Fruita, Colorado

[Bill]

Fruita is on I-70 just inside the Colorado-Utah border. As you come into town from the west, there are signs for a Colorado State Park right on the river. What a beautiful place! Grassy, squeaky clean, well maintained, great big level campsites, hookups if you want 'em, off the road, fishing/swimming/boating in the river - and cheap! What a great place to spend a night - or a week. We loved it! The girl in the Visitor's Center assured us that most Colorado State Parks are like that. We asked her how the crowded commercial park across the street stays in business. "They take our overflow."

Highly recommended. And a great place to relax before hitting Vail and Loveland Passes (11,000 feet) a little farther to the east. But that's a different thread.

Bill

[kempert]

Bill-

Thanks for the info. I've stopped at that visitor center several times but it was in the middle of the day. If the campground is anywhere near as clean as the visitor center, it is definately a place to stay. I hope to stay there in June.

[hal]

This is a great place to land during the peach season. Anyone for a bushel of soft ball size peaches? Yummy, delicious! Of course they are not ready till fall. (sometime around August) See you there? I will be pulling a funny looking trailer.

Hal

[RockyMtnRay]

Fruita is on I-70 just inside the Colorado-Utah border. As you come into town from the west, there are signs for a Colorado State Park right on the river. What a beautiful place! Grassy, squeaky clean, well maintained, great big level campsites, hookups if you want 'em, off the road, fishing/swimming/boating in the river - and cheap! What a great place to spend a night - or a week. We loved it! The girl in the Visitor's Center assured us that most Colorado State Parks are like that. We asked her how the crowded commercial park across the street stays in business. "They take our overflow."


Yep, the Colorado State Parks are uniformly great. All are very well run...better than most National Parks. Most have campgrounds with nicely spaced campsites and a goodly number, maybe a majority of those campsites have electric hookups. The Fruita unit campground of Colorado River SP where you stayed was one of the very few to have full hookups though. A majority are located on a lake or river so they somewhat cater to anglers and boaters. Most campsites are reserveable (through Reserve America) and reservations are mandatory if you want a space anywhere within a 200 mile radius of Colo Spgs or Denver during the summer, particularly on weekends.

The daily park fee is $5, an annual pass is $55. I like (and use) my state parks so much I bought the annual pass...and expect to easily get my money's worth now that I will be kayaking the lakes as well as biking and hiking in these parks. In fact I was at Lathrop SP (near Walsenburg) just this week...nice campground with some electric sites, 2 lakes (one with wakeless boating restrictions), and miles of hiking/mountain biking trails.

http://www.parks.state.co.us/default.asp