It’s clear that the owners really care about their campground and their guests. Our site was level, and there was plenty of grass all around the campsite.

The owners would frequently drive the campground in their ATV and were quick with a wave and a “Hello!”.

We only stayed one night as this was a weekend getaway with out the kids, but we will definitely return.

We had the good fortune to stay at the Lakeside KOA during our recent trip to Fort Collins. The sites are spacious, and the campground is run well.

Talk about luck! We had one of two RV sites up near the lake. They were incredibly roomy, level, and shaded! There is a fantastic walking trail around the lake and saw a good number of fellow campers fishing off of the pier.

The staff was very friendly and attentive, and the restrooms were clean and private. The only issue that we ran into was the Cottonwood trees were blowing their seeds when we were there (second week in June). Definitely felt like it was snowing but having the trees and shade was well-worth the annoyance of shaking off the cotton seeds.

We highly recommend this well-run and spacious KOA if visiting the Fort Collins area. Oh… as of June 2021, you do need to have reservations to enter Rocky Mountain National Park. Highly recommend booking well in advance, but if you forget or didn't know, the NPS does release 25% (or 33%… can't remember exactly) of the next day's passes the night before precisely at 5pm. We had three of us online at 5pm, and all three of us were able to access passes (only one of us actually got the passes for the group). By 5:03pm though, they were all gone.

Cheers!

The Mount Rushmore KOA at Palmer Gulch was our first experience at KOA and really set the bar for activities and organization. From what I can tell, this is a very large KOA with a wide variety of sites. 

Upon arrival, you can tell right away that they operate the campground well. We were directed to a staging area while we checked in. The buildings are all well maintained, and there is plenty of staff on hand throughout the campground.

One recommendation is to look for the horses when they are brought to the corral in the morning (usually between 6:10 and 6:30 am) and then returned to where they bed down for the night (usually around 6:30 pm). It's quite the site to see roughly 30 horses running free and being guided by two people on horseback!

The only issue that we had was with our connectivity to the outside world. We had NO cell connectivity anywhere in the campground (Verizon) and their Wi-Fi was essentially useless unless you were right next to the bathrooms. Even at the main building, there was no connectivity through Wi-Fi. Trying to connect to work was impossible, and we ended up leaving a day early because of it.

Clearly, if you can be disconnected for your time there or are fine with trekking to Grapes & Grinds in nearby Keystone, then this is a fabulous campground. 

3 stars only because of the Wi-Fi (cell coverage is out of their control) and only until Starlink goes live for us RVers.

Verizon cell coverage was non-existent, which admittedly is outside of their control. But there was absolutely no Internet access through their WiFi, which is within their control. Their suggestion: drive 10-15 mins to nearby town to find their library. Sorry… that just doesn’t work in this day and age. Fix the Internet access, and I’d bump it up to 4 stars