May Queen Campground

We reserved site 1 and paid in advance based on the Recreation.gov photo, which was misleading. First this site is on a slope. The picnic table is level but there is no level place to put your tent, not even close to level. Secondly, surprise, you have to walk 500 steps uphill to get to site 1 from parking.
We were disappointed but noticed the host advertised four vacant tent sites “first come first served.” The sites had level tent pads and were close to parking. Great! We’ll just swap our defective site for a decent one. Wrong! The host told us we had to pay for the decent site and would forfeit our defective site payment, too late to cancel. He said his boss at ExplorUS insisted on this policy. So we must pay double. Welcome to May Queen! We won’t be back.

Site 22 for the week around labor day 21. A very exposed site, so the rig really heats up even at this altitude. Ended up running the generator in the afternoon to hold the unit down to 80. Great for the solar, but no shade. The worst part was Turquoise Lake, as it may be at 25% full. Welcome to the new west, as it was also very smoky from the California fires. I rode the bike down what used to be the boat ramp - closed - and it is 1.2miles from the campground to the water. In years past it was maybe 30 yards to the lake.

ATT service was spotty, no T-mobile/Sprint.

We stayed here in June 2021, hoping to kayak/SUP from the campground. Unfortunately due to drought, the lake water level was low and it was going to be a very long walk to launch our watercraft. Instead, we drove to the boat ramp on the other side of the lake. According to our campground neighbors, the fly fishing near the campground was good, though. Most sites were pretty private and located in the trees. Ours (site 12) was more open providing more sun, but also visible neighbors. We would stay here again (in another site) with the intention of biking and hiking instead of paddling.

This was actually our 3rd time staying here. It's on the west side of Turquoise Lake, so less crowded and more quiet than the other campgrounds on the east side of the lake. Site 18 is our absolute favorite site! You can't see anyone else and its extremely quiet. We were able to walk to the lake for fly fishing and kayaking. The Turquoise Lake trail (right off the campground) is moderate and has beautiful views of the lake. You are also near hiking trails off Hagerman Pass and near the trailhead of Timberline Trail with access to the Colorado Trail. You are about 10 miles from Leadville, so it is a little drive to go into town, but we don't mind that. The camp hosts are lovely and all facilities were spotless. There are vault toilets and potable water access. Cell service at our site was not good, but on the other side of the road we could get 4G with 3 bars.

Our campsite was pull through side and was quite big. We had nice views of the mountains from our campsite but the view at the end of the road was outstanding, which only a few camp sites had for the sites. The campground had pit toilets, which were clean.

We hiked both the north side of the Turquoise Lake trail and Timberline Lake trail. Both were very scenic.

There are several other campgrounds on Turquoise Lake. We checked them all out and like Molly Brown the best after our campground.