Where Are We Going to Stay Tonight?

Thursday

We both enjoyed being in Golden, the Cold Creek Campground was just a short walk through the creek park to the historic main street and the whole place had an atmosphere that was pleasant and welcoming.  Because the little campground was fully booked from today we planned to move on, our plan being to visit the Rocky Mountain National Park. Here we required a little strategic thinking! [Please jump to the final paragraph if you already know all about trying to find 'nice' campgrounds]

Choosing a campground, then a campsite, remotely, having never been to a place can be quite taxing, but is fundamental to the enjoyment of the places we visit, i.e. get it right we enjoy ourselves, get it wrong and it is a pain in the neck.

First decision is finding out what we want to do in the area, so that we can judge how long we want to be there and be more precise in locating ourselves. Then we need to find out the campgrounds that are in the area. There is no simple way of doing this, even with the internet. We like to be in countryside campgrounds, these are usually run by one of three national agencies: National Parks, National Forests or BLM. These sites can all be found and sites booked on a website called Reserve America.

Following these are State Parks, also on Reserve America, but the problem with these is that it will not show availability for Walk In sites and many of the campgrounds do not open until the end of May, but may be open for walk-in camping. They may, or may not have water switched on, or electric hook-ups. 

If they are bookable then first priority is the weekend, as many campgrounds are literally empty during the week, but completely full on a Friday night.

The next option is County campgrounds and Fairgrounds. These are usually pleasant and relatively cheap, though not always, so one has to consider them carefully before committing to one. The other problem with them is how to find them on the internet, for county parks, you need to know the name of the county! Fairgrounds are also usually owned by counties, so the same problem occurs. Often these campgrounds will be hidden away on the Counties Website and difficult to find.

When these options are exhausted then there are commercial campgrounds. The range of commercial campgrounds is enormous, from $20p.n. to $60p.n. or even more. Many cheaper campgrounds start out for vacationers, but then take in permanent residents, which can make for an unpleasant environment, or the sites are very close together, or are small or not well cared for. But then again many expensive campgrounds can be just as bad and many cheaper ones can be very nice. Conversely many Trailer Parks will also take in RV’s, some are very nice, some are not. When choosing a commercial campground you have to weigh all these things, often from little evidence.

There are several franchised campgrounds, the most notable of these is KOA, most cities and larger towns or tourist destinations have KOA, they are usually clean with reasonable facilities, though the spacing between sites can vary, however they are all at least $40p.n., so are a last resort for us. All in all it may take several hours to sort out where we will stay next. 

In this instance the placing of the campground would be important, as the weather forecast was poor – thunderstorms predicted for most days, the higher up into the mountains you are the colder and wetter/snowier the weather would be. Being the start of May many campgrounds were closed. Fort Collins is on the plains below the NP, much of the NP is still snowed in. We decided that staying in the park was not on. The Moraine Campground in the NP was open, but had no facilities, so if it got cold at night (and it did) then we would find it difficult to keep warm. Fort Collins on the other hand was 40 miles from the NP, which is a long way for a day trip. So a compromise was sought. Estes Park has three full hook-up campgrounds, they are all $55p.n. plus, but is just outside the NP. Further away are several county parks, which are cheaper and also more suited to the things we enjoy. Only one had hook up, and that only had two sites available for the weekend. So by a process of elimination we booked a site (I30) in the campground on Horsetooth Res. The site only had electricity, but is on the edge of the lake, with plenty of space around it, right out in the middle of the Front Range, yet not too high and only a few miles from Fort Collins. Although the weather forecast said it would have T/storms, they were predicted only to have very small amounts of rain, which turned out to be true for the most part.

Then we have to decide how long to stay. How many days would the NP take to ‘do’. What else did we want to do while we were there.  What shopping needed doing. How long would Sally need to recover from visiting places. If Sally was not well, or if the campground was nice could we stay on for longer. Fortunately, once you have booked the weekend nights staying on is quite easy, but you have to know where you want to be on the weekend. So we booked for three nights initially, which would take us to Sunday and we could probably stay on if we wanted to.

Phew! All that before we even left Golden.

Well we did leave Golden and travelled to Horsetooth Res Campground and found that the site was very pleasant, but the water was turned off still, so we had to backtrack out of the park to top up the water tank before setting up. The site was quite small, with rocks and trees and posts in strategically wrong places and unfortunately we just, just, only just, scrapped the awning on a tree as we were parking. This was probably our worst ever experience of setting up – it took us over an hour to get the trailer into the right place where it was off the road, we could open the slide out and it was relatively level. Not pleasant, but we managed in the end and were rewarded with a great view.

Click here for Android, Apple and full screen view, requires Google sign in