Vasquez Ridge

**Trying to find a campsite at 8pm on a summer Friday night?** When you've exhausted all of your options around Winter Park and Grandby, **come here**. Here there be campsites.

  

Dispersed camping at its finest, drive down a dirt road for ~1 mile and look for open pull-off spots. Some sites are easily visible from the road, while some are hidden down a slope about 700 feet. Each "site" is designated by a rocked fire pit and many have room for groups of 4 or more tents. Bring bug spray to combat the mosquitoes, and your own (dry) wood, as it rains at 2pm here almost every summer day. Plenty of trees for hammocking and shade. Animals are active in the area, so keep food in your car and sleep with protection (I chose bear spray).  

  

Be courteous to others using this road for recreation - Vasquez Ridge intersects with a few mountain bike trails and serves as a popular walk for the active seniors in the area. Closest grocery store is the Safeway in Winter Park (which closes at 11pm).

Here there be campsites (dispersed)

Great place to car/tent camp or for small trailer. Accessible with places on the river. Mosquitoes can be bad though. Nice biking, hiking and views. Close to Winter Park and access to Grand County. 

Amazing dispersed camping

These sites fill up fast on the weekends, and some of the sites seem to have RV's squatting on them for weeks at a time. Some sites are right on Vasquez Creek, while others are closer to the road. Bring inspect repellent, as the skeeters can get bad due to standing water. Park in the lot at the end of the road and hike beyond the gate to get away from the crowds - planet of tent camping up that way.

Several dispersed campsites up and down Vasquez Rd. 

Lots of spaces here with fire rings made by previous campers. No amenities or showers around, as expected with dispersed camping. It was fairly full the weekend that we went, and I think we got fairly lucky getting one of the last of the "set" spots to drive up to. Most spaces seem suitable for anywhere from 1-8 people, with a few larger areas for bigger groups as well. We saw a couple groups that seemed to have 20 or so people in it.

Even though it seemed pretty full on the way in, we never really heard anyone and the trees and distance between sites provided plenty of privacy. I would definitely go back again. 

Good Dispersed Camping

There are lots of sites on the left side of the road as you go up the hill. Many of the first ones were taken but they just kept going and were well spaced out. Some were closer to the road than others but there weren’t many cars passing by. We ended up with a fantastic site, lots of shade, a couple of stone fire pits and a short trail down to the creek that had another fire pit next to it. This would be a great spot for group camping as the sites we saw seemed decently large with spots for more than one tent. 

Great dispersed camping spots!

So many dispersed sites up here, runs right along the creek which is lovely to fall asleep to. Every site I saw had a fire pit built.

We drove up late Friday night and arrived at 11:15pm. A lot of the sites we could see were taken, so we will definitely go up during daylight hours next time so we can see more of the spots that are a bit further from the road.

The site we found was tucked back away from the road giving us nice privacy. We could barely see our neighbors from our campsite, but we could hear them. We saw a lot of sites that had lots of room for multiple tents and great trees for hammocking, but our site was a bit smaller, great for our large tent, but trees were not conducive for hammocking.

Our campsite was clean with no garbage, and just very small amounts of glass around the fire pit. Our site also had a nice log for sitting around the fire and we saw this at other sites too.

Many great sites

There are quite a few dispersed spots here that have great views - some sit right next to the creek and most have fire pits already in them. There are both drive in and hike in spots. It’s a beautiful area only 5 min from the town. The negatives are: heavily trafficked road and camp sites are nearby road so not overly peaceful. It’s busy on the weekends and fills up fast. Lots of shooting. 

Lots of spots

We drove on a Saturday afternoon from Denver without expecting to find any availability. To our surprise, we found probably the last spot available. The area was quiet if you are not close by to the road and most of the spots were clean. 
In general, we had a great weekend. 
Highly recommended. 

Great Place During COVID-19 Lockdown

Great place to get away from Denver. Many sites are right on the river. Not sure how many sites there are, but there are quite a lot, and many hidden in the woods that you can’t really see from the road. We love coming up here as it is a good balance of being in the wilderness, but still close to town if you need something. Just a heads up that it looks like they will be closing this road down for maintenance as of June 1 so be sure to check the status before coming

One of my favorites

Road was closed.  Angry man confronted us at base of road when we got out to stretch our legs.  Rated 3 cause pictures look cool, watch out for crusty locals.

Road closed!

Tried to go on Vasquez Ridge, but was closed on Winter Park side. We actually were able to go around on the Fraser side with Road 72 and it ran right into the other side of Vasquez. Lots of dispersed camping in the forest and next to a creek. Super peaceful. Close to hiking/biking trails. Please pack out what you pack in-lots of trash in the area.

Go around

Aug 2019 - Found a perfect little spot that was a close 5 minute maybe 1/2 mile in drive from Winter Park. Managed to make it in with a 2WD sedan. The road wasn't too bad and I'm sure I could have made it further on down the road had I tried. I found an already established spot that was fairly open just off the road with a rock fire ring. Due to the spot I chose and it's relative closeness to Winter Park there were often others driving by that could easily be heard/seen. There was a relatively steep drop of maybe 30 yards or so to Vasquez Creek. There is a decent little established trail that runs along the creek which offers nice views. If you are willing to park along the road and hike down to the creek there were a few open areas where others had set up fire pits right close to the creek. 

Would visit again

Jun 22: Areas to camp in are limited (thankfully)  and spread out.  Due to high traffic of campers BLM has posted "No Camping" signs along part of the road up until the fork.   And because of dry weather area is in a Stage 1 (no open fires). 
PLEASE, pack it in pack it out.  LEAVE NO TRACE. Winter Park relies on the Vasquez Creek for drinking water. 

Partial closures

So to say this is a confusing location would be an understatement. Initially when I turned onto Vasquez I saw this flashing sign saying "No Camping on USFS Roads 148, 156". I continued on the path and after a couple miles or so I approached all of the campsites which had the orange signs that read "No Camping".  I continued down the path and noticed there were people camping in some of the areas which had the sign posted. The coordinates provided will take you to the campsites which have the orange "No Camping" stickers. 

YOU HAVE TO DRIVE AROUND ~5 MILES DOWN THE ROAD TOWARDS THE INTERIOR, PAST THIS SIGN THAT READS "VASQUEZ WILDERNESS TH 1.8MI"

Camping is allowed beyond this point! When you face the opposite direction you will see this sign reading "No Camping Beyond This Point", and that has all of the orange signs posted up back towards the city. YOU MUST camp towards the back, so keep driving until you see the signs I mentioned. It is pitch black at night and there is no service (AT&amp;T). There is a creek or water source nearby to filter water, no bathrooms available that I saw. 

REMEMBER TO KEEP GOING PAST THE COORDINATES AND LOOK FOR THE SIGNS!

CAMPING IS AVAILABLE AND FREE!!

Tip: Like everyone says, go past all the 'No Camping Beyond this Point' signs and continue till you see more signs indicating the trails. You can camp down Vasquez past these signs. 

In all honesty, this was the most perfect campsite for someone who is relatively new to camping, as it is a 10 - 15 minute drive to Winter Park from your campsite, max.
I camped here for two days straight. The campsites are all laid out a good distances from one another. I camped in my car for both days and can say that most of the campsites can handle a car being backed into them. 

Perfect Camping Close to Town

Was a great find. Drove around to the more known campsites they were all full. Got back here a little ways and plenty of spots open beautiful view quiet.

Great find

Go past all the no camping signs until you see the green camping OK sign. Then there are lots of sites. We backed our 25 ft. RV into a spot right on the river. It had a nice fire pit, as did the two spots near us. Pretty empty in August