Rocky Mountain National Park / Estes Park

AZJIM1 wrote:
Planning a visit to RMNP/Estes Park area sometime during the last week of July - First week of August. Kind of want to stay on the East side of the park as we also want to do a day trip over to Fort Collins so DD can check out the Vet School at CSU, but we could move if we had to. Don't really care about hookups but water availability is nice.

No good reservations are available in the park so we could do first come first served in the park but I hate driving 900 miles to have trouble finding a site. How easy is it getting a FCFS site in the park?

Don't really want to do a KOA unless it is very nice (is it?)

There are several National Forest campgrounds south of Estes Park such as Camp Dick, Olive Ridge, etc. as well as a couple of county park cgs somewhat near as well. Anybody have any experience with any of those?

We also could camp on the West end near Grand Lake and then plan on staying East of the park for a night or two to visit the college. Anybody have any experience with camping over there?

Any other suggestions?

Thanks for all the help!

Couple of spots come to mind -- The town of Lyons has a small (7 site) CG right in town -- it's in the foothills and would allow you to go in both directions -- Barbour Ponds SP is another option close to I-25, real close to I-25.

If it were me I'd do Grand Lake first, then come over to Lyons to do the College Visit.

BOL,