Iron Creek Campground

There are two campgrounds at Crawford State Park: Iron Creek (45 sites) and Clear Fork (21 sites), both of which sit on the shore of Crawford Reservoir. Basic sites are $18, electric $24, and you need a Colorado State Parks permit ($7/day or $70/year).

I stayed at a basic site right along the reservoir at Clear Fork. There was a nice picnic area underneath a metal awning, and a trail that led down to the shore. You can hear some light highway noise, but the road is not traveled much, so it wasn't a big deal. However, campsites are fairly close together and there were some loud social gatherings I imagine would be even worse on summer weekends.

The coin-operated shower was absolutely fantastic. Very clean, hot, good water pressure, with parking right in front of the shower building. There's only one men's and one women's shower, but you can hear if someone comes into the restroom to know if you have to hurry to wrap up (I didn't have to).

This place has a campground host who is friendly, but repeatedly patrols around on a loud ATV. Verizon service went in and out, but they have a repeater in the office just down the road. The office staff were super friendly and gave me a bunch of maps and recommended a great route to take to get to Utah.

We stayed here to be close to the Black Canyon Animal Sanctuary in Crawford where we adopted a dog. The views are beautiful. The lake is pretty. The bathrooms are super clean, with flush toilets and coin showers. There isn't soap in there so bring your own. The sites were all clean and it appeared that the gravel in the spot around the table was raked. It was quiet the night we were there (Saturday night in May). We paddleboarded from the visitors center to the south campground. There are a few motor boats, probably more later in the year. Mostly people were fishing. They have the electric sites in the south campground and nonelectric in the north campground. The rangers were helpful and kind.

Love Crawford state park. Site #26 is level and has a shelter with a picinic table and fire ring on a nice gravel pad. We had water and electric in our loop. The water level was down so we couldn't access the water from our site but when the lake is up you can. In the other loop you can drive to the water and fish or launch a kayak. Not bad fishing, trout, pearch, northern Pike and more.
The restrooms were nice and clean. The camphost in our loop were awesome gave us great tips on things to do. Jerry is there year round and Poppy seasonal both from Texas. This campground is right near the Black Canyon of Gunnison north entrance which is amazing. The drive there was nice, lots of overlooks and rock formations. Theres a nice small hike in the campground towards the end that takes you right to the edge of the canyon. Worth the hike.
In the state park entrance where the visitor center is gas a boat launch and a swimming area.

Camped at the Iron Creek Campground for 3 nights over 4th of July weekend. Site 002 is closest to the main entrance and highway; however, the road noise wasn't too bad. We had 30 AMP service and water hook-ups. There is a dump station by main entrance. Park host was friendly and helpful. Each site has a picnic table and fire ring/grill. Every other site has a lean-to type shade shelter. This shelter was needed because there are no large trees at this campground and it does get hot and sunny at this location. Reservoir/boat ramp was a short walk. Sites are fairly close together but the layout does allow for a little privacy at each site. Will definitely try and book a site closer to the water next time. Two small restaurants in nearby Crawford, gas station 5 min up the road, Hotchkiss (20 min drive) has a City Market Grocery Store. Had lunch in Paonia where the Cherry Festival (July 4th weekend) was taking place.

PROS: new/clean shower facilities, water hook-ups, quiet location, great for star-gazing, got 3 TV channels via trailer antenna, proximity to Needle Rock & North Rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison CONS: Bright lights at main entrance kept on all night, limited 3G Verizon service (made/rec'd calls but limited texting capabilities), $8 daily park use fee per vehicle

First, the CPWshop.com website and Co state park websites have confusing and wrong info in the type of sites here. The web says full hookups or electrics depending on how you search. We had water and electric at site 22. Did not hook up to water as we stayed only 1 night. The site was not level (it’s asphalt road and gravel sites) and the park overall looks old. Our site did have a nice lake view. We did not let our senior dog in the lake as the beach was mostly mud and dried up plants, which was a bummer. We had no service with AT&T and decided to go elsewhere as this place was just ok.

We have Sprint phones, T-mobile and Verizon mobile hotspots. We had limited (Roaming voice with no data, connectivity, maps, email, or phone apps) service.

Had a reservation for 2 days, arrived late to find a car with a small tent in our large RV our spot (#13). Host gave us another spot, #26, that was way too small for a 38” ft bumper pull. We found #29 open, a very tight pull through. We left at dawn due to lack of cell phone and connectivity. Sites were very well maintained and clean.

Delta, CO, is 35 mins away and had great connectivity with all three services.

Nice place If you don’t need to be connected.

DATE VISITED = Sept. 2020, Iron Creek CG

Price reflects $28 site fee +$9 addition per-day fee for all CO state parks.

Our site was a little difficult to squeeze into, but worked fine after some branch trimming. View out the passenger side was nice and unobstructed.

We did not use any of the park facilities, but they appeared to be in good shape.

3 OATV channels, all PBS

Very nicely-kept trail around the lake.

Critters Spotted = great horned owl, bluebirds, deer, red fox

I start with this because if you are a digital nomad and work from your RV, connectivity is a must. This site says there is connectivity and there absolutely is not. We have an AT&T and Verizon hot spots and phones. We also have a signal booster. Nada. Absolutely no service whatsoever. We had to drive 30 min to Delta and work from a coffee shop (mocha Joe’s is amazing!!).

Now, if you aim to disconnect then perfect. I just want to be clear that the connectivity stated here on this site is absolutely false.

Okay, connectivity aside, the place is quite, pretty, and peaceful. Everyone is super friendly and the grounds are clean. The shower, while clean, is COLD! The lake is lovely and large. The bike and walking paths were great.

The drive to Crawford is stunning! Overall, great place but it’s a one-and-done for us.

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.

This is a really nice campground, modern and well-maintained.
A great location to visit the north rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.
We discovered that there is a mix of electric hookups, some being 30A and some 50A. This is not obvious when you first select your campsite online but if you click down to the details you can see what each site has.

Verizon coverage was 2 or 3 bars of 3G, and it wasn't reliable but useful.
ATT had no service.

Nightly rate was $40 plus $9 for a vehicle.