Ridgway SP, CO - Sep 2007

We decided to go to Ridgway State Park because we had heard so many people rave about it. As sometimes happens, I had my hopes up for a truly spectacular setting and when faced with reality, I was a bit disappointed. Not that Ridgway isn't a very nice park in a pretty spectacular setting, it's just that the park's designers didn't put the campgrounds in areas with the best views -- and the park had lots of places with pretty wonderful views.

After seeing the view of the lake on the park's' website, I assumed that the campground would have equally nice views -- nope. The campground overlooked only a tiny arm of the lake that, in the spring when the water level is high, might have a glimpse of some blue water. But, when we arrived, the water level was so low that all we saw was a muddy hole where there once was water. The second thing that struck me as odd was how close to the highway the campground was situated. It's terraced on a hill and all the sites directly overlook Hwy 550, which is a pretty busy road, so traffic noise was a constant annoyance during the day.

Another disappointment was the view (or lack thereof) of the spectacular San Juan Mountains from the campground. The San Juans -- a long range of majestic, craggy peaks -- could be seen for miles and miles as we approached the park and yet, they practically disappeared once we got in the campground. The campsites were terraced down a hill that faced away from the gorgeous view of the San Juans. What were they thinking?

For instance, this is the outstanding view from the Dallas Creek day use area of the park. It's the southern most section of the park and sits next to the Uncompahgre River. What beautiful views and there was plenty of room for a campground. We enjoyed lots of walks in this area.

That's not to say that we didn't have views from our site -- we drove around all the campsites and picked one that had a very nice view of the Cimarron Range, it's just that, had the campground been located on the other side of the hill, it would have had commanding, million-dollar views of the San Juans.

Ok, enough gripes, now for the good stuff -- most of the time there we had warm, sunny weather and a nearly empty campground. The park is huge and has three different sections stretched alongside Hwy 550 with trails connecting all of them. There are three different campgrounds to pick from -- one alongside the river (Pa-Co-Chu-Puk) with full hookups, one terraced on a hillside (Dakota Terrace) with the best views and one at the top of the hill (Elk Ridge) where all the sites are cozily nestled into stands of junipers and small pines. This gives a choice of camping experiences for different preferences. All the sites are nicely spaced and fairly level. The terraced campground (our choice) gave each site a nice view of the area but because there were few trees, there's not much privacy. Each site had a concrete patio (great for keeping dogs clean), a picnic table and standing grill. About a third of the sites had a covered shelter over the patio. The park was very clean and the facilities appeared almost new and in great condition. While there wasn't a water spigot at each site, the spigots were situated in between sites so that they could be reached with a long hose for filling tanks.

The park is best known for it's trail system -- designed for maximum accessibility in a beautiful setting. There were miles of paved sidewalks throughout the park and most were placed in the most scenic of settings. We sure enjoyed lots of walks on these trails -- the doggies did too.

On our last day at the park, we had a brief rainstorm blow through. The sky turned black and ominous and then pelted us with rain -- but only for about 20 minutes. Then, as it passed by, it left us with a beautiful rainbow -- another one for our memory book.

All in all, we were very happy campers and really enjoyed our stay at Ridgway and would go back again. We stayed for nearly two weeks and enjoyed seeing the beautiful fall colors in the surrounding towns of Telluride, Ouray and Silverton. I'm posting those photos in a separate blog.