bethgisi

Ok, so when reviews say there’s some noise at a campground but it is ok, I am not deterred because we aren’t usually bothered by some noise. Crank up a movie or turn on the a/c, whatever. Plus, why would someone put a campground right on some train tracks if it was super loud? We also got the last spot, so it must be ok.

It’s a pretty campground, nice shade and lovely trees with a mix of tent campers and RVs. We booked site A12 with a 30’ travel trailer and a long bed truck. We figured out once there that the site was going to be a definite no-go (almost 90 degree angle to road and not much room for maneuvers) but thankfully a fellow camper told us to ask the campground host to switch us with a different site that was reserved by the park. Elizabeth was very nice and allowed us to move. We took site A13 across the road, backing up directly to the tracks. Cool, turn on the AC and it’ll be good.

I can still see the hilarious look on my husband’s face when the first train came through. His eyes were wide and I busted out laughing because we were sitting in the slide out dinette and I got a massage to the gluts from the train going down the track. We COULDN’T HEAR each other talking across the table.

Holy cow. SO LOUD, even with 2 non-ducted a/c units on the whole time. Wakes you up from a dead sleep as you wonder if it’s coming through the camper or just going by. Multiple times a night. It was insane.

This was an overnight stop so we rode it out and looked forward to sleep the next night. But no. This is a no.

We enjoyed our stay here. This is not really a place to go if you're looking to be one of the only people in the campground, but it is still a great place.

No hookups or cell service, but that is part of the draw. The campground is fairly quiet, sites are spaced out a bit and campers were respectful of noise overall. Bathrooms were just a short walk around a corner from site 21. Can't speak to cleanliness as we did not use them. We loved all of the trees surrounding the campsites in our loop. The solar panel on top of our travel trailer worked well even with all of the trees. At night, it's dark-dark, which is great. Lot of stars visible on a clear night. It's not too spooky in the dark because even at night, people were still returning from hikes or walking to the bathrooms.

It is a short walk to the path to Brainard Lake (5 minutes max) and there are a number of hiking trails nearby. We were not prepared for the number of people that were in the recreation area to hike and hang out at the lake. The lake parking lot was full, as were other parking lots in the area, and then there were numerous cars parked on both sides of the road leading up to the entrance to the recreation area (not fun if towing anything). It was a bit nuts, but the crowds seemed to be in the recreation area only. The campground was pretty full, but in our campsite we could only see the sites across and next to us while all others were blocked from view. It was pretty quiet overall minus the random person setting off their car alarm or the pooped out little one having a melt right before bed.

We were hiking near the lake just before sunset when we saw two male moose having dinner across the road. There is lots of "evidence" (watch your step) of larger animals in the area. One of the park employees stopped and did some traffic management as people drove by in their cars and a number of photographers set up shop in a field just opposite the moose.

Recommendation: once you are in the campground, don't leave the area with your vehicle unless it's in the evening or early morning. We thought we'd check out the surrounding area midday outside the campground and ended up in a line to get back in. This area does not have a bypass lane open where you can go through, smiling and pointing to your pass. Instead you have to wait with everyone else. At certain times of day it can be a long wait as they let a few cars in as cars leave.

We thought the crowds were due to Labor Day and Covid, but the gentleman working the booth said it's always like this.

We started coming to this area to see the kite festival that is held in Lincoln City twice a year, but now we come to fly kites on the beach at the RV park and we enjoy the peace and quiet. If you want to make a fire on the beach, there's that option too. We opt for an ocean view site when we stay, which requires planning well in advance for the summer months. Not all of the ocean view sites accommodate our 30' travel trailer, so be sure to read the directions on the website and choose your RV type and length when searching availability. We stayed in October this time, but prefer June when there is more whale watching and better weather. From the ocean view sites it is an easy walk to the beach, and I've seen a trail that leads to the beach from the forest sites too. Our neighbors are somewhat close but have always been quiet. There is definitely ocean noise in the ocean view sites, but we like that so gave it 5 stars. You might opt for a forest site if you want it super quiet at night. We park our tow vehicle up in the overflow parking, which requires a short uphill walk if you want to leave the park to go anywhere. Not a big inconvenience. The office staff has always been pleasant and they were also accommodating once when I needed to ship a package there ahead of our arrival.

We paid a little extra to get a site backing up to the water. The site is large and grassy and the view is very nice, with the lighthouse, water, wind surfers, etc. There is a path to the beach right next to this site. It is also a great location for a short drive to see the beautiful redwoods. There are quite a few potholes, but if you go slow you’ll be ok. The check-in person was very nice and recommended the Howland Hill drive, which we really enjoyed. Kind of surprised, however, by the sound from the lighthouse (?) that occurs every 9 seconds, 24/7. It’s not an issue if there is rain hitting the roof, tv or a/c noise (didn’t need a/c here), but in those quiet moments, it feels a bit like the battery is going dead in a smoke alarm somewhere on the other side of your house.

Overall, a nice place that may or may not drive you batty. We made light of the noise by letting out random “bloooo”’s during conversation and didn’t end up spending a lot of time at the site - the trees are where the action is!

Iron Creek Campground:

We stayed here over Labor Day weekend. Sites are as expected for a Colorado State park - decent spacing, camper services building is available with coin showers (did not use), gravel is raked, site was clean. There is a dump station for those sites without full hookups. Lakefront isn't a thing because the reservoir is quite low, as is the case for many reservoirs in this area. We had a "lakefront" site but really it was a nice view of a lake bed that has pretty decent vegetation with some water off in the distance. Still a nice view, but not really of water. It looks like it's been awhile since there were high water levels in this area. At night, the stars and Milky Way are quite visible. We drove over to Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP to see what it looked like at night (being a dark sky park) and honestly could have stayed at our campsite. The South entrance to the NP has the visitors center and is at least an hour from this campground. The road to the North entrance is about 1 mile away, but the last 6 miles are dirt road and pretty washboarded in places (the North and South rim don't connect anywhere). The North rim is technically only for day use, not sure about the South rim. We would consider staying closer to Montrose next time to be closer to the South rim, Ouray and Telluride.

Also, as other posters have said, there is no service at this campground for AT&T. We drove toward Hotchkiss and found some service (1-2 bars LTE) within a few minutes. Delta and Montrose have good service but are 30 minutes and 1 hour away.

If taking hwy. 92 from hwy. 50 to get to the campground, be sure you are ready for possible construction closures on hwy. 50. If you are weary of heights and don't like roads with sheer drop offs into a canyon, you might consider not driving 92. It's not a narrow road, but it's a 2-lane highway without shoulders in most places (though there are turnouts) and guard rails are sprinkled throughout. There's something about navigating a super curvy road next to a huge canyon with a heavy trailer and truck that made me glad when we were down off the mountain.