Kendall Camping Area

We stayed here for a week in late fall. The road in was a little bumpy but very accessible in our campervan pulling a full cargo trailer. The campground is huge, and there was no one there when we arrived, so we picked a private spot in the trees near the creek. There were other campers a few nights, but we had the place to ourselves for the most part. There is a vault toilet, but it was closed for the season. Beautiful mountain views in every direction and only 5 minutes away from town for supplies. A friend that camped with us for one night said that she read on the information board coming into the campground that the creek water has lead runoff from mines upstream, so don't filter the water for drinking unless you have something that removes lead. Elevation is over 9,000 ft, so propane heaters/appliances might not work here. There isn't much wildlife here due to the lead in the water, but we did hear wolves on our last night. Overall, a great camping experience near a rustic mountain town. Would definitely camp here again.

Being close to Silverton and free, it’s about the best you could hope for if you have a big rig like our 36’ pusher. 2020 has been a crazy year, it’s mid-September and Silverton is packed! Lots of rigs came in looking for a spot only to find none. We had to park next to the vault toilet and had a nice couple in a large motorhome ask if they could squeeze in behind us, which was truly the only option left. They moved into our spot when we left the next morning.

We took our 23’ trailer here. There are a bunch of RV sites at the entrance, but that area seems to be constantly crowded, on weekends and weekdays. We parked a little deeper into the woods, but it’s a tight squeeze. If you can get away from the crowd, it’s a beautiful camp site. There’s a river nearby. My dog loved swimming in it every day. The nearest garbage dumpster we found was right outside of Silverton (north east of Silverton).

I stayed at the Kendall camping area from 7/28 – 7/31 in a 28’ class A. The camping area was packed. I was looking for a spot near the creek but couldn’t get close. Ended up parked between to trees close to the road. There was a lot of traffic on the dirt road so it was noisy and dusty. That being said the area around Silverton is beautiful. Spent my days south of Silverton exploring the areas around Molas Lake, Little Molas Lake and Andrews Lake.

Our spot in this free campground was amazing. Most of the pictures you see are of RV's in the circle near the creek. That's okay, but we were able to get a site between some trees that gave us beautiful shade during the day. There were even better sites for tents and smaller RV's -- it's worth it to drive into the nooks and crannies of this campground (as long as you are sure you can back out easily).

While we were there, the county was in a fire ban; not even charcoal grills were allowed. The biggest consequence for us? Everything we owned ended up covered in a layer of dust. But it's camping, right?!?

If you need to fill your fresh water jug, drive on down the dirt road to Mineral Creek Campground (national forest campground) where they will share up to five gallons with you. It's close enough to Silverton that there is great cell phone coverage.

If your looking for a night off from cooking, Avalanche Brewing has great pizza!

There are a variety of sites to choose from depending on your setup. I've been camping here with a tent or 4runner for years and now a 25' trailer. The sites closer to the road are smaller but forested, the sites closer to the river are large and open. The river area tends to be pretty packed all week and the whole area is busy on weekends. It's usually quiet when I'm here but this year there's been a number of trailers running loud contractor generators very late and early. You can get a number of very odd folks here as well as those who trash their site. I try to pick up what I can so we don't lose access or have it turn into a fee site.

OK, at first we intended to stay like 2 nights at this location. It looked nice from the pictures, but pictures were nowhere close to reality. This place is gorgeous!!! And in the end we stayed 8 days. If we could we would stay longer. :)

The entire "campground" is large and can accommodate easily 30 (maybe more) RVs. The surface is not very level and covered in pebbles, but the access road is really well maintained. It was easy to get there with our 32' tt.