Bow River

The Bow River area has some beautiful scenery with rivers, trees, meadows, wild flowers, and wildlife. The forest service road into the campground is in great shape, and although it's a little rocky, there are no pot holes or rutted terrain. We made reservations for 3 nights, but only stayed 2, primarily because of a serious mosquito infestation. But that's nature and if you want to be in it, you have to be prepared for nature's unexpected turns. Just beware and prepared if you're visiting in June. 

The forest along the dirt roads are obviously big logging areas with clearcut swaths (no selective cutting) and grounds littered with slash. These areas are unsightly and make you wonder what kind of forest service management is being observed. It appears to be about satisfying a lumber industry instead of preserving the health and beauty of our national forests. 

What we weren't prepared for was the obvious neglect of the campground itself with seemingly little to no supervision or maintenance. We reserved and paid in advance for two campground sites at Bow River for ourselves and another couple. We arrived to find no posting of any reserved signs at either site. Luckily, there were few people there when we arrived so our sites were open and available to us. We're still wondering what we could have done if our sites had already been occupied by other campers. 

We also quickly discovered that no water could be collected from the handpump. Thankfully, we brought some water with us, but our friends had none so we had to be very frugal about our use of the little water we shared. We also gave one kettle of water to 4 young men who arrived with no water at all. They were forced to leave the next morning because of it. I still have not been able to find anything on rec.gov warning people that the campground has no drinking water available. This is irresponsible and, at the very least, creates an inconvenience/hardship for those who are paying to stay there. There is an assumption that the information being provided and the services being sold are accurate.  People arriving at this campground have traveled at least 19 miles on a dirt road with no facilities to get there. Are they just supposed to leave again and travel that same distance out if they have no water with them? 

Finally, the bathrooms were quite run down and dirty. The pits themselves seemed as though they had been cleaned out, but the doors were rotting and the floors were littered with paper and covered with dirt. 

We never saw any campground host, supervisor, manager, or employee of any kind. We did meet one man who circled the campground once, told us he was the campground host, and said he was looking at the sites for the first time. He was camped somewhere else and was told that his job was to drive to Bow River to colect any registration envelopes that might be in the iron collection box that was old and partially hidden behind some bushes, making it hard to locate. There also was no sign on the box.

The website claims "Open for 2024 Season!," "Tent camping, Camping trailer, Picnic tables, Toilets, Drinking water, Parking."

The bottom line is that this campground is sadly neglected. Too bad the forest service isn't paying attention.

The area and campground are nice. Right on the River and the sites are relatively level. But damn there were a lot of mosquitoes. I don’t mean like a few dozen or hundreds… I mean millions. It was like a horror movie with them covering the windows of our RV and then sneaking down the Refrigerator ventilation shaft. We are sucked dry. I swear I saw one or two big enough to carry away a full grown grizzly.

This is on the edge of the main part of Medicine Bow National forest, not too far from interstate 80. The Medicine Bow river runs through camp. Make sure to get a map (or download) so you can get around all the paved and dirt roads around here. Apparently this is a great area for ATVs but we didn’t see or hear any in use. You can catch views of Elk Mountain (?) and even the Rockies from around here. There is good hiking nearby but not really at the campground. The campground is wooded but sites aren’t too shady. Nice low key simple spot. No reservations but don’t worry about not getting a site.

I wasn't sure what to expect when we went camping over the 4th of July, but it wasn't this! I am not the biggest fan of campgrounds because they are usually packed, noisy and not a fun way to 'get away from it all'. This campsite was perfect though, as there were only a couple of other groups camping! I don't know if it was too far for people to get to, didn't have a water feature, or what made this campsite not full over the holiday weekend, but I couldn't have been happier. It is so easy to get to this site, as all you have to do is drive on a groomed road. My husband and I took our son on a multi day camping trip, and after deciding against a couple of sites, we discovered this one. It made for a great night of camping. I guess the only thing that I didn't like were the bathrooms. I know, it's a campsite, but they were very smelly, and I made my trips quick. Other than that, I have no complaints.