Winding River Campground, CO

[kwatson51]

Winding River is located across from the west entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park, just up the road from Grand Lake. WR is situated beside the Colorado River (here, just a stream). The area is heavily forested with lodgepole pines. There were moose in the meadow this morning and hummingbirds were not shy about making themselves at home on our feeder.

This weekend was our 3rd time to stay at Winding River. The CG was started in the '70s and our first stay was in 1981. Our second stay was in 1992. Both experiences were very pleasant, and we have good memories there. On the previous campouts, the sites were shaded and reasonably level (none on the river), quiet and the folks were pleasant. There were (and are) horses to ride and a chuckwagon breakfast ($5/person; AYCE pancakes, sausage [$.50 extra after the first 2 links], coffee, orange juice and mostly good company).

This trip was disappointing.
The campground had grown considerably and now caters to horse-owners. Some sites have their own pens for horses. There are some good tent sites, and they now have a field for RV's - parking-lot style. They also have some cabins. There are two sets of restrooms, 1 on either end, and 2 laundry rooms (although 1 was not working). This made for a long walk for those folks on the middle. There was also much horse-droppings everywhere, along with the associated aroma if the wind blew just right (and it did).

The camp store had a little bit of food and a few camp supplies (you had to really look for it). Now it is mostly touristy stuff...t-shirts, sweats, jackets, books, cards, trinkets etc.

We made reservations in April for June 23rd., and specifically requested a shady site. We were told, "no problem, plenty of sites to choose from" and were assigned a specific site at that time.

The road to the site was dirt (that's ok) but very bumpy. Looks like it had not been graded this year. When we arrived and took our site, we found a barren, treeless site with large ruts made by a lumber truck. The trees had been cut down last winter. The fire ring was about 50 feet in back of the site (at least, where we think the site should have been). The 'site' was somewhat level (only had to use 2 linx blocks) but barely wide enough for our PUP with slide-out and awning.

We went back to the office and expressed our disappointment, but were told there were no other sites available now...they were completely booked. The management made no effort to make us a 'satisfied customer'.

In defense of the management, they could not help the tree situation. This area of Colorado has been heavily infested with the Pine Bark Beetle, which has killed  millions of pines. The campground had to cut down and haul out their infested pines. This is not something they could prevent.

Our dissapointment is that we were not told of this when making the reservations, and seemingly no attempt was made to repair the damage caused by the logging trucks. These are two things within the control of the management. I feel the management could have made some effort to get us better site or offer a discounted rate or a free night...something to indicate our value as a customer.

[cobalt&3]

bummer, I was looking to hear another good review of a place to go-shucks!!

[kwatson51]

bummer, I was looking to hear another good review of a place to go-shucks!!

Cobalt,
All is not bad news...while we were in the area, we scoped out several different NFS campgrounds around Lake Granby. There are some very nice places around there. Usually no hookups, but they still have trees and are near or on the water.

We are doing our first dry camp in late July at Turquois Lake. Some friends are going along to babysit us in case we get into trouble....they have a generator.   (Just kidding on the babysitting.) We try to get together as much as we can. But they are more experienced at this sort of thing. Will post a report when we return.

[cobalt&3]

COOL THANKS....next trip we are off to Este's Park CG...looking forward to exploring....we are so new to CO. so we are eager to see and do