Pikes Peak RV Campground, Manitou Springs

jderuby  Saturday, July 10, 2010

Adventure Review

My husband was initially shocked when we drove into this “campground.”  It is an rv parking lot.  The sites are very close to each other and there is very little shade.    The whole park is crushed gravel, with concrete pads under the picnic tables.  The owner said all campgrounds in the mountains are like this, but I think they are mostly like that when you get one actually IN the town.  The campground is on the main street, a mile from the touristy shopping area.  So the noise from the street could be an issue, but it wasn’t for us.  There is a creek running alongside, between the park and some businesses on the main street.  The creek buffered a little of the sound, but one evening one of the businesses had a few guys raking out their hill by the creek, for whatever reason, and they had a dog there that kept barking.  The creek moves pretty fast, but my tween-ers spent quite a bit of time walking around in it.  There is no barrier, which could be an issue for someone with toddlers.

The bathrooms have a security code, apparently they’ve had people walk in from that main street to use them.  They say they are closed for 2 hours in the middle of the day for cleaning, but we only ran into that once.  I don’t think they close them that long.  They were quite clean, bright, and updated enough for me (nothing rickety or barely spraying.)  Enough room to change in a private stall area, bench, hooks.  Hot water wavered a very little bit sometimes (with toilet flushing,) but not unmanageable.

I think there were 6 washers and 6 dryers in the laundry room.  $1.75 for a complete wash and dry.  While my stuff was cleaning I sat in the covered porch area just outside and sometimes chatted with one of the owners.  They husband/wife seemed very nice and helpful with area information.  Though she wasn’t afraid of “yelling” at someone driving too fast over the bridge at the park entrance.

I walked with my 5 yo to the shopping area, one mile down the road.  Lots of food, clothing, souvenirs.

We were set up in the end site, with a chain link fence bordering the town park next door.  Very nice park with cement and other areas to walk, a child fishing area, 2 playgrounds, and an indoor pool which was open nearly all afternoon for about $5 each.  We didn’t use the pool.  We saw a mule deer meander through the park our first evening.

Behind the rv park and the town park there is a very nice paved trail that goes all the way from the shopping area in the east past the town park just to the west.  We used some of that to walk to Garden of the Gods.  Somewhere I read that the Garden was within walking distance.  There were some short areas with no sidewalk.  We didn’t really know how to get there, didn’t really have a map to scale, so that was a bit unnerving.  Turned out to be about a mile and a half to the largest Souvenir shop I have ever seen.

http://pprvpk.com/default.aspx