Wonderful Stay

I have a 22’ travel trailer I pull behind an F150. Since this campground is inside Rocky Mountain National Park, the roads are all paved.

The campground sites are situated around one-way driving loops, which are quite narrow. Best to pay attention to which side of the loop your site is on so your trailer door doesn’t open up onto the road. I think they error on the side of caution when it comes to the size of trailer fitting into each spot. At least for mine. They said max 26’ (trailer + tow vehicle), but I’m closer to 32’ and I fit fine. That may not be true of all campsites though. There is parking very close by if your tow vehicle can’t squeeze into the site.

My site didn’t have a whole lot of trees, but they planted a bunch of small ones to try and fix this years from now. Sites were level and had lots of space. Each had a fire pit and picnic table.

There were no hookups and no cell service (Verizon). They did have trash drop offs, water for cleaning pans and dishes, and bathrooms. It was very quiet at night. Generators are allowed but only for a couple times a day during short windows.

Glacier Basin campground is just a few miles from the Bear Lake trailhead. It was very nice to stay inside the park. Vehicle passes to get into National Parks were still required when I stayed and the lines to get in were very long and slow.

Wonderful Site!

What a great campground! Lots of space between sites, level, spacious, tree or no tree sites, clean, picnic table, quiet, easy to back into, and the lake is within walking distance of any campsite!

There are no hookups of any kind at any site, but I did have LTE cell service.

The views are fantastic! Large mountains across from Twin Lakes and if heading up Independence Pass.

There is a small little town with basic necessities just up the road and Aspen is about 1 hour away over the Pass.

Great area to ride bicycles, but no ATV or motorbikes. Nice if you aren’t into that sort of hobby because it helps keep the noise down. Paddle board and other non-motorized toys are allowed in the lake, but it’s chilly!

Dispersed Camping

The camping spots along Pawnee Butte Trailhead Road are absolutely perfect. They have wonderful views of the grasslands and the buttes. The biggest downside is there are a lot of giant windmills, oil pumps, and fracking operations in the area. Very difficult to ignore them as no matter where you look you’ll see something along the horizon.

In the spot I camped in, I had two bars of Verizon LTE service. But when I drove a half mile down to the trail head I only had 3G. So reception will be spotty.

There are no hook ups of any kind, anywhere. This is truly dispersed camping. The dirt road leading into the area was in fair condition. There were a couple of spots with very deep ruts that made pulling my 22 foot travel trailer slightly challenging. I can’t imagine anybody bringing something like 28 feet or greater into the area.

There were a ton of cows in the area, even walking right up into our campsite. Totally didn’t bother us though, in fact it was kind of fun. They were completely gentle and nonthreatening.

There is minimal hiking in the area. There was one trail that led into the buttes. But between May 1 and June 30 you cannot continue into the buttes. It’s closed to preserve wildlife.

GPS of spot I was in: 40.812312, -103.999513

If I go back, I’ll try a different area.