Rifle Falls State Park

When Rocky Mountain National Park is in your backyard, it's easy to forget about the many fantastic state parks in Colorado. Over Easter weekend, we embarked on Addy's first overnight camping trip (more on that to come). As it was our first attempt, I had some specific criteria for our destination.
* Within 4 hours or less driving distance
* Comfortable temperatures
* Access to hiking
* Access to town (medical emergency, midnight escape)
* No snow on the ground
* Car camping but some sense of being isolated (read: not on the interstate or a mere 2 ft from the next tent)

Most of the country is wondering why on earth I would be worried about weather and snow in mid-April. Up here at 8750 ft, I still have to traverse a 4' tall snow drift to get in and out of my house.

I was surprised to find many camping areas in the Buena Vista/Salida area were closed until May. Utah was too far but we could consider Grand Junction/Fruita...SOLD OUT! Dang. Then I happened upon this little gem about 15 miles North of Rifle, CO (45 min from Glenwood Springs).

Rifle Falls State Park

With 11 drive-in tent/RV sites and 7 walk-in tent sites, this quaint 100 acre park was a charming find. The RV area was full over the holiday weekend but there was only one other reserved tent site so we felt like we had the place to ourselves. There were carts available to help us transport all of our gear down the hiking trail a short distance to our site. Since there were few other campers, we were told to look over all of the sites and pick the one we liked best. All of the spots were creek-side and came with the standard picnic table and fire ring set up. Being Spring, we were lulled to sleep by the babbling creek below us. Imagine our delight when the "tent pad" was a lush patch of grass. Grass, people!! I haven't seen grass in months! The trees were just budding but all of the sites would have ample shade in the summer and nice views of a canyon on the other side of the creek.

 

If you're overnighting elsewhere, you can drive in to the park just to view the waterfall and limestone caves.They are definitely worth stopping to see. There are a few hiking loops on site but they only took us about an hour and a half and that was meandering with an infant in tow. There are lots of other hiking spots nearby however, if you want to use this spot as a base camp.


 
Camping: $16/night
Online Reservation Fee: $10 (This seems high to me)
Park Pass: $7/day per car (you can also buy annual state park passes)
Tent campground- No electricity, walk out to water/vault toilet at the trailhead/parking lot

Campsite photo borrowed from gjhikes.