Homestake Reservoir Road Dispersed Camping

Just wanted to post this as a public service announcement. We stayed at a couple different areas along the homestake reservoir road in August and found the mice to be a huge problem. I spent hours under the trailer trying to figure out where they were coming in, but couldn't find any openings (I suppose the mice are more clever than I am!). We would have just packed up an left, but we had a commitment that we had to stay in the area for. Overall, we caught 20 mice in less than 2 weeks. When I put a trail camera under the trailer to try and get a peak at where they were coming in, I would often times see 3+ mice in the view of the camera at a time and hundreds each night.

Easily accessible, free camping (for tent or RV). It's close to the town of Red Cliff and about 30 minutes from I-70. This can be a drawback because it's sometimes tough to find a space in summer months (Thursdays - Sundays). It also seems to draw fellow campers not looking for quiet. We had bad experiences with multiple neighbors with firearms (target shooting from 9:00 am until well into the day - on both sides of us), and another neighbor driving off while leaving their fire pit burning.

That being said, it's good for small groups/families with the access and flat spaces (or near flat). Beautiful valley with several nearby hiking trails. There is a FS campground on this road for vault toilet access, or bring your own. Red Cliff has a small market, liquor store and restaurant.

Stayed here July 20, 2018 to July 22, 2018. Pulled in at the first large turnout on the left side of FSR 703 (near the pond, coordinates in site number).

Summary:
Site was fairly well-kept with only a few small pieces of trash, and a few other campers scattered around the turnout. We parked in the northeast corner of the turnout with our door facing out, which gave us a nice view of the peaks. Overall, the site was nice and the access to the reservoir wasn't too bad, though the road does suffer from some pretty severe washboarding. The only issue we had was with some fellow campers who didn't control their dogs, ran generators all night, and were in the middle of remodeling their RV. However, that happens everywhere, so it's hard to knock the location for the campers.

Access:
Very easy to get to, but the road is a little rough. Doable in just about any vehicle you'd like to take, and plenty of room for larger RVs.

Location:
Just 3 hours from Denver with Friday traffic through the mountains, about 30 minutes south of Vail/Eagle. If you're driving a diesel and coming off I70, fill up in Vail/Eagle because Minturn doesn't have any diesel services.

Cleanliness:
Overall pretty clean (at least when we arrived). Some bottle rings and small pieces of trash that I picked up as we were setting up camp. When we left, the neighbors were rebuilding their RV in the turnout, so hopefully they cleaned up after themselves.

Site Quality:
Site was pretty good, plenty of level spots of good length and could fit several campers into the turnout. More turnouts down the road that would hold even more. Plenty of space along the road; we never saw anyone turn down the road and then leave without finding a spot over the two days we were there.

Noise:
Some road noise, but not bad. Other turnouts are farther off the road and have more trees to break the noise, so I can't complain about what we experienced.