Up on the forested ridge above the I-70 grade, at about 7,600 feet, Chief Hosa campground has been putting drivers to bed under ponderosa and aspen since 1918, when Denver Mountain Parks opened it to the first wave of people touring the mountains by car. You hear the trucks downshifting toward the Divide more than you see them, and after dark the woodsmoke and the pine take over. A family's motorhome levels onto its pad here for the week, the kids run loops through the trees, and the days head out along the interstate in both directions.
Denver keeps its own bison herd in Genesee Park, a short way along I-70 from camp, and an evening drive to find them grazing is the easy first outing after setting up. The bigger day runs west to Idaho Springs, where the Mount Blue Sky byway leaves the interstate and Highway 5 climbs past treeline into rock and tundra. Up there, pikas call from the boulder fields and mountain goats work the slopes beside the road.
Whether the motorhome makes that climb comes down to its length, since the Forest Service posts a 30-foot vehicle limit on Highway 5. A rig at or under that length can run it as a day out from Chief Hosa and come back down to the pines for the night. If the plan is two people, a night at Echo Lake, the summit at first light and Guanella Pass with Mount Bierstadt the next day, that trip has its own Evergreen page.
Back at camp, every RV pad has water and electric at 30 or 50 amps, and full hookups come at a single site, R4 (Denver Mountain Parks). Three sites are pull-throughs, the easiest pads for a long motorhome to get in and out of.
Clear Creek and Golden, with Idaho Springs and Georgetown up the canyon
Golden's Clear Creek RV Park puts the rig on the bank of the creek, with the water running past the sites and the town's main street a walk away. It's the lower, easier half of the trip, with full hookups, dinner in town without moving the rig, and a park that stays open long after Chief Hosa closes for the season. From here the days run back up I-70 to Idaho Springs and Georgetown, the two towns upstream on the same creek.
In summer the order that works is high first, low last. A few nights at Chief Hosa on water and electric fill the tanks, and the campground bars dumping gray or black water on the ground, so finishing the week in Golden, with full hookups and a dump station on site, empties them before the rig goes home.
Rocky Mountain National Park makes a different week farther north, and its own RV page covers the park's campground limits and the Estes Park base.