Estes Park Campground at Mary’s Lake

We came for the weekend and just wanted to camp and get away from the hustle of the week. We were camping in our Travel Trailer. Wanted some quite time with nature. Well due to the lack or actual pictures on the website and minimal images of what we were going to. We booked it and headed out for a 3 day weekend. The staff are amazing and all of them were really friendly. The store is well stocked and reasonable prices. As we were driving up we were looking at the tons of hoses around in a suburban setting. Then we seen our campground about a mile and a half out and thought oh god please don’t let that be us. It looked like a KOA as we would be in a parking lot. Now mind you we were looking for some quite nature time to relax with our travel trailer. As we pulled in the staff was so helpful and very nice showing us to our site. We looked around with surprise to see a gravel parking lot. As we settled in there was no view without an RV, trailer, or someone’s house at all turns. Through out the weekend we made the best of it. Between the loudness of the playground and the lack of views along with the morning crying of children and parents yelling at their kids. We still made it a good weekend. The fire pit is about 18 inches deep which is perfect and we made some great campfires with our neighbors.
If you like KOA settings and just want a place to rest your head this is for you. If you are looking for seclusion or peacefulness continue your search. The pictures I posted here are what you will actually get. Tent sites are a little better but right next to the road and people’s homes. We give it 3 star because of the staff and cleanliness. And the tent sites have plenty of trees.
Pros — Nice staff and clean bathrooms. Medium space with a campfire ring. Almost level sites. You can see some trees amongst the houses and highway. Clean sites
Cons — parking lot camping, medium sites, highway noise, sites are way too close, noisy, no good nature views.

I’m almost hesitant to give this place a high review because I want to keep it a secret! Where to start? We stayed here 5 days and four nights over Memorial Day weekend. The campsite was huge! The people were friendly. The staff was helpful. It was clean and the scenery was amazing. There was even the occasional wildlife strolling through from time to time. Each site had a picnic table and a fire pit. It was crowded on Saturday and Sunday as was the rest of Estes Park that weekend, but everything was well managed. Much less crowded the rest of our stay No complaints! We will DEFINITELY be back.

This campground had everything you need. Kid friendly, dog friendly, all of the amenities of home :)

Amenities were convenient… anything you might need for camping is sold in the general store. Fishing was close. Staff was incredibly friendly. Bathrooms were in great shape. Would stay here again.

I stayed four nights here at two different camp spots. It’s gorgeous and windy. Deer and an elk wandered through the camp, and the staff were generous and kind.
Heads up: the Wi-​Fi signal went in and out, so I used Wi-​Fi at the camp store, which also offers ice and wood and tents and anything else you might have left at home.
Downtown Estes Park and a dog park are 5 minutes away. I loved it here.

Prior to making reservations we had been thru the campground so we had a rough idea of what sites to pick. With that said when we went to make the reservation online, a year later, it was hard to find a good map. We had a nice site, #30. It was across the way from the restrooms which can be a good thing or bad. It didn’t bother us and we were in a trailer. However, there are three rows of rv sites that are very close to each other and have NO trees.
Staff was super friendly when I called to reserve and when I called to let them know we were pulling in late. They left our site # on a board. I would recommend this campground but be careful of site you reserve. Most of the tent sites are very nice down below. Oh and we had deer come through.

This is a little known gem of a campground situated up by St. Mary’s lake in Estes Park. It is run by the Estes Park Recreation district and the folks in the office were so nice! It is really reasonable at around $ 45 for full hookups a night and $ 30 for tent sites. It is just across the street from the lake, which is great for fishing. No swimming or boating is allowed in the lake. They have a pool at the campground and a nice little general store. The only improvement I would like to see is if they could add more gravel to the campground surfaces in the the sites. It gets dusty and muddy with the rains that come through as it is now. I like that the picnic tables and barbeque/​fire pits have cement under them in the full hookup area. The views at this campground are awesome. Also, another neat feature is there is the free Estes Park shuttle that takes you into town right across the street from the campground. I took it and enjoyed the free ride all around Estes Park, and it connects with other lines that take you around further. You can get a shuttle schedule in the campground office. Nice campgound overall and family friendly.

You must stay here if visiting this area. Do not waste money on over priced lodging. The bathrooms are beautiful and extremely clean, no bugs. The views are amazing from anywhere in the campground. Camp store is stocked with everything you can imagine and at reasonable prices. Tent camping spots are decently spaced out and trees add for privacy. We visited mid June 2015 and saw deer families passing through in the morning, snow capped mountains, and hardly any bugs. We felt very safe here. Only reason I did not rate 5 stars is because I could not connect to the wifi the entire 3 days we stayed here (even though it said full bars) and the showers are expensive ($ 2 for 6 minutes… and the water pressure is comparable to pouring out a water bottle). The experience was otherwise worth those two downfalls.