Cowdrey Lake State Wildlife Area Dispersed Camping

I pulled in here under very windy conditions on 9/19/21. So no mosquitoes or flies. There were only 4 other rvs here on the Sunday night. one ran a generator, a cheap construction type, so pulled back from my initial location to distance myself. Wind helped keep noise down. But, seriously, why necessary for hours & hours. Lovely west views of Lake & mountains for sunsets. Bathrooms were clean. No garbage pick up or drinking water. Sign at entrance states one must have CO Wildlife pass. But...huh? Nice sandy shoreline with no signs stating swimming prohibited so kids may like. Easy to locate and short gravel drive in. Also, had fair cell service lake shore & excellent with booster for Verizon.

Was a quiet spot with lots of space around. There were 6-7 other campers. Sunset was really nice. Bathroom is clean. I slept in my car. Lot of mosquitoes. I’m a newbie. I opened the door to get something from trunk and hundreds of them made into my car and it was a nightmare for a bit to get them out by driving around. That has nothing to do with the place I guess.

We've learned it's better not to move on the weekend, so we ended up here on a Friday morning and stayed two nights. We were right on the water. There's lots of interesting birds. It was cold a rainy both days. We tried hiking at the Routt access of the North Platte River, but it's more of a goat track. Six Mile Gap in WY had more of a trail, but there was a fire last fall, so it was pretty burnt. Moose Goose trail at Arapahoe NWR was pretty good and we saw both. There's not much going on in Walden. There's a cell tower to the south and one over the hill in Cowdrey, so you may get better service if you park in the flat area at the top of the hill, which has plenty of room. There were about ten other campers,all quiet. We didn't use the vault toilet. No water or trash service.

Cowdrey Lake is a small but very pretty reservoir about 30 miles from State Forest State Park. We arrived on a Friday late afternoon in July and there were about 20 RV's here, but plenty of room for us. Monday morning quite a few campers left and you can snag a water front site during the week. The road in is gravel and only about 1/4 to 1/2 mile off the highway. No noise at night - it was an extremely quiet and peaceful place. There is a small boat dock but I don't think you can have gas motors on the reservoir. Saw several canoes and small fishing boats with paddles. Sunsets are stunning. Mosquitoes are present but not too bad dusk and dawn. Would absolutely stay here again. Cell service with Verizon was fine.

After comparing reviews, I was favoring this spot over Walden Reservoir hoping it would be less buggy, but it was much smaller than I expected. There also wasnt much water access aside from the dock, mostly swamp area between the sites and the lake. There was a small boat ramp. I was looking for a little more room so I could have my dog off the leash, and since there were already other campers with kids and dogs nearby, we went to stay at Walden Reservoir instead.

I can’t believe such a place exists where we can view water reflecting 360 mountian views, few fisherman come by and one other Converted bus camper Came by. Otherwise We had the place to ourselves. We have an all terrain scooter with us and took a tour of the nearby land via the rocky/gravel roads surrounding the lake. This is a great place to relax and take it all in. There’s not much to do here: fish, kayak/canoe, stand up paddle board, read, work on projects you’ve been meaning to do on your eqpt, edit photos, journal, etc. the nearby town of walden has laundry mat & services, fuel, propane, grocery, free dump station, free potable water, Hardware store, restraints, and super nice helpful people. Love love love this place