Affordable campgrounds are hard to come by in Colorado Springs during high season. From May 1st through the end of September campground spots just about double in price. There is a state park on Cheyenne Mountain but every spot was booked for May so we renewed our Passport America membership for the 50% discount at Goldfield Campground. It is a nice enough park on the west side with full hookups, cable, and pretty decent internet but the big drawback is major highway noise right out front and most of the sites are pretty narrow. The management is super nice and didn’t hesitate to move us when we asked. They had to juggle quite a few reservations to make it work too.
After being a way a month we found out what we didn’t need in the motorhome and what we were missing and made several trips to our storage unit very close to the RV park. We don’t anticipate going back to Colorado Springs with the motorhome for a good long, long while. Our goal is to keep it out west and use other modes of transport if we go east….fingers crossed that nothing proves us wrong.
Not all the sites were this close together and we only stayed one night and moved to the end of the row when the neighbor set up his chain smoking station outside our bedroom window in this narrow space. It was warm out and we couldn’t open our windows as a result. What was he thinking?
What were we complaining about….THIS is a tight fit!
Finally the day came to head for the mountains. The Mt. Princeton area, between Buena Vista and Salida is one of our favorite places for true relaxation. We like to stay in the Mt. Princeton National Forest Campground along Chalk Creek and explore from there. It’s close to the hot springs resort, a nice lake, waterfalls, and the semi-ghost town of St. Elmo.
The swiftly running Chalk Creek right beside our camp site is pure music to sleep by.
The website for this campground states there is a pump for water so we came with practically empty tanks. The water from the hand pump is from a well and is quite dirty with sand in it. We drove 30 miles to buy drinking water and the camp host nicely gave us 10 gallons of his personal water for our tank that we stretched until we left. The camp host fills up a 50 gallon drum from a city plant in Buena Vista about once a week.
Chalk Lake is 3 or 4 miles farther west and is near the Chalk Creek National Forest campground.
There is now a $6 day use fee to visit this little lake. The King of Fees award goes to Colorado.
This campground only has 17 sites but all are level and although a couple of them could fit a 40 foot RV plus tow vehicle, we were the only Class A in the canyon.
The forecast called for snow on Monarch Pass for the next 24 hours so we decided not to linger as our time for the next few days was accounted for and we couldn’t be delayed.
Once over the pass, we always stop in Gunnison for a meal break. There is a large park on the eastern edge of town with plenty of room for multiple RV’s and semi trucks. Gunnison is home to Western State College and about $20,000 of my and Lauren’s father’s money while she partied here for two years. End result: One half year’s worth of credits and peace at home while she was away.
This route to western Colorado takes us along the 20 mile length of Blue Mesa Reservoir
I am four days behind real time on this blog and hope to catch up eventually. Either we have been extraordinarily busy, as we were in Colorado Springs, or we have been somewhere with no cell phone data or wifi.
Wanderlets 