Ranger Lakes Campground

Small state campground, water is centrally located. Dump stations (two) are located about 5-10 minutes down the street at North Michigan Lake Campground. Additional fee of 10 dollars per day (annual pass is 80) to camp. Great hiking nearby, paddleboarding, and small boats allowed on North Michigan. All other lakes allow fishing but no swimming or boating/ floating. We stayed to visit with family and enjoyed our stay. 117 and 118 seem to be the best sites. Road noise can be heard throughout the campground.

We stayed at Ranger Lakes back in 2015 and it was a work in progress. Now, it's gotten a lot better. 50/30/20 amp sites. Potable water at the campground. You must drive down the road to use the main dump station. Camp Host seemed attentive and friendly although we had no need to interact with him directly. Additional vehicles must pay a daily $10.00 park fee. My only reason for not giving it a "5" rating is that the sites are fairly close together...for a Colorado State Park. If possible, reserve a site on the outer part of the loop. There's a really nice creek (river) flowing behind the loop. Unfortunately, we did not see any moose during our stay but the hummingbirds were active and plentiful. Our Starlink satellite internet worked really well. PROS: level & clean sites, electricity, several clean vault toilets around the campground, trees are starting to grow larger between the sites (providing more privacy), nice trails, cell booster in the middle of the campground for emergency calls. CONS: sites fairly close together, some road noise depending on site location, mosquitos are bad.

I travelled here with a 35’ 5th wheel, long bed pickup and parked in the site #126, an electric only, BI site for $36/night. Road and site were a combination of dirt and gravel. The campground was very open with lots of small trees growing which will provide shade in the future. It was easy to get around although the entry was a little steep and bouncy. My site was at an odd angle off the road so it took a couple of tries to get into it right. It was plenty long and level. Some sites had a bit of a slope but nothing major. My favorite site was #118. All the sites between 118 and 127 on the same side of the road as 118 would also be on my list if I was to come back here. (Better view of the meadow where you could sometimes see moose.) No wifi, cell or OTA. However, the camp hosts donated a cell booster which was located at the water house. If you were standing right next to it you could make calls and check email (2 bars LTE with Verizon.) It was a quiet campground. There was a little bit of road noise from CO-14, but if you were further back from the road it wasn’t very noticeable. Vault toilets were clean. The dump station was up the road a bit and looked like it had been recently built. Come well stocked with groceries and think about filling up with gas before leaving the Fort Collins area since there is no gas close by. I ended up having to drive quite a distance to find gas and then paid over $6 per gallon for diesel. I liked this campground and would stay here again. I would also strongly consider staying in the Bockman CG which is dry, but is closer to some interesting hikes.

I absolutely loved this getaway! My husband and I visited the first week of August and it was about 75° every day. The views were stunning all around us. We visited State Forest State Park up the road and had a wonderful time exploring the trails with our dogs and taking in more sights. My husband caught 2 trout in one of the Ranger Lakes.

Pretty close to Walden, about 20 min away. There was a quaint cabin store up the road, the owners were friendly and the store was well stocked. Only one bar cell service at our picnic table - made for a real “off grid” experience!

We got there September 16 and it wasn't crowded or buggy. The aspens were changing color and the moose were active in the low area west of the campground. Beetle kill has hit this area hard and local dirt road drives are not always pretty, but the campground is recovering. Caught the limit of small rainbows daily. Were going to stay one day and recharge after days of boondocking but stayed 3. The bathrooms are new. We had no cell service.

Ranger Lakes Campground is one of several in the State Forest State Park near Walden, Colorado. It was probably beautiful at one time, but has been hit hard by the pine beetle and mostly deforested now. It's oddly laid out, with some sites (like ours) having the electric box and picnic tables on the wrong sides.

This is obviously a family campground, with lots and lots of kids. That could be a plus or minus depending upon your family configuration. For us, with just the two of us, it was a slight minus. Dogs were everywhere and some not on the required leashes, so we kept ours inside the trailer. This is a good location for a base camp while exploring the area, though.

The trail up to the lakes is wooded and pleasant, and the trail around the lakes afforded some amazing views. A lot of folks were fishing and catching. Bring the mosquito repellant! One of the reasons we have a trailer is so that we don't have to use the bathrooms at campgrounds, so we can't say what they were like. We did see someone spraying for mosquitos around them, though. At night, just about everyone had a fire going, so it was pretty smoky.

We recommend getting a site around the outside of the loop rather than the inside (as we had). It seems as though there's a bit more privacy that way. Eventually, the trees will grow back up and I imagine this campground will be beautiful again. We enjoyed our stay, but wouldn't consider this a destination campground. We've been there now, but probably won't go back.