During our travels here in Colorado, so many places have taken my breath away, but I haven’t seen splendor like what we saw in our recent trip to Yampa!
So I’m sure your first question is, where in the world is Yampa? When my husband mentioned it, I had the same question! It’s about 30 miles south of Steamboat Springs. Google Maps says it should take about three hours, but we were pulling our trailer and we seem to be long stoppers (and we didn’t even have the kids with us on this trip to blame it on them)! So about five hours later (and three stops) we pulled into the little town of Yampa. It was definitely a small town, they even had a gravel main street, but they also had a hotel, a 24 hour diner, and a ranger station. Made us wonder if outdoor recreation is what kept this town running, or if there was something else here we didn’t know about (turns out, it’s a resting town for workers on the Union Pacific!)
We were headed for Bear Lake campground in Routt National Forest, which Google Maps told us was two miles outside of town, but that spot was really a field and we had about another twenty minutes to get back into the Forest and the actual camping area.
The Forest had both structured campgrounds and dispersed camping. When we stopped at the ranger station in town, we wanted to find out which areas would be best for us with our 24’ trailer, and he let us know the dispersed camping and Bear Lake were probably our best options. There were two other campgrounds past Bear Lake – Horseshoe Campground and Cold Springs Campground – but he told us that they would be a little tight with our trailer. (The next day we explored those campgrounds with just our vehicle and they were definitely tight! Only small trailers and tent camping there.)
As we were driving back to the campground we passed quite a few dispersed campsites, we were checking those out as an alternative to the campground, but wanted to see the campground sites first. The campground is very well shaded and amongst the trees, but we had seen some beautiful views as we drove in, so we decided to go back and claim a dispersed site with an incredible view! It’s worth noting that the campground was really close to Bear Lake, and lots of people were headed that way with fishing poles and canoes. Definitely worth staying in the campground if you’re going to be up early with a canoe to go fish!
The ranger had warned us that the mosquitoes were bad, and he wasn’t joking! We pulled in right around 4:00pm and they swarmed us as we got out of the car, but after a couple hours they settled down and weren’t bad the rest of the night (or in the morning).
The next morning we headed back into Yampa for breakfast at the diner, Penny’s. My husband is a sucker for a good diner, and I was happy to get out of cooking breakfast! It was a traditional diner with booths and counter seats, and all of our food was delicious!
After breakfast my husband had a hike in mind, so we drove down to the Stillwater Reservoir (where the road through the area ends) to the trailhead. Both of us had a little bit of a cold and hadn’t slept too well the night before, so I thought we were just heading out for a nice easy hike, and we started a beautiful hike through a meadow with the most beautiful wild flowers that I have ever seen! (Although, the mosquitoes were probably worse than any hike we’ve ever had in Colorado, we were wishing we had brought bug spray!) We ended up hiking all the way to the Devil’s Causeway, and it was one of the most incredible hikes we’ve been on. For a full recap, stay tuned for my hike review next week!
When we got back from our hike it was late, so we started getting dinner ready and enjoyed our meal with the incredible view of the lake and Flat Top Mountain. The next morning we had to pack up and head home, but as we left we agreed that we would absolutely be back!
Campsite Recommendations: Our recommendation would be to skip the campgrounds and head to the dispersed sites once you pass the Yamcolo Reservoir (which is the first big body of water you come to once you hit the dirt road). There were quite a few dispersed sites as you came into the park (before you come to the Yamcolo Reservoir), but they weren’t nearly as beautiful as the ones further back. We found a beautiful site right before the Bear Lake campground, but as we drove further into the park we also saw some beautiful dispersed sites, many of them with incredible views of a valley and creek below with mountains in the distance. (They were all taken of course, but it’s worth a look!)
Cold Springs Campground had a beautiful little waterfall and creek right next to the campground, which was a beautiful backdrop to the mountains in the background. Horseshoe campground was a little more shaded and secluded, but not as much as Bear Lake Campground.
Campgrounds had bathroom facilities available, dispersed sites did not. But all sites had picnic tables and fire rings. One thing we didn’t find while we were there was firewood, and we didn’t bring in enough with us!
All of the sites, both campground and dispersed, seemed like they were pretty full by Friday evening. We’d see people head down the road toward Stillwater Reservoir, and then come out a few minutes later. Those sites may have been full and they were headed to the other dispersed sites, or it was just completely full, we’re not totally sure. But there will always be a few groups pulling out of their sites Saturday morning, like we did, leaving some vacancy for latecomers. But I’d recommend getting there as early as you can on Friday or Saturday morning to make sure you get a spot.
For more of our travel adventures, check out the Family Travel Guide: https://thornton.macaronikid.com/guides/59547db650443957cb92485f/family-travel-guide
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