Dispersed Camping - Turquoise Lake

After traveling over four hours, paying for a day pass and parking an extremely rude employee threatened to have my car towed as I inadvertently parked in a camp site . It wasn’t clearly marked or I may not have noticed. The man was extremely rude and not professional at all. He shouted that all day spots were full and I must leave immediately. The $10 I paid for the day pass is irrelevant, it is the principal of the matter and his rude/unprofessional approach. I asked if I could have my money back to which he replied that he can not do that as he snickered.

Camp hosts and bathrooms were awful. I have been coming to turquoise for years, it is one of my favorite locations in Co… although the crowds on my recent trip in late July have me rethinking what time of year to visit. On this trip a friend with a camper was joining me so I couldn’t stay at my usual location that doesn’t allow campers. We made our plans in early spring when reservations are already booked so I arrived a day early to check out first come first serve campgrounds that allow campers (Tabor and Matchless) and found basically parking lots with no fires aloud. Molly Brown is beautiful but by reservation only. I decided to try my luck before moving on entirely… I found a site open for one night and took it and paid the host. Then I asked them if people cancel because I was trying to stay for four nights. They said people cancel all the time. They offered a site that had 3 nights open. I relocated and paid the additional two nights. The woman pulled up in a hurry asking what I did with the envelope for the first night… I told her I gave it to her and she sped off. My friend arrived the next day and we agreed it would be best to see if another site came open that would be for the duration of our stay so we could just enjoy the rest of our time. We found a no show site that fit our dates. I asked the host and he said he forgot about that one and agreed to let us have it. I immediately packed up everything and was just about to move and he returned and said “I forgot, we can’t let you have that one because it’s our secret site for emergencies, I’m sorry.” So I lost the morning on the lake and knew I’d need to pack up again when the site we were on needed vacating… we explained that we preferred to be settled and not have to pack up again and be floating for a site. He came again and said he had a site in mind for us that no one showed up for… we checked it out and found someone unpacking on it??? So unorganized!!! At that point I’m asking are we not paying customers??? I asked if this made us qualify for the ”emergency” site and he refused. Someone else got it that afternoon??? The site we had was down wind from the port-a-potty which was so chemical laden it permeated everything. The table on the site is down wind from the fire pit so you get smoked at the table if the fire is in use. At one point they told us the site turned out to only be for two nights so we had to get out, but I showed him the dates they wrote on the tag for the people that didn’t show was through three nights… finally they told us we didn’t have to move, probably they gave the people who had it reserved one of the better sites. The stress, the wasted time, and the location (#26) was ick!!!! Obviously much of this could have been avoided with a reservation but I don’t think they need to punish those who don’t get a reservation when people cancel so much. The campground gets double payment out of us and we also work hard to arrange a camping trip we want to enjoy. I couldn’t believe how unorganized and unhelpful they were.