Wet ponderosas crowd the shoreline at Red Feather Lakes after the afternoon storm moves off the water, and the light comes in low between the trunks to a motorhome backed into its spur. Two Forest Service loops sit in these pines at 8,200 feet, Dowdy Lake and West Lake. Fort Collins families claim a site in one of them for a week, and the kids are down at the water before the rig is level.
Mornings belong to the canoes, out while the lake is flat and cold. Boats here go by paddle and oar, so the loudest thing on the lake at breakfast is a paddle knocking a gunwale. By early afternoon in spring and summer the clouds stack up over the water and break into a thunderstorm, which is the signal to bring everyone in. That's the hour for cards at the dinette with rain loud on the roof, and once it passes the shoreline fills up again.
Once the motorhome is level it stays put until the drive home, and the week happens on foot and by canoe. Plan dinners around the stove in the rig, since fire restrictions can be imposed any time the forest dries out, and treat a campfire as a bonus on the nights the rules allow one.
US-287 and County Road 74 to Red Feather Lakes
From Fort Collins the road runs north on US-287 about 24 miles to Livermore, then about 24 miles west on County Road 74 to West Lake, climbing off the plains into the ponderosas. Save the County Road 74 half for daylight, so the rig reaches camp with time to find the site and level up before dark.
If the rig isn't loaded until evening, Horsetooth Reservoir at the west edge of town makes the first night instead, 6.5 miles of water under the hogback ridge. Its standard electric pull-throughs at Inlet Bay are listed at 45 to 60 feet on Larimer County's reservation site, and staying there leaves all of County Road 74 for the morning light.
Booking a spur at Dowdy Lake or West Lake
Both campgrounds tuck the rig in among the pines with the lake showing through the trunks, Dowdy Lake the larger loop and West Lake the smaller. Summer weekends are the popular dates, so book the site first and the motorhome second. Spur lengths change from site to site, running about 48 to 73 feet at Dowdy Lake and 35 to 80 feet at West Lake as of September 2026, which means the spur you reserve decides how long a rig comes along.
Those same Recreation.gov pages list electric at the family sites and no water or sewer hookups. The fridge, the fans and the coffee maker run off the post, and the fresh tank and the holding tanks carry everything else for the week. Fill the fresh tank and empty the black and gray tanks in Fort Collins before heading up US-287, then stretch them with quick showers, paper plates and a few jugs of drinking water.
Two people traveling light can size down to Fort Collins campervan rentals, whose trip runs to Horsetooth, the Poudre Canyon and Pingree Park Road. Rocky Mountain National Park is the other big week out of town, Trail Ridge Road over the Divide and elk grazing the meadows below it, and the Rocky Mountain National Park RV page covers its campgrounds for a rig.
