Rifle Gap State Park

Cottonwood is one of about 4 or 5 campgrounds at Rifle Gap State Park and closest to the entrance and the water. it also is limited in sites so that makes it nice and quite.
There is a newly formed trail for hiking and biking that connects most of the other campgrounds as well. Boat ramps and a swim beach round out the amenities available.
Camp sites are nice with shaded structures under picnic tables, some even have a dump traps.
Best cell service is on the upper sites. I had no service down by the lake.

This is our second time at this park. The sites in the lakeview campground are nicely maintained and spacious. We had full hookups. Site 24 is right next to the shower building with bright yellow lights at night. Noise was not an issue. We have AT&T and had no service anywhere in the park. We drove to Rifle to get connected. The park is nice for walking.

We ended up at Rifle Gap State Park as a result of a late May snowstorm closing Interstate 70 at Vail Pass. We had just completed a week of camping at Colorado National Monument in Fruita, CO and were racing the storm eastward as we were heading home. Fortunately for us, the storm beat us to Vail Pass, closing the highway and forcing us to divert to Rifle Gap State Park until it was opened back up.

Since it was early season and mid-week, we had no problem in getting a campsite without a reservation. The campground is divided into 5 loops with Lakeview Loop offering full hookups, Cottonwood offering sites with electric and dedicated water hookups, Cedar offering sites with electric and shared water spigots, and Piñon and Sage offering undeveloped sites with no hookups.

All loops offer modern restrooms with Cottonwood and Lakeview offering showers as well.

While it may seem counterintuitive, Lakeview Loop is the loop that is farthest away from the lake as it sits on a hill to the north of the water. It is an easy walk to the shore from Lakeview, but the other loops will put you much closer to the shoreline with Piñon, Cedar and Cottonwood being right on the shoreline.

We chose campsite #8 in Cottonwood mainly because we wanted to try and get some fishing in during our short stay, and the water access was very convenient from this location.

The site offered a level concrete pad with an asphalt drive. There was a sheltered picnic table And fire ring as well.

The park and lake were simply beautiful. During our stay, the park was lush and green from the spring rains, and the surrounding ridge line protected the park from the winter storm raging just a few miles away.

Note that the pictures in the gallery of the tri-stream waterfalls are not from Rifle Gap State Park, they are from nearby Rifle Falls State Park, which offers limited camping opportunities. The Ranger told us Rifle Falls State Park was only about 4 miles away, so it would be a nice hike or bike ride from this park to the falls.

We had zero Verizon or ATT coverage in the campground, yet about a mile away at the visitor’s center, there were 5 bars of Verizon. They must have some kind of repeater or amplifier there because one you got more than 20 feet in any direction from the building, you are back to zero coverage.

We absolutely would stay here again, and are very grateful that Mother Nature changed our plans for us!

We had an excellent view from our full hookup site #14. Rate does not include the purchase of a CO State Parks annual pass. That or a daily entrance pass is required in addition to the camping rate. We purchased the annual pass in January since we are planning to camp at several CO state parks this year. The lady working at the gate gave my husband a hard time when he drove in to the park a couple of times. She couldn't read the annual pass that was attached to our windshield and practically accused him of not having a valid pass. He had to find the paperwork and prove to her that we really purchased it. Not very pleasant being treated like a liar or cheat when entering the park. Anyway, other than that, the rest of the staff were very nice and friendly. The park is beautiful with well spaced out sites. We travel full time and work remotely, so we rely on cell coverage. Verizon and AT&T data did not work at all, but T-Mobile worked surprisingly well. Verizon voice worked only if we used the phone near our booster. This was a great place to stay to visit Rifle Falls and Glenwood Springs.

We stayed at Rifle Gap Oct. 7 -11 which is off season so it wasn't very crowded at all.
The sites were all very big and spaced out nicely. We were in site 19 which had full hook ups and a view of the sadly low reservoir. We enjoyed the peace and quiet and beauty of the fall season. The little visitors center was nice, had some local info and the people were very nice and friendly.
The Verizon cell service was poor (1 bar 3G) so we had to drive the short distance to the dam where we could get a signal when needed.
The showers and restrooms were clean and well maintained.
We visited the Rifle Falls area which was worth a trip over to see. We fished but didn't catch anything.
Rifle had a couple nice restaurants we tried and my hubby golfed at the local course which is minutes away from the campground.
We will happily stay here again if in the area.

We arrived in Mid July it was 96 out. We had been in Colorado for 6 weeks & first heat wave we hit. Our site was very big with a great view of the lake & mountains. Camp hosts were wonderful people. There's an area in the state park with Full hook up but we wanted to be close to the lake. The lake was down so you couldn't walk down to launch the kayak we went to the boat ramp to do so.

We kayaked almost every day my husband loves fishing he caught a few nice Northern Pikes. We had a go fast boat come by us & just about swamped us. They come several times a week and take kids skiing. We pulled of on the island my husband was wading along shore & they full speed ahead (big wake) filled the kayak with water & soaked everything.

Rifle Falls is close we spent a few days there, hanging near the falls where it was cool. Take a book & a chair and relax. There is a campground at Rifle Falls to but busy with people coming in & out to the falls.There are 3 falls one you can walk behind. There is a trail that goes to the top with caves along the way you can look down. We went to Glenwood Springs & hung out in the hot mineral pools all day. We hear there's one in Iron Mountain that is less populated, smaller pools & less kids. Rifle is a pretty area there is a nice golf coarse close to the campground but we don't play.

It is late in the season -- they close on November 1 -- and there were not many folks around. We stayed in a lower loop near the water that had only electric. Other loops have either electric and water or full hook-ups. We didn't really need those, though. Sites were level and wide gravel. I'm not sure about the cell service, but I'm guessing it wasn't good enough for creating a hot spot, since we didn't use Internet that night. The best thing about this campground is the view. Wow, just wow! The water was quite low in the reservoir, but that didn't spoil our views. We could look right out across the lake.