Were we idiots for staying at a 3.8/10 rated campground? And what we learned about Colorado state parks that you need to know
After a fantastic stay outside Rocky Mountain National Park, it was time to start making our way south through Colorado and into New Mexico. We had a choice of a couple routes: We could either head toward Colorado Springs and then make our way west to Albuquerque, or we could head west first and then travel due south. We were kind of over the Colorado cities, and so we chose the latter. We wanted to stay in an area that had good opportunities for recreation, since we had just acclimated to higher elevations and gotten our trail legs in the Rockies. The town of Salida would be the perfect stop, both distance-wise between RMNP and Albuquerque, and also with its various options for recreation and activities.
The recreational opportunities in Salida also meant plenty of options for camping. We'd be at the junction of four national forests: Gunnison, Pike-San Isabel, White River, and San Juan. The camping focal point: Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area, where the Arkansas River begins. Salida is located just miles east of the Continental Divide, and so the river does in fact travel east, ending in - you guessed it - Arkansas. The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River.
The AHRA has a ton of campgrounds to choose from, and because the recreation area is quite large, those campgrounds are spread out. Some campgrounds are rated better than others. We booked only a few days ahead of time, so some of the campgrounds were already full, but of the remaining options, we had our choice of the top-rated campgrounds, as well as one scarily poor-rated campground: Salida East.
Nicole has been the designated trip planner since well before we started the RV life, and with the planning comes diligence. There are always times when a place is rated poorly, but in reality it's just reviewers being picky or complaining for no good reason. Still, on RV Life - our main website for finding campgrounds - the reviews are usually on par with reality. So then why would one particular AHRA campground be rated so low, while the others are raved about? Nicole dove into her research. The photos looked nice, and because this campground is a recreation area, there weren't many reviews on RV Life - only 4. RV Life tends to attract more reviewers for RV parks as opposed to dry camping locations. The reviews weren't too alarming, either. Some gave a 1-star review because the campground was undergoing renovations. Okay, but does that really warrant a low rating? Improvements need to be made sometimes. Nicole went into some other websites to see more ratings. Google: 3.8/10, exactly the same rating as RV Life. Campendium: 3/5 stars.
Reading the reviews, it became apparent that, pre-renovations, this campground was pretty dumpy. Nice views, but it was free to stay, and unfortunately people take advantage of free camping. Reviewers mentioned finding trash and even needles. Lots of the facilities apparently needed upgrading. These are all fair. Less fair are the reviews from people who couldn't stay there because it was closed for renovations. That's the equivalent to people rating contractors poorly on Angie's list because they weren't available. Sorry, but if you don't actually end up booking it, don't review it!
So that was the general scoop. Once upon a time, Salida East was "scruffy around the edges," as one reviewer described. Then the campground went through a series of renovations, the latest of which was completed just this past June. The morale seemed high when the announcement was made on Facebook, with lots of people saying they looked forward to seeing the improvements.
Salida East was the best located AHRA campground for us because it was central in the Recreation Area. We wanted to remain near US 285 so we could easily continue down to New Mexico after our stay, and Salida East was the furthest south we could go before the campgrounds follow the river eastward, out of the way of where we needed to go. We'd also be right near the center of town, so we'd have civilization nearby.
It's clear that people aren't fully aware - or fully trusting - of the improvements, because we arrived on a Friday night, usually one of the busiest nights at campgrounds, and only about half the sites were booked. We stopped at a self-serve kiosk to check in, and that's when we noticed the first major problem. The instructions stated that all visitors, campers included, needed to register and pay the day-use fee. Alright, fine, we had been to a couple other campgrounds that require this as well, but usually it's maybe $10-20 for our entire length of stay. This campground was requiring a day pass every day of our reservation, at $10 per day. We were staying 6 nights, which meant an extra $60 on top of what we had already paid online. This is a big problem and we'll get into it in more detail in a bit, but money aside, it's also a huge aggravation because we needed to actually go to the kiosk every day and pay the $10. Our original reservation ended up costing $168, or $28/night. The added $60 bumped us up to $38/night, for a site with no hookups. This basically meant that we were paying for 2 extra nights of camping that we weren't allowed to use.
Editor's note: We thought going to the kiosk every day was a pain, but during our stay, we ventured over to some of the other AHRA campgrounds, and some don't even have a kiosk! Instead, you need to fill out a form, have exact cash or write a check, place it in an envelope, and put it in a box. Yes, every single day of your stay.
While Anthony was figuring out the day-use fee-asco before we parked at our site, Nicole went to use the restroom. Nothing fancy, just individual pit toilets, but it was by far the cleanest pit toilet either of us have ever used. Turns out the toilets were completed after the main renovation, so these babies were practically brand new. It shows.
Tons of toilet paper but no hand sanitizer, but all-in-all, extremely clean and functional.
On our way to our spot, the camphost came over to greet us. We asked her about the day-use fee and if campers really needed to pay for a new one every day, and she said yes. She tried to cushion it with "But you're allowed to use it at any Colorado state park!" Uhhh, but we're staying here. And we're not planning on going to a different CO state park every single day. She also told us we could wait until the following day to buy our first pass, since we were coming in so late (around 6PM). But we had already bought our pass because the kiosk was located before the camphost. It was bizarre, and we have a feeling that even the camphost knows the pricing situation is out of control. But like we said, we'll get into that more soon.
Let's talk about the campground itself. We noticed that Colorado loves some tight turns. We had issues in Denver even just navigating Clyde around. Towing into our campground loop was the same. All the roads were lined with small boulders, which we H.A.T.E. at campgrounds because they're hard to see when towing and can do a lot of damage if we hit one. The roads were on the narrow side, but they were one-way, so if it weren't for the boulders everything would be fine.
We made it around our loop slowly and carefully, and then backed into our site. We surprisingly got level left-to-right within a quarter of an inch, but we needed a lot of adjustment front-to-back. The site was stunning. We were backed up to the river, high above it, and had mountain views right behind us. The site was large and had some trees for privacy. We had a giant, new firepit and a large space for our tent. The firepit had two little pieces of trash in it, but otherwise our site was extremely clean.
The following morning, we took Tanner over to the walking trail at the end of our loop, which leads down to the river. Nothing extensive, but we do enjoy a trail that's walking distance from our campsite. We also ventured to the other side of the campground, where the day-use pavilion and boat launch are located. Everything was immaculate. The picnic tables were new, the boat launch was wide enough to fit several boat trailers at once, and the day-use bathrooms even had a changing area (albeit a strange setup for one, but it was there). The tent sites are located on this side of the campground, and evidently there's even a yurt that can be rented out! The whole campground was well manicured. We could tell the state put a lot of work into the renovations.
We fear, though, that it won't last, for one big reason. There are no trash receptacles anywhere. No dumpsters, and not even so much as a trash can. How on earth can they think this is a good idea?! It's just asking people to leave trash places they shouldn't. There is a sign in the bathroom that says to not put trash in the pit toilets. Do we really think that sign will work when there is literally no alternative? Oh, except maybe into the firepits, or worse, into the river?
A couple days in, when we returned to the kiosk, we noticed that the information sign actually has a portion that specifically says why they don't do trash service. In short, it's "cost prohibitive." That kind of statement is insulting when campers are paying $38/night and there aren't a lot of facilities to maintain. Also, they're not really understanding the whole "a stitch in time saves nine" thing, where trash service would act as insurance. Visitors would (mostly) deposit their garbage in appropriate receptacles. Instead, it's only a matter of time before the campground becomes trashed again, therefore causing the park even more money to clean it up.
They claim it's because the Recreation Area is 152 miles, but it's not like the campgrounds are in the remote wilderness. No one expects trash to be picked up in the middle of the forest, but these are designated campgrounds where people are paying money. All of the campgrounds are near civilization. The website literally says, "Our campgrounds are along Highways 24, 285, and 50." Also, literally every town near the campgrounds has waste management services.
We have a bin in the back of our truck for trash that we need to pack out, but that's mostly for free or really cheap wilderness camping and certainly not for a designated campground where we're paying $38/night. We find this system discriminatory against out-of-state campers, especially full-timers, because we can't just pack out our trash and bring it home. We rely on the trash bins provided by the parks where we stay. Now, we're forced into throwing out bags of trash somewhere where we didn't produce it, and that's frowned upon at many dumpsters, including at RV parks.
A Google reviewer, Roaming Barbara, hit the nail on the head:
Only, it was a review from 2 years ago, so there was no way to know that this would still be the case, since many renovations had been done. But that means the pricing issue was going on even back then?! We don't know exactly when camping here was free and when it became this fee-asco, but this was starting to grate on our nerves.
Requiring an entrance fee in addition to the camping fee is rare, but it does happen. The main problem with CO Parks and Wildlife is that it's extremely difficult to find exactly what that fee will entail. We went through the whole campsite booking process and only found this paragraph in the fine print:
The prices were listed for the expected $28/night, though there was a footnote saying that this doesn't include fees, but usually this means a reservation or online booking fee, or perhaps even a credit card fee. At first glance, we didn't assume it meant a daily fee for each day we'd be staying.
In order to find the prices, you need to go to a totally different page on the website, one that spells out the various entry passes available. Read the page and tell us it's not confusing as all get-out. Though it does list the $10 fee for entrance. Still, where does it specifically say that campers will need to pay that fee not just upon entrance, but every single day?
That level of hiddenness just doesn't feel honest. Over the years, there has been a lot of discussion regarding upfront listing of fees on booking websites. Back in 2014, Congress passed a law requiring airlines to include mandatory fees in their advertised pricing. This was so comparison lists on third-party booking sites wouldn't yield inaccurate information to buyers. While no laws have been passed, the FTC has warned hotels about deceptive practices when not including resort fees in their listed prices. Perhaps most well-known is the recent change on Airbnb, where the booking pages themselves now have an option to show the total amount, because the nightly rate never truly reflected the bottom line, when adding in service and cleaning fees. Case in point, not showing mandatory fees up front is frowned upon at best, illegal at worst, and it's only a matter of time before more laws are passed. One was proposed just as recently as July of this year. And, in 2019, Washington DC filed a lawsuit against Marriott Hotels for these types of fees. There has been a lot of pressure on companies in general to stop with hidden fees, junk fees, and the like, and the Biden Administration is attempting to crack down on them even further.
Where do campgrounds fit into this mess? It's hard to say, because in some sense they are accommodations, but camping is also a recreational activity. But in the end, does this technicality really matter? The bottom line is, full transparency is the best practice when it comes to customers' money, and the booking page should clearly state that there is a $10/day fee.
Why won't Colorado Parks just do campers a solid and waive the day-use fee for campers? Sure, charge to use the boat ramp or to rent the picnic pavilion, but we're here to relax in the comfort of our campsite, or at most take a walk or use the bathroom here and there. With so few facilities here anyway, it's a tough pill to swallow to think that Nicole's daily 1-mile walk cost $10. And her arrival pee in the pit toilet? Yep, that was our $10 for that day, literally pissed away.
Salida East was the first CO state park we stayed at, but we've looked into other parks and it's clear across the board that the state charges daily fees in addition to the booking price. A reviewer on RV Life mentioned that one of the other parks charges $11/day. If you're a CO resident, you can just get the annual pass for $80, but that's still an exorbitant amount. Think about the America the Beautiful Pass for National Parks. We pay $80/year and get into some of the most well-maintained, gorgeous parks in the country. Those fees are usually about $7/day. We get that Colorado is the GOAT for outdoor recreation, but they're charging more than national parks per day, and the same per year! Perhaps this price is worthwhile for residents, but for those of us passing through, it's hard to justify.
If we want a primitive campsite where we need to pack out our own trash, we could do that in one of the four surrounding national forests for free. The RV park next door charges $60/night for a standard campsite, but for the extra cost, it's clear what people are getting: Full hookups, plus tons of resources and amenities like a store, rec room, dump station, water fill, propane fill, laundry, and of course, dumpsters! Plus, it's important to note that this private RV park has income taxes that state-owned parks don't need to pay, so their costs are higher to begin with.
All of those comparisons bring us right back to our main question: Where is the justification of that pricing? Are we paying for the future of Salida East, when they need to have a company come in and clean the place up when it becomes a trash-fest again? Because we think we know a way to nip that in the bud. We'll give you a hint...
We're the types of travelers who love finding reasonably priced campsites, but we're also cool splurging once in a while. As long as we feel the site is worth the price, we're good. Salida East is tricky. We had a beautiful site surrounded by nature, with the convenience of civilization right up the street. That's our favorite combination. If the day-use fee was waived and there was a dumpster, we could recommend this campground wholeheartedly, but instead, we'll be thinking twice about staying in Colorado campgrounds. This isn't what we expected from this state.
Campground:
Salida East, Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area
Site 1609, back-in, no hookups, firepit, picnic table
Situated above the river with beautiful mountain views
Campground recommended? Not unless the pricing situation changes
Site recommended? Not unless the pricing situation changes