Prospector Campground

Stayed here for a week and as previous reviews, the views of the mountains and the reservoir were amazing. About 15min drive to Frisco. We were here in mid July and the campground stayed full so take the time to make reservations. Both AT&T and T-Mobile cellular service worked better than expected. No issues with Microsoft Teams calls for remote work and streaming movies and videos.

We spend 3 nights here in our travel trailer in May 2023. What a spectacular location, surrounded by snow capped mountains above a beautiful blue lake. Sites are very well spaced with lots of small trees so you do have some privacy. Forest service vault toilet was spotlessly clean & non-stinky. If you have an RV, fill your fresh water tank at the Upper Blue River Sanitation District Station at the corner of Swan Mtn Rd & Hwy 9, across from Summit High School. You can dump there too for a small fee. We LOVED our time here. So close to everything you can imagine to do or buy in the Summit County area, yet so quiet & peaceful. Late at night the stars come out! The surrounding municipalities must be working toward reducing light pollution. The opportunities for outdoor activities in the area are endless- you will want to come again & again! We certainly will.

I was here in Mid September. I had stayed on the other side of the road at Lowry campground the previous year. This campground is more spacious with larger sites. This is a busy recreation area so there is plenty to do. Hiking, disk golf, paddle boarding, biking.

If you are up for it I recommend the bike trail around the lake. The ride does get steep at the beginning at the end if you start and stop at the campground. Another hike that I found fun the the Continental Divide Trail heading north from Loveland Pass. Windy but great views of the mountains. I would recommend hiking early in the morning the parking lot is small and the wind really picks up in the afternoon. There is also a trail that heads down from the campsite and along the lake.

Since there is no shore power you will hear generators throughout the day. When I was there everyone shut them down at night. It was quiet enough I could hear the band playing at the amphitheater across the lake. \

I had no issues with cell service either wandering around the campsite or in my camper.

This was my first true "boondocking" experience (read: no water/sewer/electric hookups of any kind) and the park is absolutely beautiful. When I arrived my site was all ready to go with a tag and my name clipped to the site sign. I want to break down each of my ratings below in detail to hopefully add some value to my review:

Access (4 stars): Why not 5 stars? When you turn off of Swan Mountain Road to enter the campground, there are some massive pot holes at the start of the entrance road (which is a mile long) and then it is really washboard/rough until you get to the actual campground entrance itself. It isn't the end of the world, but it was really rough for sure. That said, once you make the left-hand turn into the campground, the roads are excellent.

Location (5 stars): The views from the campground alone get this place 5 stars! I uploaded some photos and you will see what I mean. In addition, the location is 15 minutes from Frisco and about 10 minutes from Dillon so you are close to everything you need (I had 6 trips to Lowe's for tools at one time or another!). I went to Breckenridge, Vail, Keystone, and Copper Mountain which were all less than an hour away. Again, I felt that this was the perfect location for me and the places I wanted to visit.

Cleanliness (5 stars): The campground is immaculate, but that isn't why it gets 5 stars here. I'm not sure who is cleaning the vault toilets, but they need to be given an award and a raise. Since I was trying to limit my use of my facilities/black tank, I used the vault toilet right across from my site at least a dozen times. I have never been in a vault toilet as clean as the one I used. I mean, it was immaculate every morning...nothing on the ground, no smells of any kind...it was literally spotless! After about 3 days in, I was more comfortable in the vault toilet than my travel trailer! :-)

Site Quality (4 stars): I was going to go 3 stars here, but the views bumped it to 4. The reason for 4 stars and not a 5 star rating was the site I had (19 B) was really odd shaped. It was like a curve/turn and getting in there was not easy. Again, this is on me as I picked the spot, but it was tough to get level and just not a lot of room. That said, the spot directly across from me (which I didn't pick because of the closeness to the vault toilets) was definitely a bit more straight/pull-through-ish and would be the spot I pick next time...and there will definitely be a next time.

Noise (5 stars): I'm a pretty light sleeper and was never woken up by noise from anything. Everyone around me seemed to respect the quiet hours and it was awesome.

Misc Stuff:

Camp Host: I only ran into her a few times, but every time she would say 'Hi', smile, and ask how things were going. In short, she was super nice!

Potable Water: Something happened with the potable water spicket with about 2 days to go in my trip and it was shut down. It was kind of a bummer, but hey, life happens sometimes. Not sure of the status at this point.

Wi-Fi: I had 3-4 bars of Verizon LTE and at one point a single bar of 5G for a few minutes. I was able to do everything I needed to without issue.

Overall, this was a great experience and I would definitely recommend the site, but again, watch for the road and be sure you look over the sites closely especially if you have a larger rig (mine is a Jayco Jay Feather 25RB and about 27-28 feet long).

Cheers,
Travis

We were advised by Forest Service to bring our own water. Glad we did because the water coming from the spigots was rusty looking. The road to the campground is in very bad condition. The trail to the lake is very steep and when you reach the lake there is very little space to relax. All of the dumpsters stayed very full for days making it nearly impossible to throw away trash. The fire pit was full of embers and trash when we arrived and as we were exploring the campground we noticed that all the firepits were in desperate need of cleaning. Site was unlevel. Beautiful view of the mountains but only a few sites have a lake view.

We had a great site! #51. It was big, pretty private and with great views of the reservoir. It was fall weather during our stay but we enjoyed the colors and the beautiful evenings. There are a couple of ways to get down to the reservoir and they make for a fun quick hike. We enjoy it’s proximity to Dillon, Frisco and Breck. Site was cleaned and hosts are active.