We arrived to a freshly raked campsite in a beautiful pine tree setting. Peace & quiet abound. Most campsites are private and surrounded with pines. Moose are in the meadow eating, sleeping & eating again. The scenery is amazing. My husband is handicapped and we couldn't walk to everything the park has to offer so we thought we could drive and park. However we found out that the only place campers can park is at their campsite unless they purchase a day use pass. We were pretty disappointed as we thought we would be able to fish and enjoy a short hike on a few of the trails. The passes aren't sold at the welcome station and even if they were, day use passes for the days we were camping were sold out. All in all this is a truly beautiful spot - just know before you go should you might need a day pass. If you need cell phone access there are turn outs on the road into Brainard where you can get a bar or two.

We enjoyed our stay here. This is not really a place to go if you're looking to be one of the only people in the campground, but it is still a great place. No hookups or cell service, but that is part of the draw. The campground is fairly quiet, sites are spaced out a bit and campers were respectful of noise overall. Bathrooms were just a short walk around a corner from site 21. Can't speak to cleanliness as we did not use them. We loved all of the trees surrounding the campsites in our loop. The solar panel on top of our travel trailer worked well even with all of the trees. At night, it's dark-dark, which is great. Lot of stars visible on a clear night. It's not too spooky in the dark because even at night, people were still returning from hikes or walking to the bathrooms. It is a short walk to the path to Brainard Lake (5 minutes max) and there are a number of hiking trails nearby. We were not prepared for the number of people that were in the recreation area to hike and hang out at the lake. The lake parking lot was full, as were other parking lots in the area, and then there were numerous cars parked on both sides of the road leading up to the entrance to the recreation area (not fun if towing anything). It was a bit nuts, but the crowds seemed to be in the recreation area only. The campground was pretty full, but in our campsite we could only see the sites across and next to us while all others were blocked from view. It was pretty quiet overall minus the random person setting off their car alarm or the pooped out little one having a melt right before bed. We were hiking near the lake just before sunset when we saw two male moose having dinner across the road. There is lots of "evidence" (watch your step) of larger animals in the area. One of the park employees stopped and did some traffic management as people drove by in their cars and a number of photographers set up shop in a field just opposite the moose. Recommendation: once you are in the campground, don't leave the area with your vehicle unless it's in the evening or early morning. We thought we'd check out the surrounding area midday outside the campground and ended up in a line to get back in. This area does not have a bypass lane open where you can go through, smiling and pointing to your pass. Instead you have to wait with everyone else. At certain times of day it can be a long wait as they let a few cars in as cars leave. We thought the crowds were due to Labor Day and Covid, but the gentleman working the booth said it's always like this.

This place is fantastic. We camped there August 7 - 9, 2020. Tall pine trees shade every sight for almost all day. Highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s. Beautiful lake views are within a 500 foot walk. Snow capped peaks even in August. Very clean bathrooms. Spacious sites that are well separated from each other. We've camped at dozens of campsites in Colorado and this is our favorite. The Nepalese restaurant in Nederland is great. Excellent hiking trails are all over this place. No cell coverage but that just means you have more time to enjoy the peace, quiet, and beauty.

Because of no cell service i have to only give it 1 star out of 5. It is a humans rights violation to not have cellular and data services available. How about forest-wide wife and cellular calls. Just because I go to the forest does not mean I want to give up my modern-day life-saving devices. We also need to get that epic photo and post it right then of the picture.