Stillwater Pass Dispersed Camping

I know, right? Who would have thought that you can boondock just a few miles outside such a great place as Grand Lake? Well, you can, and it is open year-round.

County Road 4 is clearly marked, leading down 2 miles of asphalt road straight to the national forest where you will find a half-dozen great sites overlooking the Grand Lake valley as well as the West side of the Rocky Mountain National Park. Each have about a quarter mile of aspen and pine between the other. It may be worth walking in on foot first to scout out which you feel is best.

Roughly 1 mile down the dirt road is a fork, stay left and you continue on CR4 which brings you to the Idleglen Staging Area (space to park or turn around larger rigs, but camping not allowed here) where you can mountain bike, hike, and even snowmobile if that is your sort of thing.

Follow CR4 even further and you will find additional camping sites, some fully engulfed in the Aspen forest. As you near the end of the road you come to Stillwater Creek, another pit toilet, and even more camping areas.

Although you may have some ATV and motorcycle noise on the weekends, I have found this area to be very peaceful. The forest is amazing at any time of year, but especially in the Autumn when the aspen change colors.

Stillwater Pass is great place to camp just outside of historic Grand Lake, CO and the Western entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. There are trails are off the forest service road, nice be spots, a large parking area big enough for larger rigs to turn around in with vault toilets and beautiful view of the Rockies. Cell service is pretty decent and there are a ton of great places within a few minutes drive. Lake Granby, Shadow Mountain Lake, Grand Lake, and of course Rocky Mountain National Park. You might even have a moose or 2 join you for dinner.

We arrived on a Saturday and it seemed like every spot for miles was taken. Well, 3 miles to be exact. Our first night we ended up in a field with a few other RVs. We had only 1x of Verizon, which I could boost to 1 bar of LTE in the first spot, but it wasn't going to be good enough to work from during the week. (40.225539, -105.927741)

The next day we were able to move to the first spot you see as you drive in. I think it's where the other two reviewers stayed. The views of Rocky Mountain National Park are beautiful, though it's a little close to the road. (40.218038, -105.886979)

Cell service was significantly better from our second spot, up to 4 bars of Verizon boosted.

Stillwater Pass is a destination for OHVs - so there's a lot of noise and traffic on the weekend.

My last time here (from previous review) was back in 2013 and I had the place to myself... basically. Three years later (same month of year) and the place was packed full. OHV traffic (along with the noise and dust) was much heavier although still mostly respectful. By Friday afternoons, you will have dozens of trailers coming in, many rushing up and down the 4 miles of gravel road trying to claim a spot. Tuesday - Thursday it was pretty quiet, so much so that even a family of Moose came by to visit. But the weekends, I'll pass.

Still, not much better boondocking to be had so close to Grand Lake and the West side of the National Park. The first few sites are the best in my opinion and the ones that have the best Verizon signal. We ended up a few miles down the road and still got enough Verizon signal with a booster to get work done. If we hadn't had the booster, we would have had to move to a paid-campground.

This location is an easy drive to get to from both Fort Collins and the 70. You have your choice to hang out at two lakes. Granby Lake and Grand Lake. Both are beautiful, but Grand Lake has more options and is a little more touristy. You are also close to the west entrance of the Rocky Mountain National Park. It is worth the drive through to end up in Estes Park.

The road is a bit bumpy so take your time. Our camp spot had a somewhat steep downhill location, but you were secluded from any other rig. I would not suggest anyone without a 4x4 or anything over 31' trying to attempt. We barely got in, but getting out was much easier. It is close to the road so you will see a lot of atvs, etc going through. The noise didn't bother us and none of them came down to our area. There were spots before us along the road, most of them good for tent camping. There is one spot that is right when you hit the gravel road that would have been good. After us there are more open fields that multiple rigs park at so you are not as secluded. We had elk walking through our site! People do shoot in the area. That is why we liked our site. We were far enough away from the next spots that people could stay in.

We originally tried to stay off Vasquez Road near Winter Park but it was packed! Not even room for an overnight. We found Stillwater Pass to be a little less busy but still extremely popular with ATVs. We arrived on a Saturday and found a spot jammed in among a couple of 5th wheels and a pop up camper. It wasn't bad, but not the most ideal boondocking spot.

We packed it up once the crowds left and headed a bit further up the road to a more secluded spot. Unfortunately, we had some pretty inconsiderate neighbors that showed up and camped on a trailhead (against the NF rules) about 150 yards from us. They played some impressively loud music and fired guns at all hours. We weren't exactly sure which direction they were aiming, as there were trees between us and them, but we hope they were exercising good judgement. Needless to say, we were pretty happy when they packed up after a couple of days.

ATVs fly around these roads. Exercise caution when towing or driving on these roads as you never know what stupidity lurks around the next bend. I don't recommend walking along the roads.

Stayed here early Jul-16 which served as a fantastic base camp whilst visiting Rocky Mountain NP.

There are various locations suitable for large RV's and we were lucky enough to find a spot with enough isolation.

As others have already said, lots of ATV's and we also hard quite a lot of gun shooting off in the distance. While not ideal we had enough space and quiet to make our stay enjoyable.

Very busy on weekends, keep this in mind whilst travelling the roads to and from camp.

The area was pretty packed when we got here so we ended up going further up the mountains for a spot. We ended up finding a great little area that was great for solar.

We camped here on our we from Rocky Natl Park to Colorado Natl Monument. Nice and quiet with a beautiful breakfast outside. But stupid people left trash like cans and pieces of glas. We tried to clean it as good as possible. But be aware not suitable to let your baby crawl on the ground. Please clean up after your self!

We love this place! There are a couple spots at the start of the road, but the best spots are a bit farther up. The road is so smooth, no bumps or even washboard for quite a while, and not too curvy either. We made it easily in our 24 foot class c. We LOVE our site, it has a gorgeous view of the mountains and is just a bit farther up the road. Here are the coordinates: 40.2303030, -105.8903037. We have 1-2 bars of LTE here with both ATT and Verizon. With a booster its better. For a Wednesday it is pretty busy, but there were a couple open spots. Its June in Colorado, so to be expected!