small load of laundry) kinda ended up being another strike against them as well. I’m not one to be nit picky, nor am I petty.. but how I was treated was completely outrageous. -20/10 makes me reconsider ever staying at a KOA again if this is how they are allowed to treat their campers!

Also beware of the goat heads! They’re everywhere. I got one in my foot, my son got one in his bike tire, and we had a flat on the camper due to one. When I say they are thick, they are THICK.

We love to visit Golden Gate Canyon State Park early in the season because it is very busy all summer.  This is our second stay at the park in March, and we have had wonderful snow both times.  

The Reverends Ridge campground has limited sites available this time of year but is still well maintained.  The campground office restrooms were open, heated and clean.  Trash dumpsters were available as were recycling cans. The electric hookups were on. There is no water available except in the restrooms. 

The campsite (C-35) parking area was plowed open to exactly the width of our trailer, so with more than three feet of snow on the ground we needed to get some exercise and do a bit of shoveling so we could back in and be able to walk along side the trailer and open the door! .More snow was falling as we set up but the scenery was absolutely magical.  About 25 yards of more shovel work made it so we could find and dig out both the table and fire pit provided.  We had a warming fire going in no time.  

Golden Gate is a wildlife paradise and as we worked we could hear Turkeys calling form the trees.  We were also graced with the presence of four huge Moose who had taken up residency and were lounging in the snow.  In the distance we could hear the yips and howls of coyotes.  

Snow graced us for the first of our Friday to Sunday stay, but warmer temperatures  arrived Saturday afternoon and the great daytime thaw and evening freeze common to Colorado mountains in springtime began in earnest.  This made for some cautious walking around the snow piled nearly everywhere. 

One of the great things about this park is the winter activities available on the many trails, and the added benefit of Nederland, Black Hawk, and Central City Colorado being within easy driving distance for some small town amenities if desired.  This is a great park, and my wife is wishing to visit when there is no snow!   😎