Beaver Reservoir Dispersed Camping

Came in off season, there were only 3ish other camps we had to share with, but we were respectful of each other, and there was so much space. I'd venture say around a dozen or so established firepits, so take your pick. No moon the night we arrived, so we got to see some beautiful stars with ZERO light pollution. Drove a loaded down 2WD 4 cylinder into camp no issues.

This was almost 5 stars! What brought it down was accessibility to the site we chose (which we definitely liked the best for us). We do manage to get into some pretty rough spots and the TV is 4x4. Once we set up we were happy. We found a spring in the town of Allenspark that was a cool place to fill some water jugs. There is zero cell coverage for many miles in our experience so if you are good with that, you will probably enjoy this area. There were many more sites in the area to choose from and pretty obvious with fire rings. Yes, there is private land mixed in on the road up, but it is clearly marked. The nice thing is that Estes Park is about 40 minutes away and Lyons is even closer.

In the morning on the way down this was really beautiful, but on the way up we had a thick layer of fog and narrow roads in our van that doesn't enjoy going up hill. Spots aren't super clear, you aren't supposed to go to the water (do not trespass signs) and we got caught in a sketchy area for the van at one point (might have been our own fault:) ) but it was really quiet.

Bring extra blankets, it gets cold at night.

My family and I camped here after finding that all the campsites in the were fully booked. We were wanting to camp at Pawnee and do some hiking at Brainard Lake. We saw Beaver Reservoir on here and decided to give it a shot. So glad we did! It is right around the corner from the road that takes you to Brainard Lake! We used the GPS coordinates given on here and google maps took us right to it. You do have to go about 2 miles down a long dirt road. The dirt on the road is pretty well packed and not too bad. A few pot holes here and there. We have a 26 ft trailer so we took it slow. There were small cars flying down the road so 4 wheel drive is not needed in dry weather. Once we got up to the camping spot you pretty much just pick an area of land you fit. Lots of tent campers up there. The sites were pretty large. There are fire pits at some sites that are just put together with rocks.... possibly by campers. We had to clean some trash and cans from ours. I don't think I would camp here in a larger rig. We lucked out and got a good site but backing in the site was tough due to large rocks, big dips and uneven dirt. It was doable though. It was very quite and beautiful. Especially at night! The stars up there are amazing. We will camp here again for sure!

Just North of Ward Colorado is Beaver Reservoir, accessible by a well graded dirt road (turn off Hwy 7 at sign for Boy Scout Camp, County Rd 96). Roughly 1.5 miles down the dirt road is the National Forest Boundary, which extends all the way to the reservoir (but not around it). This gives about a 1 mile stretch of dirt road in which boondocking is allowed and where I stayed the night.

The worst part of camping here is that you have to commit to getting here first to find out if there are any available spots. And if there are none, you are left with few choices to turn around if you are a larger rig (go all the way to the res if all else fails, you will be OK out there). Come up during the peak of summer and you are treated to the Colorado wild flower bloom.