Crested Butte RV Resort

Crested Butte, CO – Guess how many RV Parks there are in Crested Butte, CO? 1! So here we are, visiting one of our favorite places in the US, staying at this weirdly run RV Park. Let’s get the obvious downside out of the way, which the park makes abundantly clear on their website: there are no sewer hookups here, not even a dump station. If you’re only here for a few days, no problem. But if you’re staying here longer, like we are, the solution is a pain: get everything in your RV ready for travel (slides in, jacks up, stuff that may fall must be stowed), drive a few miles north into the town of Crested Butte, pay $10 to use the city dump station, negotiate a relatively small dump site, and then drive back and set everything back up. It took us 2 hours to accomplish this task.

Entrance to the Crested Butte RV Resort

The views are fantastic in this small park, which is oddly located in an industrial area down a steep, dirt road. But it’s mostly quiet here. The main sound we heard at night, which Karla and I enjoy immensely, are coyote howls. The park is located on the Slate River and offers river access for fly fishing for a fee (state fishing license required). There is also a very nice community gathering space with a number of picnic tables and grills. Our site was mostly level and just barely long enough for our 45’ RV and 2 door Jeep Wrangler. Leg 1 of the 240V electric hookup was always at 114 volts, which is not ideal, but at least it didn’t drop further when a load was applied. Leg 2 was rock solid at 120 volts.

Mountain view from the resort

The park has private access on the Slate River

There is a nice community area for non-COVID times

Our site was wide enough to accommodate all slides

Another view of our site

Another oddity: we rarely saw an employee. Office hours are 8:30 am-11am, a time we are always out hiking. Check-in is 3pm or later and consisted of a note left on the door with a cell number to text for questions, which is fine, but we had a number of questions that took considerable time to answer via an inefficient back and forth method. We wanted to get a package sent here, which is a very reasonable request for RVers, but most overnight FedEx letters require a signature, which is hard when no employee is ever on site.

Check-ins are always posted on the front door as the office closes at 11am and check-in is after 3pm

Crested Butte RV Resort has gravel interior, but a dirt access road

There is an extremely long list of “Policies” and rules on their website and sent with your reservation. There are restrictions on the age and type of RVs that can stay here. The cancellation policy is very long. Deposits are 50% of your stay. You must cancel at least 45 days in advance to only lose the cost of a 1 night stay. Between 21-45 days you forfeit your entire 50% deposit. Anything less than 21 days notice and you still pay 100%, even if they are able to rent it out to someone else! From the website: “Refunds will not be given if you are [asked to leave because you are] not in compliance with ANY of our policies, or if you fail to read or understand our policies. Refunds cannot be guaranteed in the event of a National disaster, National or State emergency, Wildfire, weather related events, natural disasters, public health orders or other unexpected closures.” So, if the town of Crested Butte passed a health order for COVID-19 closing the campground or a wildfire closed the only road into Crested Butte that can be driven by an RV, 20 days or less before our visit, we would still be on the hook for 100% of our stay.

Finally, there is an odd note about a $150 fine for using the shower if you aren’t supposed to. What does that even mean? You don’t offer sewer hookups, of course people want to use the shower, why do we need this sign? And why the fine? Oh, and there is exactly one shower for men and one shower for women at a campground with 21 sites. I tell you, this place is weird.

While staying here, we hiked the West Maroon Pass Trail into the Maroon Bells Snowmass Wilderness, as well as Dillon Pinnacles Trail and Crystal Creek Trails in the Curecanti National Recreation Area.