Sawmill Gulch

We returned in late August. The bugs are almost all gone. OHV traffic in the middle of the week is fairly quiet. There are only 5 dispersed sites along this road and it fills up on the weekend. Handcart and Hall Valley campgrounds are now closed for the season so it will fill up fast.

It’s hard to give this place a bad review as it is one of the most beautiful locations we have ever camped at. Other sites call it Hall Valley dispersed camping. We arrived on a Sunday evening around 5pm. The sites are all designated. CR60 is heavily used by OHVs and when the parking lots are full, they use the campsites to park their trucks and trailers so only 2 sites were available. We chose site 3 which sits on beaver ponds with spectacular views of the surrounding mountains. Unfortunately, the OHV traffic went into the late evening and the combination of engine noise and blaring music was disturbing. Also the dust they kick up blew across the site. That was only the beginning of the bad experience. The worst part was the insect infestation which we were not prepared for. Mosquitoes and biting flies were swarming due to the surrounding beaver ponds. Even with a good fire with some smoke we could not ward them off and they seemed to like our bug repellent. After one night of being eaten alive, we bailed for higher ground on Guanella Pass. The pros of this site are the spectacular views, hummingbirds, easy access on CR60 which does not require 4wd, we saw a beaver and you can drive right up to your site so great for tent/car campers. The cons are the OHV traffic, especially on a weekend and the intolerable insects. We will return in the fall when the insects should be calmer and will go in the middle of the week to avoid the OHVs.