We randomly stopped into this state park and it was such an amazing experience and just so beautiful! If you park in the visitor parking lot for more than 15 minutes, the park fee is $10. Visitor center has really informative and friendly rangers and definitely stop in to pick up a gift from Colorado! Ranger also let me know a few trails had interpretative education so follow the numbers and he gave me a guide for what each number means. Cool learning experience. State parks in Colorado are self sufficient, so taxes don't support the parks and the state parks reliant on fees they charge. I'd gladly support any state park any day. The views here are mind-blowing and we got to stroll around a bit and our dog also enjoyed the park and trails. We will definitely be stopping in here again when passing through, well worth the stop! read more

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Nice clean sites with lots of room between. Volunteer hosts are terrific! Namely Dick & Cindy. Thanks you. Fishing ponds are full of fish as well. Negative which sucks- Once you pay for your site you need to also buy a "park pass" for another $10 per day!!! Outrageous!! This is like son California sh*t. read more

This was our 5th stay at this great park. They recently replaced all hookups and well as sewer connections. During the the project, they cut down the overgrown grass as well as the privacy hedges near the road. The sites and quiet and well maintained. The Visitor Center has a great laundry facility and clean restrooms. Hope to return and maybe whe winds will have subsided by then. read more

The reservation system for reserving campsites for Colorado Parks is so profoundly screwed up that it serves as strong deterrent to visiting their parks. I waste literally hours on their illogical and non-functioning website. Today I wasted more than an hour trying every possible permutation of entering my camping dates and selecting a site. There were sites available but I could find no possible way to get the system to book it. Then, I re-read their instructions that advised potential campers that the Reserve America site could be used but had limited functionality. Guess where I was able to make my reservation? Yes, it worked fine through Reserve America. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr. read more

We've stayed here pretty much every time we visit friends and hike the peaks and backcountry in the San Juan's. This park is THE FINEST in the Colorado State Park System. The Elk Ridge Loops are the way to go. read more

The campsite here is terrific. If you are looking for somewhere to camp near Ouray or Telluride, I would recommend this place. Above a 30 minute- 1 hour drive from this state park. The Elk Ridge E Loop is open year round for your convenience. We didn't have a trailer which was fine because they have tent sites. These tent sites have a PERFECT view. We camped at site 153 which I would recommend- it was probably the best site at the campground. There is a picnic table and fire pit included. There is also a 12 by 12 spot for your tent that they cleared off so there aren't big rocks that you have to sleep on. The lake is right underneath you, but it is a pretty steep cliff so I would not recommend this spot to anyone with small children. This campground is only 10-15 minutes away from downtown Ridgway which is nice if you need anything that you forgot. We had a wonderful experience even through rain and snow. read more

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A lot of separation between r.v. spots, bathrooms and other amenities are clean. The staff constantly keeps up with cleaning between guests.. price can't be beat compared to the three letter campground down the road starting with K, even including a park pass, which is good for an entire year. read more

Really enjoyed it here. Elkridge on the edge was great. At Paco loop the riverside edge is best. Great river views, short drive to Ouray, Montrose and Telluride read more

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Special spot with great campsites and SUPER SUPER clean bathrooms. I loved the friendly staff and beautiful scenery! Make sure you pick the walk in campsite with the deck overlook spot. It's shady and flat! read more

Ridgway State Park - Parks Near Me - Ridgway, Colorado

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Badge heavy cop wannabe Park Rangers have no common sense, or, CPW lacks the same. This State Park is NOT dog friendly for water loving dogs. We were threatened with citations for exercising our Labrador retriever in the water retrieving bouys in remote areas away from the swim beach or dock because our dog was not on a leash at all times. You cannot swim a dog with a leash. It is dangerous for the dog and asinine to enforce. read more

Nice campgrounds with space between sites. Restrooms were clean. Lake amenities available in the summer. Ridgeway Area Trails (mountain biking) across the highway read more

One of my new favorite places. Lots of camping space some with power some with out. They have a few yurts and a couple small lakes for fishing. I highly recommend going to Ridgway state park. Just don't burn it down. read more

Ridgway State Park - Parks Near Me - Ridgway, Colorado

My family and I spent a week here camping. We chose Dakota Terraces to be closer to the lake views. We had a beautiful lake view, but we were also RIGHT off the main road (550) and the toad noise and lights from the cars at night we're REALLY annoying!! All campsites are full of tall grass, which means it's hard to use any of the space around your site for anything. There are also hardly any trees in the area, which means you have little to no privacy. At least the sites come with a built in canopy over the picnic table, which might give you shade for part of the day. The reason for a 4 star review on this park rather than a 3 star is because the lake itself is huge. There is a nice swim beach, we rented a pontoon boat for a day, and there were plenty of playground areas for the kids. This park is also right between two very nice mountain towns that we enjoyed (Montrose - that has all your essentials and Ouray - that has some interesting activities). I'd recommend this location, but we were slightly disappointed in the sites. read more

Beautiful park! If you can get into the campgrounds at Dakota Terraces in Dutch Charlie, or the Elk Ridge Campground, you'll get the expansive views of Mt Sneffels and the San Juans. Unfortunately, we arrived 10 minutes before the gate attendant closed up for the night (8PM), and all those good scenic spots were taken. She directed us down the road to the Pa-Co-Chu Puck part of the park as there was more availability there (but no mountain views), but its entrance was down the highway a couple miles. She promised she'd call the attendant there to wait for us. I was a bit put off by the fact that these separate park sections aren't connected by any road, but oh well. We sped to Pa-Co-Chu Puck, and the VERY friendly and helpful gate attendant told us there was plenty of availability. We got a walk-in tent sight (the park provides some wheel barrows so you can transport your luggage to the campsite, since it's a bit of a walk if you don't have backpacks). One pit toilet was a short walk away right across from the ADA site, while a larger bathroom with stalls and sinks was on the other side of the parking lot (much farther away). A deer greeted us as we set up our tent. The Uncompahgre River flowed by our site, so it was really nice with the gurgling water. In the morning, you can hear the the traffic on US 550, but I think it was less noisy than the other areas as we were set farther back. Our views were of the red mesas and canyon walls with pinon pines. $18 for a primitive site for the night, plus $7 day pass = $25. read more

This is a very well-run campground, in our experience one of the crown jewels of the Colorado State Parks (no small achievement). The sites are large and you don't feel as if you are camping on top of someone else. The bathrooms and showers are clean. The fishing in the Uncompagre River is pretty good, for being in the middle of a campground. The various parks employees are friendly and helpful and quite diligent in keeping this park in great shape. read more

I'm not a huge camper, but my husband and I went here and camped at Elk Ridge. It is located at the top of a mesa with BREATHTAKING views. Each campsite offers privacy, a nice breeze, and a short walk to a VERY nice flush toilet/restroom. Out of all the places we've been, I would choose this location to go back to first!! read more

Have camped here for years and it is one of the nicest state camping areas. Reserve a spot "up top" above the lake (Elk Ridge loop) - nicer spots. Rented a yurt last year and it was dated and no A/C like the ones in Moab so won't do that again. Got really hot inside. But if you tent or have a trailer or have kids it is a great place to stay. Can get crowded but most people are quiet at night. Will always come back. read more

Stayed in late August for two nights in yurt 14, the Badger Den! My wide, our three kids (5,5,3) and I were plenty comfortable in the yurt. The ceiling "bubble" can be opened and closed using a switch, which I thought was neat. The views are almost unbeatable! The campground was mostly empty except for a few neighbors who for the most part kept to themselves. Yurt 14 sits next to a short trail which winds through pinyon, sage and juniper with patches of prickly pear. The yurt served as our home base for exploring some other areas down toward Ouray, we didn't want to leave, and certainly would've checked out some other trails in Ridgway SP, but alas we were off to another destination. The host was more than helpful and kind. We felt incredibly lucky to have clear skies both nights with the Milky Way overhead. Restrooms were close by an CLEAN! The yurt was an excellent way to split up our trip which was mostly tent camping. Our only regret is that we couldn't stay longer. read more

Ridgway State Park - Yurt 14 "Badger Den", late August. - Parks Near Me - Ridgway, Colorado

We arrived at the Pa-Co-Chu-Puk section around 6pm on Sept. 8. We were a group of 4 fith-wheel campers from Florida coming to stay a few days to explore Ouray and Telluride areas. There was no one at the entry booth, and we didn't know if there were any vacancys, so we pulled on in, stopped at the self-serve ticket box and each got a ticket. We didn't want to drop our payment in the box yet until we found out if there were any spots for us to camp, so we proceeded on into the campground, found 4 spots and parked. We started filling out our tickets with payment envelopes then walk back up to the payment box to deposit them. Two of our group had already started walking to the payment box when the camp host (a blonde woman in her 50s or 60s) drove up in a golf cart and angrily shouted that we illegally entered the park because we didn't have a sticker on our truck. We tried to tell her we what we were doing and that we were not trying to get out of paying, but she continued to yell loudly at us that we were breaking the rules and she was going to call the police.. we said please do. My 82 yr old father tried to calm her down and she yelled in his face to SHUT UP! She even told her male partner in the golf cart with her to shut up when he tried to intervene. This ridiculous tirade went on for about 15 min before she finally left... by then we were all upset. The next day we complained to the actual park Ranger, but he didn't have much to say. The goofy park host was suddenly very friendly after that. We will never stay at Ridgway Park again... not only because we were treated terrible, but also because of the hassle of all the stupid fees and separate tickets required each day for our tow vehicles to go in and out of the park. Why not just a flat rate and one ticket for each camp site? The pay showers were not appreciated either, since that cost should also be included in the camp site fee. The park is beautiful and quiet... but the way it is operated takes it off our list! Mrs. Fern Gadd read more

We stayed in the Ridgway State Park (PAC CO CHU PUK SECTION) for a week. This park, although it has full hookups, was particularly disappointing. It was unmanicured and had a distinct unkept appearance. We had heard that local park management had elected to let the park "go natural" and had limited the manicuring of all areas including the campsites. The RV SITES WERE ALL OVERGROWN. It was even difficult to do the utility hookups without practically being in the bushes. We even had to do several maneuvers to avoid having shrubbery and small tree branches from scratching our truck. The areas in front of the campsites are 12-18" weeds with burrs and stickers. We couldn't let our dog more than a foot off the pavement it was so bad. We had to walk through weeds just to get into our trailers entry door. We had heard that this going natural" was a local management decision and this included cutting back on manicuring and trimming. It looked like there had been a very small effort to cut the weeds about a foot back from the pavement and that's about it. Even the pathways to the pond were overgrown. We heard that since it is peak season and that the park is pretty much full from day to day that since the sites are not empty that this doesn't allow much time for maintenance. Pretty weak excuse. It is a shame as this park could be so much more appealing. It is obvious that the State of Colorado has invested a lot in this section and it is my hope that someone from their department take a look at what is happening here. We had just camped a few days before at the state park in Fruita and the difference was definitely noticeable. I understand trying to maintain a natural atmosphere, but come on folks, get busy and clean up this parks atmosphere and RV campsites. read more