Through the pines at a Vallecito Lake pad, the reservoir opens out to the Weminuche's 12,000- and 13,000-foot peaks standing behind the far shore. The motorhome has sat on that same pad since Sunday. The kids are already down at the water, and nobody has to pack anything until the week is out.
The lake lies about 18 miles northeast of Durango at 8,000 feet, up County Road 501, and Visit Durango counts it as the largest body of water in Colorado at its elevation or higher. Its 12 miles of shoreline hold two kinds of night: full-hookup resorts where the rig settles in for the whole week, and Forest Service campgrounds in the pines where it runs on its own tanks.
Vallecito Lake's hookup resorts and Forest Service loops
The resorts are the easy version of the week, with sewer at the pad so the tanks never turn into a chore. Junction West Vallecito Resort has 100 full-hookup sites on 30 and 50 amp, about five minutes from the boat ramp. Blue Spruce RV Park runs full hookups with cable and Wi-Fi, which matters on the evening the kids want a screen after a day on the water.
The Forest Service side trades the plug for pines and darker nights. Pine Point has 28 sites, 13 of them first-come, and Vallecito Campground spreads across four loops that the Forest Service calls large and very popular, with only 33 sites that take reservations. If you want one of those, book it before anything else.
A mixed week works well here. Spend the first few nights dry in the Forest Service pines, then move to a resort for the last stretch, so the tanks are empty and the batteries full before the drive back down to Durango.
The Durango and Silverton train from an Animas valley base
One day of the week belongs to the narrow-gauge train to Silverton. Coal smoke drifts back over the open gondola cars as the engine works up the Animas River Gorge on a ledge high above the water, and the round trip runs early May through early November from the depot on Main Avenue. You can ride it as a day out from the lake, or bookend the week with nights in the Animas valley so the rig is close to town on train morning.
Alpen Rose RV Park sits under red rock cliffs in the valley, with water and sewer at all 100 sites and 72 pull-throughs. Lock the site before you rent, because the site class decides the rig: premium 50-amp pull-throughs take 30 to 40 feet, big-rig pull-throughs take 38 to 55, and standard sites top out at 35 or 38 feet.
Mesa Verde's cliff dwellings, whole stone villages built into alcoves in the canyon walls, are worth a day west from either base, with the rig back on its hookups by dark. Morefield, the park's campground, Junction Creek on the Colorado Trail, and the Million Dollar Highway, which is no road for a 30-foot motorhome, all belong to the two-person trip on the Durango campervan page. Rocky Mountain National Park, the Front Range reservoirs and the Western Slope each have their own rig trip on the Colorado RV page.
