Best Equestrian Camping near Encampment, WY

Big Creek Lakes Campground, Colorado (close to Wyoming border): camping here is only open for 3 months out of the year: June, July & August. It's camping at over 9,000ft elevation and requires for you to be extra prepared for snow even in the summer months, bears, mountain lions, mosquitos, aggressive horse flies, leeches, strong winds, thunder storms and altitude sickness. They do provide water which tastes fresh like newly melted snow. You can boat, fish, even hunt at some spots with a permit, hike, and swim at your own risk (can be cold, leeches, snakes). It is truly beautiful up here and the drive up the Poudre river makes it worth it. You can also spend the day rafting down the river or fishing.

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!)

This is a nicely placed campground up buff pass round outside of steamboat springs. It's the first camping you will come to on buff pass. It sits directly across for spring creek hiking trail and plenty of other hiking trail around. Also mountain biking serves as an option for the majority of the trails. Small directional loop serves all sites, In a moderate/heavily wooded area. Can remember how many site there are, but i think it was around 15-20? Fairly busy campground on the weekends. Pretty light traffic during the week. Alternatively is to drive up biff pass road( recommended higher clearance vehicle) to summit lake CG.