Last Dollar Road Dispersed Camping

Gate wasn’t open yet to continue up the mountain. Stayed at main campsite (called Secret Campsite). Due to the year, we had a few people but not many. I heard that Memorial Day and after is when everything opens up. However, the views were still amazing. Easy to level our rig and stayed a couple days. Easy jaunt down to telluride. Definitely will be back. Be sure to have a 4x4 with some clearance and a rig that able to handle the drive up. I wouldn’t advise pulling anything longer than 25’ further than the first campsite.

If I had any complaints it was people leaving trash. Literally a pile of nails were scattered everywhere. Pick up your stuff!

As others have stated, the views here are world class. This unfortunately means locals will pull up and camp within a few feet of your RV. I was lucky enough to get one of the corner spots so I had a tiny bit of privacy, but the lack of care re: personal space was annoying. Most just stay the night, and Fri/Sat night were the worst. Road to get here from Telluride was steep but manageable for my 25ft TT.

The views here may be the best we’ve ever camped with, however the place has a few flaws.

Unless you are in a small and nimble vehicle, there’s really only one parking area and it’s a large unlevel dirt parking lot. If you are like us you will use all your leveling blocks and still not be level.

It is a very very busy area. Every single person who drives up this road will stop and pull over and walk right in front of your rig to take photo. There’s a constant flow of cars in and out throughout the day with sunset being the worst. If you are looking for any kind of privacy this is not your place.

It is a good 30+ minutes into town and lots of popular hikes. This will make you lazy and you’ll just sit at your campsite staring at the views all day instead.

As others have said as long as you come from the airport side of last dollar the road is accessible and in good shape. Also cell service is surprisingly great up there.

We stayed pretty far up last dollar road. If you are tent camping or hauling a very small trailer you can find some really cool places to camp. However, if you are in a big rig, the only place you can camp is basically a dirt parking lot where the improved road meets the trail. The pictures of the big rigs here don't really capture how crowded that area is. We drove by that area every day and it was always packed.

It is very close to Telluride, but not very close to lots of the other trails. Next year we'll stay closer to Silverton. They are more my 'people' than the Telluride folks anyways.

Spent two nights up on Last Dollar Road. Some of the best views in Colorado! Easy to get to, as others have noted, from the Telluride side. As you get up the road, there's a larger spot for campers and then the road turns up (with a warning that you're headed into remote wilderness with less access to emergency services, etc…). The road gets a bit more rough at that point - would not be an issue for a 4WD. I, however, was not in a 4WD. I was in a big Nissan van - I made it up fine but did have a couple of "I wonder if this was a good idea" moments. There are several dispersed spots along the road & a "main" lookout point that a lot of folks stop at for pictures. I stayed at a spot about .4 miles BEFORE this spot and it was amazing. I was there for a Tuesday night / Wednesday night and it was not crowded.

Also, about .7 miles down the road is the trailhead for Alder Creek…which was a nice hike.

I have AT&T and had good coverage here.

The only other view I can think to rival this camp spot is the one from Upper Teton View overlooking the Tetons. It is seriously magical up here! It is a small area, but even in peak of summer we managed to find a spot.
It is 5 miles uphill on a dirt road to the campsite, but it is well kept as many mansions are located off this same road. Just make sure you take the entrance off the highway near Telluride (either behind the airport or off Deep Creek Rd.) I would suggest going via Deep Creek Road, it is narrow at the very beginning, but it's a straight shot and quicker unlike going behind the airport.
There isn’t much space or privacy at the campsite, but the people boondocking up there are very friendly and easy-going. We stayed here during Telluride Blue Grass Festival and found a spot just fine. Once you get up to the initial landing spot where you will see all the rigs lined up along the edge, don't try to go any further in your rig without scouting it out. It's a very narrow road back among the trees and only a handful of spots to fit rigs over 20'.
My only con is that it is dusty up here, which is probably for the best or you would get people trying to stay too long up here. The cell signal for Verizon & AT&T were great and again, you can’t beat those views.

For all the must-see waterfalls, best hikes and restaurants, check our our blog post:
https://www.nomadsinnature.com/blog/best-colorado-mountain-town-for-summer-vacation

This spot is absolutely gorgeous and can fit most large rigs. The two most important things I can tell you are:

1) Enter via the Telluride side of the road! Either behind the airport, or the way we went via Deep Creek Rd to Last Dollar Rd. The entrance on deep creek initially looks tight and surrounded by buildings but after a gentle S turn it opens up and is an easy, gorgeous traversal, though a bit steep. If you're coming from Ridgway and your GPS tells you to turn off 62 onto Last Dollar Road directly, I strongly encourage you to ignore it unless you're . We made this mistake with our 35' Travel trailer (totally our fault for not scouting) and found out that the middle of last dollar road is a narrow off-road trail that you -can not pull a trailer through-, regardless of length. This is not an exaggeration. Initially the road is an easy drive on a well maintained dirt road, but eventually you make a left to continue on last dollar and things go south almost immediately. Once you reach the campground from the Telluride side, last dollar road becomes a jeep trail for 3-4 miles with hard switch backs, severe dips, clearance requirements, and is not suitable for non-off-road vehicles. Don't make our mistake and spend 3 hours painfully turning around in a small ranch driveway (which we were lucky to find).

2) Verizon signal IS strong here, however the upload speeds are terrible. We were getting 50mbps+ down, but only .5-1mbps up. If you need to work while here and are required to attend video conference meetings, you -will not- be able to do so reliably. I spoke with some other campers and they experienced the same with verizon. ATT signal was spotty and unreliable, and tmobile and sprint were both basically useless. There's plenty of Verizon service for web surfing and streaming, or if your work only requires you to dial in to calls and/or just have standard web access.